There's never a funeral they are not at, walking after the other people. And you can see them if you know the way, that is to take a green rush and to twist it into a ring, and to look through it. But if you do, you'll never have a stim of sight in the eye again, and that's why we don't like to do it.
Resting they do be in the daytime, and going about in the night.
Old Hayden:
One time I was coming home from a fair and it was late in the night and it was dark and I didn't know was I on the right road. And I saw a cabin in a field with a light in it, and I went and knocked at the door and a man opened the door and let me in, and he said, "Have you any strange news?" and I said, "I have not," and he said, "There is no place for you here," and he put me out again. For that was a faery hill, and when they'll ask have you strange news, and you'll say you have not, they'll do nothing for you. So I went back in the field, and there were men carrying a coffin, and they said, "Give us a hand with this." And I put my hand to it to help them to lift it. And as we walked on we came to a house, and we went in and there was a fire on the hearth, and they took the body out of the coffin and put it before the fire, and they said, "Now let you keep turning it." So I sat there and turned it, and then they took it up and we went on till we came to another house and the same thing happened there, and they put me to turn the body. And when we went out from there they all vanished, and there was the cabin before me again with the light in it. And when the man came to the door and asked me, "Is there any strange news?" I said, "There is indeed," and told him all that had happened. And then I looked round, and I was within a few yards of my own house.
Mrs. Keely:
When you see a blast of wind, and it comes sudden and carries the dust with it, you should say, "God bless them," and throw something after them. How do we know but one of our own may be in it? Half of the world is with them.
We see them often going about up and down the hill, Jack O'Lanthorn we call them. They are not the size of your two hands. They would not do you much harm, but to lead you astray.
The Spinning Woman:
I remember one day a strange woman coming in and sitting down there—very clever looking she was, and she had a good suit of clothes. And I bid her rest herself and I'd give her a cup of tea, and she said, "I travelled far today and you're the first that offered me that." And when she had it taken she said, "If I had a bit of tobacco, and a bit of bacon for my dinner, I'd be all right." And I made a sign to the woman I have, under the table, to give her a bit of tobacco. So she got it for her and she said, "I shouldn't take it, and this the second time today you divided it." And that was true, for a neighbouring boy had come in in the morning and asked for a loan of a bit, and she had cut it for him. And I said, "Go to that house beyond and the woman will give you a bit of bacon"; and she said, "I won't go to that woman, for it was she told you that one of the neighbours was bringing away her butter from her," and so she had, sure enough. And then she said, she must be in Cruachmaa that night, and she went away and I never saw her again.