There was a woman with her husband passing by Esserkelly, and she had left her child at home. And a man came and called her in, and promised to leave her on the road where she was before. So she went, and there was a baby in the place she was brought to, and they asked her to suckle it. And when she had come out again she said, "One question I'll ask. What were those two old women sitting by the fire?" And the man said, "We took the child today, and we'll have the mother tonight and one of them will be put in her place, and the other in the place of some other person." And then he left her where she was before. But there's no harm in them, no harm at all. _Tom Hislop:_ Scully told me he was by the hedge up there by Ballinamantane one evening and a blast came, and as it passed he heard something crying, crying, and he knew by the sound that it was a child that they were carrying away. * * * * * And a woman brought in at Esserkelly heard a baby crying and a woman singing to it not to fret, for such a woman would die that night or the next and would come to mind her. And the very next night the woman she heard the name of died in childbirth. * * * * * At Aughanish there were two couples came to the shore to be married, and one of the new-married women was in the boat with the priest, and they going back to the island. And a sudden blast of wind came, and the priest said some blessed Aves that were able to save himself, but the girl was swept. _Peter Hanrahan:_ No, I never went to Biddy Early. What would they want with the like of me? It's the good and the pious they come for. I remember fourteen years ago how eleven women were taken in childbirth from this parish. But as to the old, what business would they have with them? They'd be nothing but a bother to them. There was a woman living by the road that goes to Scahanagh, and one day a carriage stopped at her door, and a grand lady came out of it, and asked would she come and give the breast to her child, and she said she couldn't leave her own children. But the lady said no harm would happen her, and brought her away to a big house, but when she got there she wouldn't stop, but went home again. And in the morning the woman's cow was dead. And the husband that had a card for carding flax looked through it; and in the place of the cow, there was nothing but an old man. * * * * *