Collectanea. 339
place one morning very early, and he met a gentleman, and the gentleman asked him what he was doing out so early. So he said to him he was so poor he was doing all he could to try to live. So the gentleman asked him if he hadn't a very nice daughter, and he said he had. And I think he said he'd give him ;^2o if he'd sell him the daughter, and the man said he would. So this gentleman told him he must send her out with- out breaking her fast in the morning.
So the man went home and told the wife, and she was very glad to hear it. And the next morning she called the step-daughter very early and told her a gentleman was to meet her at a stile there was down from the house, and she was to go with him. The step-mother hid everything, except a bit of oaten cake she didn't notice, for fear the step-daughter would get a bit to eat. So when she was going out she got this bit of oaten cake on the table and eat it, and when she went to the stile there was no one there. The father went out at the same hour the next morning and met him there, and he told him he couldn't take her because she broke her fast. But the gentleman told him the next morning she was to sneeze three times and no one was to say, " God bless her." So she riz the next morning just the same as before, and she sneezed three times, and when she sneezed the third time the step-mother forgot, and said, " God bless you ! " So when she went out there was nobody there.
So the father went out the third morning, and the devil told him who he was, and showed him the cloven foot he had, and was in an awful temper because he didn't get her, and took back the money off the man.
There is a belief in Ireland that it is dangerous to go outside the house in the morning before breaking one's fast, as the devil has then special power over one.
The Fairy's Question.
The priest came out this morning to say mass and he got the chalice broken. So when he was on the altar a little man came up to him with a red jacket on him, and told him that he would mend the chalice if the priest would tell him, " If we, what they call the Good People, will go to Heaven after the end of the
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