"Oh mam! oh mam!" says he, "what for are you skelping my head?"
"To make you quit breaking my eggs, you unmannerly coley," says she.
"Sure it's doing you favour I am," he replies. "I'd have you to know when I spill an egg on the ground a well-grown spring chicken leps out."
"If you doubt my word," he makes answer, "let you turn and look back at the chickens are flocking along."
With that she turned her head, and the leprachaun slipped from her grasp. He made one spring from the basket into the hedge, and he vanished away from the place.
"The wee lad has fooled me entirely," says she, "and my beautiful eggs are destroyed--but I am the finest woman he's seen, and that is a good thing to know!"
There was a man in the olden time, and he owned a snug little farm.
What did he do, of a winter's day, only break a great branch off a lone bush for to burn in the fire. A thorn went into his hand and it pierced it through.
But there was a little grey woman sitting in under the lone bush, and she let a terrible laugh.
There were two of the neighbours seen what occurred, and they passing down through the field. One of them ran away home, but the other, a venturesome lad, came across.
"What are you after doing, my poor fellow?" says he.
"I am after destroying my hand with a thorn," says the man.
The neighbour allowed there was worse in it nor that.
"Did you hear the grey woman laugh?" he inquires.
"There is no woman here," says the other.
"I seen her a while past, and I coming down to your side. She was sitting in under the bush, but now she is gone. When you drove the thorn through your hand she let a lamentable laugh that was worse nor a cry."
The man didn't believe it at all. But the jag in his hand festered up and he died for breaking the branch of the thorn.
In the ancient times a poor decent labouring man dreamt three nights of finding a kist was hid in the fort near his home.
So away there he went for to dig, and not long was he working at all when he came on the beautiful gold.
"In troth I am rich from this out," he calls at the height of his voice.
With that the whole treasure fell down through the earth: he should not have spoken at all. Then there came a powerful great cat, and it was the guard of the kist. Now the man had the wit to take hold of the appearance before him, and let it strive never so hard it could not contrive to escape. "I'll hold you," says he, "till you tell me where is the gold!"