Fairies, weasels, rats, and ferrets,
From curfew-time
To the next prime.
William Cartwright (1635?)
LITTLE REDCAP
From Ireland
Sure and it was in old Ireland, some years ago, that Tom Coghlan returned one evening to his house, expecting to find the fire blazing, the potatoes boiling, and his wife and children as merry as grigs. But, instead, the fire was out, his wife was scolding, and the children were all crying from hunger.
Poor Tom was quite astonished to find matters going on so badly, for, though there was a plenty of potatoes in the house, there wasn’t a single stick of wood for the fire. Something had to be done. And Tom bethought himself of the great furze-bushes that grew around the ruins of the old fort on top of the near-by hill. So he snatched up his axe and away he went.