There were three girls near your place, and they went out one time to gather cow-dung for firing. And they were sitting beside a small little hill, and while they were there, they heard a noise of churning, churning, in the ground beneath them. And as they listened, all of a minute, there was a naggin of milk standing beside them. And the girl that saw it first said, "I'll not drink of it lest they might get power over me." But the other girl said, "I'll bring it home and drink it." And she began to ridicule them. And because of she ridiculing them and not believing in them, that night in bed she was severely beaten so that she wasn't the better of it for a long time.
Often they'll upset a cart in the middle of the road, when there's no stone nor anything to upset it. And my father told me that sometimes after he had made the hay up into cocks, and on a day without a breath of wind, they'd find it all in the next field lying in wisps. One time too the cart he was driving went over a leprechaun—and the old woman in the cart had like to faint.
Mr. Hosty of Slieve Echtge:
I never would have believed the shadow of a soul could have power, till that hurling match I saw that I told you about.
It was in the old time it happened, that there was war in heaven. He that was called the brightest of the angels raised himself up against God. And when they were all to be thrown out, St. Michael spoke up for them for he saw that when the heavens were weeded out they'd be left without company. So they were stopped in the falling, in the air and in the earth and in the sea. And they are about us sure enough, and whenever they'll be saved I don't know, but it is not for us to say what God will do in the end.
I often heard that our winter is their summer—sure they must have some time for setting their potatoes and their oats. But I remember a very old man used to say when he saw the potatoes black, that it was to them they were gone. "Sure" he used to say, "the other world must have its way of living as well as ourselves."
Mrs. Casey:
Dolan I was talking to the other day, and I asked him if faeries used not to be there. And he said, "They're in it yet. There where you're standing, they were singing and dancing a few nights ago. And the same evening I saw two women down by the lake, and I thought it was the ladies from the house gone out for a walk, but when I came near, it was two strange women I saw, sitting there by the lake, and their wings came, and they vanished into the air."