The Amadán-na-Briona is a bad one to meet. If you don't say, "The Lord be between us and harm," when you meet him, you are gone for ever and always. What does he look like? I suppose like any fool in a house—a sort of a clown.
A Man near Athenry:
Biddy Early could cure nearly all things, but she said that the only thing that she could do no cure for was the touch of the Amadán.
Another:
Biddy Early couldn't do nothing for the touch of the Amadán, because its power was greater than hers.
In the Workhouse:
The Amadán-na-Briona, he changes his shape every two days. Sometimes he comes like a youngster, and then he'll come like the worst of beasts. Trying to give the touch he used to be. I heard it said of late that he was shot, but I think myself it would be hard to shoot him.
Ned Meehan of Killinane:
The Amadán is the worst; I saw him myself one time, and I'd be swept if I didn't make away on the moment. It was on a race-course at Ballybrit, and no one there but myself, and I sitting with my back to the wall and smoking my pipe. And all at once the Amadán was all around me, in every place, and I ran and got out of the field or I'd be swept. And I saw others of them in the field; it was full of them, red scarfs they had on them.