© 
Mooney. ] 296 [Oct.19, 
must bring his father with him to be measured, when the man replied that 
his father was dead and that he intended to wear the clothes himself. On 
being questiond he explaind that when his father died he could not 
afford to dres the corpse for the grave as he wishd, so he was now about 
to get a new suit and wear it in his father’s name, and as it wore away 
upon himself it would go to clothe his father in the other world. On fur- 
ther inquiry the merchant was told by another man from the same district 
that this was ‘‘as true as the light.’’* 
An intelligent gentleman from the city of Cork states:that in a cabin on 
the outskirts of that city he once saw a corpse laid out with the feet in- 
cased in heavy hobnailed shoes. On asking the reason he was told by one 
of the attendants that this was done to protect the feet of the dead man 
when walking over the fires of purgatory. 
The following story from Clare illustrates this belief in connection with 
fairy seizure, and is given just as it was told by a woman who knew the 
parties: There was a traveling woman (beggar) who used to stop at our 
hous near Milltown-malbay whenever she was in that part of the country. 
She would get up in the middle of the night and come back with her eyes 
blackend, and say she had been with the fairies and they had beaten and 
batterd her. There was a strong farmer near us named McMahon, and 
his son died and his wife sold his shoes to the servant boy. Some time 
after this the woman came into the neighborhood again, but she had a bad 
piece of news. She said she had seen the “« good people’’ playing hurley 
at night and that Tom McMahon was with them, and his feet wer all cut 
and bleeding with the stones, because he was barefoot on account of his 
mother selling his shoes. When the mother heard of it she was in a great 
way, so she went to the woman and asked her what she should do to giv 
her son relief. The woman told her to get back the shoes again and to 
return the money she was paid for them, then to sprinkle them with holy 
water and to give them to some poor person ‘‘for the honor of God and 
the good of her son’s soul.’’ The mother went to the servant boy and 
got back the shoes and returnd him the money. Then she sprinkled 
them with holy water and gave them to him again. Some time after the 
woman came to her and told her she had seen her son again with the fai- 
ries, and this time he had on his shoes. 
*Mr, and Mrs. 8. C. Hall, Ireland Picturesquely Tlustrated, iii, 2&4, note, n. d., New 
York, R. Worthington, importer. * * 
