There was a woman died, and every night she'd come back and bring the baby to the fire, and dress it and suckle it. And the brother got to speak with her one night, and she said, "Oh why wasn't I put in the coffin with my own dress on that I was wearing? It's ashamed I was to go into such a crowd and such a congregation with nothing about me but a white sheet. And if it wasn't that I saw a boy of the neighbours among them that I knew before, I would have been very lonely."
There were two boys that were comrades, and if you'd see Dermot you'd say, "Where is Pat?" And if you'd see Pat you'd say, "Where is Dermot?" And one of them died, and everybody wondered at the comrade not being all the day to the corpse-house. And when he came in the evening he took a pinch of snuff, and he held it to the nose of the boy that was laid out on the table and he saw it sniff a little. So he made up the fire and he called another boy, and they laid the body down behind the fire; and if they did away with it, the boy himself came walking in at the door.
There was a girl I heard of brought away among them—and there was the finest of eating to be had. But there's always a friend in such places, and she got warning not to eat a bit of the food without she'd get salt with it. So when they put her down to eat, she asked a grain of salt, but not a grain was to be had. So she would eat nothing. But I believe they did away with her after.
John Phelan:
Mike Folan was here the other day telling us newses, and he told the strangest thing ever I heard—that happened to his own first cousin. She died and was buried, and a year after, her husband was sitting by the fire, and she came back and walked in. He gave a start, but she said, "Have no fear of me, I was never in the coffin and never buried, but I was kept away for the year." So he took her again and they reared four children after that. She was Mike Folan's own first cousin and he saw the four children himself.
An Old Army Man:
My family were of the Glynns of Athenry. I had an aunt that married a man of the name of Roche, and their child was taken. So they brought it to the Lady Well near Athenry, where there's patterns every fifteenth of August, to duck it. And such a ducking they gave it that it walked away on crutches, and it swearing. And their own child they got back again, but he didn't live long after that.