he secured the door with a great crossbeam fastened in the
jambs, so that they could not enter, and having done these things she
waited.

Not long were the witches in coming, and they raged and called for
vengeance.

"Open! Open!" they screamed. "Open, feet-water!"

"I cannot," said the feet-water; "I am scattered on the ground, and my
path is down to the Lough."

"Open, open, wood and trees and beam!" they cried to the door.

"I cannot," said the door, "for the beam is fixed in the jambs, and I
have no power to move."

"Open, open, cake that we have made and mingled with blood!" they cried
again.

"I cannot," said the cake, "for I am broken and bruised, and my blood is
on the lips of the sleeping children."

Then the witches rushed through the air with great cries, and fled back
to Slievenamon, uttering strange curses on the Spirit of the Well, who
had wished their ruin. But the woman and the house were left in peace,
and a mantle dropped by one of the witches was kept hung up by the
mistress as a sign of the night's awful contest; and this mantle was in
possession of the same family from generation to generation for five
hundred years after.

LADY WILDE.

The Quare Gander

"Terence Mooney was an honest boy and well to do; an' he rinted the
biggest farm on this side iv the Galties; an' bein' mighty cute an' a
sevare worker, it was small wonder he turned a good penny every harvest.
But, unluckily, he was blessed with an ilegant large family iv
daughters, an' iv coorse, his heart was allamost bruck, striving to make
up fortunes for the whole of them. An' there wasn't a conthrivance iv
any soart or description for makin' money out iv the farm but he was up
to.

"Well, among the other ways he had iv gettin' up in the world he always
kep a power iv turkeys, and all soarts iv poultrey; an' he was out iv
all rason partial to geese--an' small blame to him for that same--for
twice't a year you can pluck them as bare as my hand--an' get a fine
price for the feathers, an' plenty of rale sizable eggs--an' when they
are too ould to lay any more, you can kill them, an' sell them to the
gintlemen for goslings, d'ye see, let alone that a goose is the most
manly bird that is out.

"Well, it happened in the coorse iv time that one ould gandher tuck a
wondherful likin' to Terence, an' divil a place he could go serenadin'
about the farm, or lookin' afther the men, but the gandher id be at his
heels, an' rubbin'