The Night Path of the Fairies

 

Transcription of narrative from the Schools Collection XIX

Written by Nora Walsh, Oughterard, c. 1937.

“There lived in Rusheeney, long ago, a poor man. He had no place to put his hens at night so he made up his mind that he would make one beside the gable of the house.

He built it but awhile after he got very sick. He could not be cured but his wife knew a woman who lived in Connemara and she went to her. The woman was able to cure people. When the old woman saw her coming she went to the door to meet her and she said: ‘Isn’t it long until you came before?’. The woman told her what was wanted at all. ‘Isn’t it your husband that is sick?’. ‘It is’ said the woman then told her that if he was able to get up to take the hen’s house from the place he had built it or if he was not able to get up, to tell some one else to do it because that was the path that the fairies had at night. He got men to take it out of it and he was getting better by degrees.”

“Fuair mé an scéal seo ó m’athair.”