I love the story. And I do not scoff at anything concerning Irish faeries. My grandmother instilled in me a greaqt respect and a bit of fear of them from a young age. My grandmother used to tell me that there were a number of gifts that I was given that would be well kept from the knowledge of the faeries. She said they did not like those with the gifts of hearing, seeing, knowing, feeling (in the psychic sense) and healing. I think there were a few others but I do not remember them. She believed I could do the latter 3. She would only talk to me about such things after closing the door to the room and making sure we were alone. She always spoke about fairies very quietly and kept the door and window in view. She might have just been having a bit of fun I am not sure. Has anyone ever heard of the things my grandmother told me? Her mother was a Brady and a midwife. I am not sure what part of Ireland her family came from originally. Both her and her husband's parents immegrated to Durham, England where my both she and my g-grandfather were born. The men worked in the coal mines there until they came to America to do the same. They met in Lonaconing, Maryland and married. I know there were more than a few superstitions in the household. What are the ones prevalent in Ireland today and in the past? ~~C Sullivan Susan Daily <cullivans@gmail.com> wrote: I sent this to the list a year ago, but will share it again. Love the story! ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Susan Daily Date: Fri, Oct 19, 2007 at 8:09 PM Subject: Re: [BEARA] Samhain - Halloween To: beara@rootsweb.com This is a true faerie story from Leitrim, a woman named Mary shared it with me. I thanked her for it is a lovely story: "My dad went to Sragarne school from around 1911 onwards. I would say the "Stracasse" you have is Sragarne. The school building is still there, used as a garage now. Gorvagh is on the Mohill to Ballinamore road. There was an RIC barracks there long ago. My father's schoolteacher was Master Charlie Flynn and he was known as Master Charlie. The ruin of the house in which he lived was there in the 60s but it's gone now. It was beside the school. My father took us there a few times as children. He would get very sentimental when he'd look at the school, the ruined house etc. "It was said that Sragarn school was built on the track of the fairies. One day at playtime a little man and woman, very small, came walking very fast, walked through the side of the yard, and all the children got very excited and ran after them trying to catch them but they got away. Master Charlie was trying to calm the children down but nobody was listening. They were dressed in coloured clothes. Nobody could ever explain who they were. More recently, a social history book was written about shragarn as part of a school reunion.In 1938 or so children in the Primary schools in Ireland wrote about the local history of their area so as to preserve it. The collection is held in the Folklore Dept. in University College Dublin.One page of the Sragarn collection was photocopied in the reunion book. It was written by a group of girls at the school who had seen a fairy, but only one fairy this time. They wrote their article in such a way that one could see they wanted to be believed. The date of the second sighting was in the 1930s. I could always look for the book again and send you a copy of that page if you're interested. But most people would scoff at what I'm saying." ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to BEARA-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message