There was a big gathering of neighbours sitting round a fire, telling stories of an evening, and some person says:

“There’s the strongest bolt and lock in all Ireland on the door there beyond, and it couldn’t be broken at all.”

With that the Good People were listening outside began for to laugh. Didn’t they whip the lock off the door and away with them through the fields.

Says the man of the house: “I’m thinking there’s danger abroad; let the lot of you stop here till dawn.”

But there was a big, venturesome man in it and he allowed he’d go home no spite of the fairies. [170]

He started off by his lone, and he had a wet sort of field to pass through with a great shaking scraw to one side. It was an awful and dangerous place to any person not used to the like, but he knew his way by the pass.

He was travelling at a good speed when all on a sudden he heard the tramping of a score of horses behind him. Then they came up round himself, but he seen no person at all nor a sign of a horse or an ass.

“The fairies are in it,” says he.

With that one of them took............