And then she put it back into the bed again, and he lay still and said nothing. The second night she came again, and he had more courage and he said, "Why have you got no boots on?" For he saw that her feet were bare. And she said, "Because there's iron nails in them." So he said, "Give them to me," and he got up and drew all the nails out of them, and she brought them away.
The third night she came again, and when she was suckling the child he saw that she was still barefoot, and he asked why didn't she wear the boots. "Because," says she, "you left one sprig in them, between the upper and the lower sole, But if you have courage," says she, "you can do more than that for me. Come tomorrow night to the gap up there beyond the hill, and you'll see the riders going through, and the one you'll see on the last horse will be me. And bring with you some fowl droppings and urine, and throw them at me as I pass, and you'll get me again." Well he got so far as to go to the gap, and to bring what she told him, and when they came riding through the gap, he saw her on the last horse, but his courage failed him, and he let it drop, and he never got the chance to see her again.
Why she wanted the nails out of her boots? Because it's well known they will have nothing to do with iron. And I remember when every child would have an old horse nail hung round its neck with a bit of straw, but I don't see it done now.
There was another man though, one of the family of the Coneys beyond there, and his wife was away from him four years. And after that he put out the old hag was in her place, and got his wife back and reared children after that, and one of them was trained a priest.
There was a drunken man in Scariff, and one night he had drink taken he couldn't get home, and fell asleep by the roadside near the bridge. And in the night he awoke and heard them at work with cars and horses. And one said to another, "This work is too heavy, we'll take the white horse belonging to so and so"—giving the name of a rich man in the town. So as soon as it was light he went to this man, and told him what he had heard them say. But he would only laugh at him and say, "I'll pay no attention to what a drunkard dreams." But when he went out after to the stable, his white horse was gone.
That's easy understood. They are shadows, and how could a shadow move anything? But they have power over mankind that they can bring them away to do their work.