The day on the morrow Leeam brought a lot of men with him to the churchyard, and they dug open the grave, and were lifting up the coffin, when a big black dog jumped out of it, and made off, and Leeam and the men after it. They were following it till they saw it going into the house in which Leeam had been asleep, and then the ground opened, and the house went down, and nobody ever saw it from that out; but the big hole is to be seen till this day.
When Leeam and the men went home, they told everything to the priest of the parish, and he dissolved the marriage that was between Leeam’s wife and the servant boy.
Leeam lived for years after that, and he left great wealth behind him, and they remember him in Clare-Galway still, and will remember him if this story goes down from the old people to the young.
GULEESH NA GUSS DHU.
There was once a boy in the County Mayo, and he never washed a foot from the day he was born. Guleesh was his name; but as nobody could ever prevail on him to wash his feet, they used to call him Guleesh na guss dhu, or Guleesh Black-foot. It’s often the father said to him: “Get up, you strone-sha (lubber), and wash yourself,” but the devil a foot would he get up, and the devil a foot would he wash. There was no use in talking to him. Every one used to be humbugging him on account of his dirty feet, but he paid them no heed nor attention. You might say anything at all to him, but in spite of it all he would have his own way afterwards.
One night the whole family were gathered in by the fire, telling stories and making fun for themselves, and he amongst them. The father said to him: “Guleesh, you are one and twenty years old to-night, and I believe you never washed a foot from the day you were born till to-day.”
“You lie,” said Guleesh, “didn’t I go a’swimming on May day last? and I couldn’t keep my feet out of the water.”
“Well, they were as dirty as ever they were when you came to the shore,” said the father.