Legendary fictions of the Irish Celts

WITCHCRAFT, SORCERY, GHOSTS,
AND FETCHES.
It is probable that the first tradition is to be met out-
side the Pale, and even as far as Connemara, but the
writer has heard or read it nowhere since he learned it in
his youth from Mrs. K., our already quoted authority.
THE LONG SPOON.
The devil and the hearth-money collector for Bantr}set
out one summer morning to decide a bet they made
the night before over a jug of punch. They wanted to
see which would have the best load at sunset, and neither
was to pick up anything that wasn't offered with the goodwill
of the giver. They passed by a house, and they
heard the poor vanithee cry out to her lazy daughter, " O
musha, take you for a lazy sthronshuch of a girl ! do
you intend to get up to-day 1" "Oh, oh !" says the tax-man,
" there is a lob for you, Nick." " Ovoch ! " says the other,
" it wasn't from her heart she said it : we must pass on."
The next cabin they were passing, the woman was on
the bawn-ditch crying out to her husband, that was
mending one of his brogues inside : " Oh, tattheration to
you, Mick ! you never rung them pigs, and there they
are in the potato drills rootin' away ; the run to
Lusk with them "
! " Another windfall for you," says the
man of the inkhorn, but the old thief only shook his
horns and wagged his tail. So they went on, and ever
so many prizes offered to the black fellow without him
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