I know a girl that lost her mother soon after she was born. And surely the mother came back to her every night and suckled her, for she'd lie as quiet as could be, without a bottle or a hap'orth and they'd hear her sucking. And one night the grandmother felt her daughter that was gone lying in the clothes, and made a grab at her, but she was gone. Maybe she'd have kept her if she'd taken her time, for there's charms to bring such back. But the little girl grew, that she was never the same in the morning that she was the night before, and there's no finer girl in the island now. I call to my own mother sometimes when things go wrong with me, and I think I'm always the better of it. And I often say those that are gone are troubled with those they leave behind. But God have mercy on all the mothers of the world!
Mrs. Maher:
There was a woman with her husband passing by Esserkelly, and she had left her child at home. And a man came and called her in, and promised to leave her on the road where she was before. So she went, and there was a baby in the place she was brought to, and they asked her to suckle it. And when she had come out again she said, "One question I'll ask. What were those two old women sitting by the fire?" And the man said, "We took the child today, and we'll have the mother tonight and one of them will be put in her place, and the other in the place of some other person." And then he left her where she was before.
But there's no harm in them, no harm at all.
Tom Hislop:
Scully told me he was by the hedge up there by Ballinamantane one evening and a blast came, and as it passed he heard something crying, crying, and he knew by the sound that it was a child that they were carrying away.
And a woman brought in at Esserkelly heard a baby crying and a woman singing to it not to fret, for such a woman would die that night or the next and would come to mind her. And the very next night the woman she heard the name of died in childbirth.
At Aughanish there were two couples came to the shore to be married, and one of the new-married women was in the boat with the priest, and they going back to the island. And a sudden blast of wind came, and the priest said some blessed Aves that were able to save himself, but the girl was swept.