A whistling seal sank a ship the other day. At Drumcliff there is a
very ancient graveyard. The Annals of the Four Masters have this verse
about a soldier named Denadhach, who died in 871: "A pious soldier of
the race of Con lies under hazel crosses at Drumcliff." Not very long
ago an old woman, turning to go into the churchyard at night to pray,
saw standing before her a man in armour, who asked her where she was
going. It was the "pious soldier of the race of Con," says local
wisdom, still keeping watch, with his ancient piety, over the
graveyard. Again, the custom is still common hereabouts of sprinkling
the doorstep with the blood of a chicken on the death of a very young
child, thus (as belief is) drawing into the blood the evil spirits from
the too weak soul. Blood is a great gatherer of evil spirits. To cut
your hand on a stone on going into a fort is said to be very dangerous.

There is no more curious ghost in Drumcliff or Rosses than the snipe-
ghost. There is a bush behind a house in a village that I know well:
for excellent reasons I do not say whether in Drumcliff or Rosses or on
the slope of Ben Bulben, or even on the plain round Knocknarea. There
is a history concerning the house and the bush. A man once lived there
who found on the quay of Sligo a package containing three hundred
pounds in notes. It was dropped by a foreign sea captain. This my man
knew, but said nothing. It was money for freight, and the sea captain,
not daring to face his owners, committed suicide in mid-ocean. Shortly
afterwards my man died. His soul could not rest. At any rate, strange
sounds were heard round his house, though that had grown and prospered
since the freight money. The wife was often seen by those still alive
out in the garden praying at the bush I have spoken of, for the shade
of the dead man appeared there at times. The bush remains to this day:
once portion of a hedge, it now stands by itself, for no one dare put
spade or pruning-knife about it. As to the strange sounds and voices,