And I remember a boy was about my own age over at Annagh at the other side of the water, and it's said that he was away for two years. Anyway for all that time he was sick in bed, and no one ever saw bit or sup cross his lips in all that time, though the food that was left in the room would disappear, whatever happened it. He recovered after and went to America.
There was a girl near taken, in the Prestons' house. I saw her myself in the bed, near gone. But of a sudden she sat up and looked on the floor and began to curse, and then they left her for they can't bear curses. They have the hope of Heaven or they wouldn't leave one on the face of the earth, and they are afraid of God. They'll not do you much harm if you leave them alone; it's best not to speak to them at all if you should meet them. If they bring any one away they'll leave some old good-for-nothing thing in its place, and the same way with a cow or a calf or such things. But a sheep or a lamb it's beyond their power to touch, because of our Lord.
An Old Butcher:
I was born myself by daylight, and my mother often told me that I'd never see anything worse than myself. There's some can see those things and some that can't.
But one time I went up by the parish of Killisheen to look for half-beef, I having at the time a contract for the workhouse. And I went astray on the mountains, and near Killifin I came to a weaver's house and went in. And there was sitting in the corner such a creature as I never saw before, with nothing on him but a shirt, and eyes that would go through you. And I wouldn't stop in the house but went out again. And the weaver followed me and says he, "Is it afraid of him you are?" "It is," says I. "I thought you would be," says he, "and would you believe that he's my own son, and as fine a young chap as ever you seen until seven year ago when I sent him to Clough on a message, and he fell going over a wall, and it's then he got the touch, and it's like this he's been ever since." "Does he ask to eat much?" says I. "He'd eat the whole world," says he. "Then it's not your son that's in it, you may be sure of that," says I, and I turned and went away and never went back there again.
And it's not many year ago that such a lot of fine women were taken from Clough, very sudden, after childbirth—fine women—I knew them all myself. And I'll tell you a thing I heard of in the country. There was a woman died, and left her child. And every night at twelve o'clock she'd come back, and brought it out of the bed to the fire, and she'd comb it and wash it. And at last six men came and watched and stopped her at the door, and she went very near to tear them all asunder. But they got the priest, and he took it off her. Well, the husband had got another wife, and the priest came and asked him would he put her away, and take the first again. And so he did, and he brought her to the chapel to be married to her again, and the whole congregation saw her there. That was rather hard on the second wife? Well, but wasn't it a great thing for the first poor creature to be brought back? Sure there's many of those poor souls wandering about.
Sure enough, some are brought away and kept for years, but sometimes they come back again. There was a woman beyond at Cahirmacun was away for a year, and came back and reared a family after. They know well what happened them, but they don't speak of it. There was a young fellow got a touch there near Ballytown, and a little chap met him wandering in the field. And he bid him put out food for him every night, for he had none of their food ate yet, and so they hadn't got full power over him. So food was left for him, and after a time he came back as well as another.
A Connemara man: