‘A woman lived up the mountain there but she’s dead and gone this many’s a year.
She was a Murphy married to a Fagan. She saw the fairies an’ she once toul’ me about a neighbour of her’s that I knowed perfectly well – a midwife woman – that had an encounter wi’ them.
One night a wee man on horseback come to her till help with the birth of a chile. He tuk her up on the saddle as wus the fashion then, but sorra a bit of her cud say where they went. How be it, she wus well paid for her trouble an’ mebbe that wus the chief thing. But after she wus safely home she wus greatly put about for she wus afeared that it wus a fairy birth she wus at.
An’ in less than a week she wus at ‘Blaney fair at a stannin’ an’ who should she see but the same wee man. An’ she cud only see him with one of her eyes, an’ that wus the eye she rubbed be chance with some oil she got to put on the chile at birth.
Says she when she saw him, ‘How’s the woman an’ chile?’ An’ she toul’ him she could only see him with one of her eyes. An’ says he, ‘Which?’ An’ she says, ‘This.’
An’ with that he stuck his finger in it. An’ she wus dark ever after.’