And one day since then I was on the road to Gort, and Madden said to me, "Your son's on the road before you." And I said, "How could that be, and he dead?" But still I hurried on. And at Coole gate I met a little boy and I asked did he see any one and he said, "You know well who I saw." But I got no sight of him at all myself.
I saw the coach one night near Kiltartan Chapel. Long it was and black, and I saw no one in it. But I saw who was sitting up driving it, and I knew it to be one of the Miskells that was taken before that. (Note [17].)
One day I was following the goat to get a sup of milk from her, and she turned into the field and up into the castle of Lydican and went up from step to step up the stairs to the top, and I followed and on the stairs a woman passed me, and I knew her to be Colum's wife. And when we got to the room at the top, I looked up, and there standing on the wall was a woman looking down at me, long-faced and tall and with grand clothes, and on her head something yellow and slippery, not hair but like marble. (Note [18].) And I called out to ask her wasn't she afraid to be up there, and she said she was not. And a shepherd that used to live below in the castle saw the same woman one night he went up to the top, and a room and a fire and she sitting by it, but when he went there again there was no sign of her nor of the room, nothing but the stones as before.
I never saw them on horses; but when I came to live at Peter Mahony's he used to bring in those red flowers [ragweed] that grow by the railway, when their stalks were withered, to make the fire. And one day I was out in the road, and two men came over to me and one was wearing a long grey dress. And he said to me, "We have no horses to ride on and have to go on foot, because you have too much fire." So then I knew it was their horses we were burning. (Note [19].)
I know the cure for anything they can do to you, but it's few I'd tell it to. It was a strange woman came in and told it to me, and I never saw her again. She bid me spit and use the spittle, or to take a graineen of dust from the navel, and that's what you should do if any one you care for gets a cold or a shivering, or they put anything upon him.
One time I went up to a forth beyond Raheen to pick up a few sticks, and I was beating one of the sticks on the ground to break it, and a voice said from below, "Is it to break down the house you want?" And a thing appeared that was like a cat, but bigger than any cat ever was. And another time in a forth a man said, "Here's gold for you, but don't look at it till you go home." And I looked and I saw horse-dung and I said, "Keep it yourself, much good may it do you." They never gave me anything did me good, but a good deal of torment I had from them. And they're often walking the road, and if you met them you wouldn't know them from any other person; but I'd know them well enough, but I'd say nothing—and that's a grand bush we're passing by—whether it belongs to them I don't know, but wherever they get shelter, there they might be—but anyway it's a very fine bush—God bless it.