If ever she strayed into the forbidden lanes beyond the lodge-gates at Roscarna she lived in fear of seeing the dead-coach come round the corner: a tall coach, painted black and drawn by coal-black horses and on the box two men, black-coated with black faces, who might jump from the coach and catch her up and throw her inside it. You could never know when the dead-coach was coming, for its wheels were bound with old black rags, so that they made no noise on the stones. Then, in the fields where corn was growing one might come across the "limrechaun," with consequences untold but terrible. And, above all things, she was never to pick up an old comb in the road, for as like as not the comb would be the property of the banshee, a little old woman with long nails and hairy arms. When Gabrielle asked what would happen if she picked up the banshee's comb, Biddy told her that the banshee would come crying to her window at night, and that if this ever happened, she must get a pair of red hot tongs and hold the comb in the window for the banshee to take. This seemed to Gabrielle an unnecessary complication; but Biddy told her that if she didn't follow it in every particular the banshee would scratch the hand off her. Faced with the possibility of this disaster, and not knowing how she could possibly get hold of a pair of red hot tongs in the middle of the night, Gabrielle decided that if ever she saw a comb in the road, she would not bring it home with her. And this was a wise decision, for the heads of the children in Joyce's Country were not above suspicion. Indeed most of the terrors with which Biddy inspired her were based on principles that were ethically sound and combined romantic colour with practical utility.