274 SPORTING REMINISCENCES 



They used to show us a rock by the river at 

 Ardsollus with the print of a horse-shoe marked in 

 it ; they said the king of the fairies' horse had 

 lighted on the rock and made the mark. 



People may think I am writing of superstitions 

 which have died out, but they have not. Some of 

 the more exaggerated, such as the old Connemara 

 legend of the Shee, which perched itself on some- 

 one's back and could only be got rid of by the 

 inflicted one persuading some stranger to drink 

 from a bottle which they carried — ^when the Shee 

 obligingly transferred its lodgings — are gone. But 

 now every May Eve the people go with mountain 

 ash round their haggards to prevent the fairies 

 taking the crops, and on St. John's Eve 

 burn bonfires and scatter the ashes round the 

 fields. 



Within three miles of Limerick there is a farmer 

 who declares that the milk of his cows was for 

 two years taken by the fairies. 



And another who threw a stone at a hare in his 

 yard and heard a muffled squeak and saw no hare 

 but a little old neighbour outside his gate hurrying 

 home holding a bruised arm, and that year he 

 lost all his oats. He tells it as a fact. 



There are always old women with strange powers 

 to be found. They can dry up your wells at their 

 will, stepping out at night with a bucket and 

 taking a few drops, and the well dries. 



One farmer near Newport had offended an old 



