Visions and Beliefs in the West of Ireland, Second Series

n of "The Shadowy Waters"

-tarav where

rtal mild prou

d that hides

t, and border

rly called th

myself, although born at midnight, have lived many hours of many years in their sha

ich he had been seen going. It was not till long after the fall of darkness that he returned, tired out with so many hours of wandering, and with no better explanation than "Yeats talks of the seven woods of Coole, but I say there are seventy times seven." It was in dim Inchy and the w

Man who had been thr

he was making his way home, and only a field between him and his house, when he found himself turned around and brought to another field, and then to another-seven in all. And he remembered the saying that you should turn your

n one of their ways; but it's most likely that there was some

Clo

e me, and she said "I don't like to go on through the wood." So I asked did she ever see anything there. "I did," says she, "three years ago, one night just where the old house is the Dooleys used to live in. There came out of the e

oniffe

I was passing through it, and met a great lot of them-laughing they were and running about and drinking wine and wanting me to drink with them. And they had cars with them, and an old woman s

Ma

ll he didn't know what way he was going. And then the moon began to shine out and he saw his shadow, and another shad

indfolded. Into the ditch I was led, and to some other field, and I put my hand to the ground, and it was potato ground, and the dril

Riv

find no way out-till at last I thought of the old Irish fashion of turn

ying cards. But this night I stopped a bit, and then I went out. And the way I was put I could not say, but I found myself in

of the

s two or three of them together. And if they go to a wake, they wouldn't for all the world come home before the cock crows. There were many led astray in that hollow beyond, where you see the haycocks. Old Tom Stafford was led astr

he pulled down the chimney where he said that the piper used to be sitting and playing, he lifted

are

wait for the third dream, I don't know, but he found the skeleton, skull and all, but when he found the crock there was nothing in it, but very large snail-shells. So

money like other people. And so he did one night, that it was hid under the millstone. So before it was hardly li

old people say, "Take care would

s he, and he told how he had a dream of a bush in this part of the world, and gave a description of it, and in his dream he saw treasure buried under it. "Then go home, my poor man," said the farmer, "for there's no such place as that about

that; there was one of them not long ago going

nd he took it up and rubbed it, and there was writing on it, in Irish, that no one had ever been able to read. And the poor scholar made it out, "This side of the bush is no better than the

Phe

ept them back, for there's always something watching over where treasure is buried. I often heard that long ago in the nursery at Coole, at the cross, a man that was diggin

rom Mayo, and asked him what was he looking for. And he said he had a dream that under the bridge of Limerick he'd find treasure. "Well," says the cobbler, "I had a dream myself about finding treasure, but in another sort of a place than this." And he described th

nced to lay hold on a tuft of grass, and it came up in her hand and the sod with it. And there was a hole underneath full of half-crowns, and she began to fill her apron with

velli

nd from the sea. So she got three men to go along with her and they brought shovels to dig for it. But it was the woman should have lifted the first sod and she didn't do it, and they saw, coming down from the mo

of the house and sat down on a patch of grass the same as we're sitting on now. And the first word he said to me was, "Did Bridget, your sister, ever tell you of the dream she

saw, as he was digging, a great lot of gold. So he said nothing, the way the o

he lifted. But when he went back next day to get

Army

ly told me that he was coming by it one night and saw all the hollow s

th gold and he took up the full of his pockets and paid his rent next d

he went to dig and found the crocks sure enough, and nothing in them but oyster shells. That was becau

t at once, and all she found was the full of an ass-cart near of sewing needles, and that was

ant of money, he found it laid on his window-sill in the night. But one day he had a

ere the liss is, to milk the cow, and there she saw on the grass a crock full of gold. So she left the bit she had for holding the cow beside it, and she ran back to the house for to tell them all to come out and see it.

it, and told no one. They don'

Con

ago. Three men went one time to dig for it and they dug and dug all the day and found nothing and they went home and to bed. And in the night whatever it was came to them, they never got the bet

bush. It grows a different shape from a

he would tell them nothing. But at last his sons one day persuaded him to go with them and to dig for it. So they took their car, and they set out. But when they came to a part of the road where there'

ighb

if any one does find the gold, he doesn't live long afterwards. But sometimes you might

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