Then the witches rushed through the air with great cries, and fled back to Slieve-namon, uttering strange curses on the Spirit of the Well, who had wished their ruin; but the woman and the house were left in peace, and a mantle dropped by one of the witches in her flight was kept hung up by the mistress as a sign of the night’s awful contest; and this mantle was in possession of the same family from generation to generation for five hundred years after.
THE LEGEND OF BALLYTOWTAS CASTLE.
The next tale I shall select is composed in a lighter and more modern spirit. All the usual elements of a fairy tale are to be found in it, but the story is new to the nursery folk, and, if well illustrated, would make a pleasant and novel addition to the rather worn-out legends on which the children of many generations have been hitherto subsisting.
In old times there lived where Ballytowtas Castle now stands a poor man named Towtas. It was in the time when manna fell to the earth with the dew of evening, and Towtas lived by gathering the manna, and thus supported himself, for he was a poor man, and had nothing else.
One day a pedlar came by that way with a fair young daughter.
“Give us a night’s lodging,” he said to Towtas, “for we are weary.”
And Towtas did so.
Next morning, when they were going away, his heart longed for the young girl, and he said to the pedlar, “Give me your daughter for my wife.”
“How will you support her?” asked the pedlar.