The ordeal by fire is the great test adopted by the peasants to try if a child or any one is fairy-struck. There was a man in40 Mayo who was bedridden for months and months, and though he ate up all the food they brought him, he never grew a bit stronger, and on Sundays when they went to mass, they locked him up and left him alone in the place with plenty of food. Now there was a fine field close by, and one Sunday, coming home from mass earlier than usual, they saw a great company of people bowling in the field, and the sick man amongst them, but at that moment he vanished away; and when the family reached home, there was the sick man lying fast asleep in his bed.

“Get up,” they said, “for we have seen you bowling with the fairies, and you sha’n’t eat or drink any more at our expense.”

But he refused, and said he was too ill to move. Then they made down a large fire of turf and said, “Get up, or we’ll lay you on the fire and break the fairy spell.” And they took hold of him to burn him. Then he was frightened, and rose up and went out at the door, and they watched him till he stopped in the field where the hurlers played, and lay down there in the grass; but when they went up to him he was dead.

A man going to his work one morning early saw two women going up to a house, and one said, “There is a beautiful boy in this house, go in and hand it out to me, and we’ll leave the dead child in its place.” And the other went ............