Irish Folklore

Trooping fairy abduction

Old man described to a visitor in complete seriousness of how he knew his son would die 4 days before it actually happened.. Going home one evening he had seen a large group of fairies moving fast over the plain their red dresses fluttering in the wind and the lakes turning to ice as they approached and walls and trees bowed themselves to the earth as they approached . they rode over the top of the thicket as if it were grass.Then he saw the queen riding in front on a white horse and by her side he saw with a shudder his son whom she smiled upon and carressed while he with a fevered eye looked wistfully at her.. then I knew it was over with him .the next day he took to his bed and three days later I buried him.There was not a handsomer man in connemara and it was for that the queen chose him.

This story was told by the carer of the woods in castle Hackett in Headford to a german visitor who claimed he was so firmly convinced of the truth of his story that it would have been rude to express the least doubt.