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There was once a little farmer and his wife living near
Coolgarrow. They had three children, and my story happened while
the youngest was a baby. The wife was a good wife enough, but her
mind was all on her family and her farm, and she hardly ever went
to her knees without falling asleep, and she thought the time
spent in the chapel was twice as long as it need be. So, friends,
she let her man and her two children go before her one day to
Mass, while she called to consult a fairy man about a disorder
one of her cows had. She was late at the chapel, and was sorry
all the day after, for her husband was in grief about it, and she
was very fond of him.
Late that night he was wakened up by the cries of his children
calling out 'Mother! Mother!' When he sat up and rubbed his eyes,
there was no wife by his side, and when he asked the little ones
what was become of their mother, they said they saw the room full
of nice little men and women, dressed in white and red and green,
and their mother in the middle of them, going out by the door as
if she was walking in her sleep. Out he ran, and searched
everywhere round the house but, neither tale nor tidings did he
get of her for many a day.
Well, the poor man was miserable enough, for he was as fond of
his woman as she was of him. It used to bring the salt tears down
his cheeks to see his poor children neglected and dirty, as they
often were, and they'd be bad enough only for a kind neighbour
that used to look in whenever she could spare time. The infant
was away with a nurse.
About six weeks after--just as he was going out to his work one
morning--a neighbour, that used to mind women when they were ill,
came up to him, and kept step by step with him to the field, and
this is what she told him.
'Just as I was falling asleep last night, I heard a horse's tramp
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Fairytales 
