[IV]
AWAY
Pwyll, Prince of Dyved ... let loose the dogs in the wood and sounded the horn and began the chase. And as he followed the dogs he lost his companions; and while he listened to the hounds he heard the cry of other hounds, a cry different from his own, and coming in the opposite direction.... And he saw a horseman coming towards him on a large light-grey steed with a hunting horn round his neck, and clad in garments of grey woollen in the fashion of a hunting garb, and the horseman drew near and spoke to him thus:... "A crowned King I am in the land whence I come.... There is a man whose dominions are opposite to mine, who is ever warring against me, and by ridding me of this oppression which thou can'st easily do, shalt thou gain my friendship." "Gladly will I do this," said he. "Show me how I may." "I will show thee. Behold, thus it is thou mayest. I will send thee to Annwyvn in my stead, and I will give thee the fairest lady thou didst ever behold to be thy companion, and I will put my form and semblance upon thee, so that not a page of the chamber nor an officer nor any other man that has always followed me shall know that it is not I. And this shall be for the space of a year from tomorrow and then we will meet in this place." ... "Verily," said Pwyll, "what shall I do concerning my kingdom?" Said Arawn: "I will cause that no one in all thy dominions, neither man nor woman, shall know that I am not thou, and I will go there in thy stead."—"The Mabinogion."
I was told by a Man of Slieve Echtge:
That girl of the Cohens that was away seven year, she was bid tell nothing of what she saw, but she told her mother some things and told of some she met there. There was a woman—a cousin of my own—asked was her son over there, and she had to press her a long time, but at last she said he was. And he was taken too with little provocation, fifty years ago. We were working together, myself and him and a lot of others, making that trench you see beyond, to drain the wood. And it was contract work, and he was doing the work of two men and was near ready to take another piece. And some of them began to say to him, "It's a shame for you to be working like that, and taking the bread out of the hands of another," and I standing there. And he said he didn't care, and he took the spade and sent the scraws out flying, to the right and to the left. And he never put a spade into the ground again, for that night he was taken ill, and died shortly after. Watched he was, and taken by them.
As to the woman brought back again, it was told me by a boy going to school there at the time, so I know there's no lie in it. It was one of the Taylors, a rich family in Scariff. His wife was sick and pining away for seven years, and at the end of that time one day he came in he had a drop of drink taken, and he began to be a bit rough with her. And she said, "Don't be rough with me now, after bearing so well with me all these seven years. But because you were so good and so kind to me all that time," says she, "I'll go away from you now and I'll let your own wife come back to you." And so she did, for it was some old hag she was, and the wife came back again and reared a family. And before she went away, she had a son that was reared a priest, and after she came back, she had another son that was reared a priest, so that shows a blessing came on them. (Note [39].)
A Man on the Beach:
I remember when a great many young girls were taken, it is likely by them. And two year ago two fine young women were brought away from Aranmor one in a month and one in a week after the birth. And lately I heard that her own little girl and another little girl that was with her saw one of them appear in a cabin outside when she came to have a look at the child she left, but she didn't want to appear herself.