There was a man I know, that was my comrade often, used to be taken away for nights, and he'd speak of the journeys he had with them. And he got severe treatment and didn't want to go, but they'd bring him by force. He recovered after, and joined the army, and I was never so surprised as I was the day he walked in when I was in India.
Mrs. Brown:
There was a woman in Tuam, Mrs. Shannon knew her well, was said to be away for seven years. And she was always sitting in the corner by the fire, not speaking, but a kind of a sound like moaning she'd make to herself; and they'd always bring her her dinner over in the corner, and if any one came in to see her—and many came hearing she was away—she'd draw the shawl over her face. And at the end of the seventh year she began to get a little life and strength coming in to her, and within a week she was strong and well, and lived a good many years after. And it's not long since some one that had a falling out with her daughters said to them, "It's well known your mother was away in Cruachmaa." And the poor girls when they heard that said cried a great deal.
Mrs. Casey:
Some people from Lismara I was talking to told me there was a girl the mother thought to be away, and she'd go out in the evening. And the mother followed her one time, and after she went a bit into the fields she saw her with an old woman very strangely dressed, with a white cap with an edging, and a green shawl and a black apron and a red petticoat. And the woman was smoking, and she gave the girl a smoke of the pipe. And the mother went home, and by and by the girl came in, and she smelling of tobacco. And the mother asked where was she? And she said, in some neighbour's house; and the mother knew she wasn't there, but that she was going with the faeries. And two or three days after that, they had her taken altogether; and the clergy that attended her said it was some old hag that was put in her place.
Mrs. Oliver:
There was Farly Folan's wife going, going, and all the night they thought that she was at the last puff. But the minute the cock crew, she sat up straight and strong. "I had a hard fight for it," she said, "but care me well now ye have me back again." And she lived a bit, but not long, after that.
That child of the Latteys that is silly, she was walking about today shaking hands with everyone that would come into the house. And the reason she's like that is, when she was born the breath had left her and the mother began to cry and to scream and to roar, and then the breath came back. She had a right to have let her go and not to have brought her back.