A Night Spent in the Bog

One evening in the Autumn time a threshing was in progress at a farmhouse in the townland of Ballycarnan, about three miles from Portlaoighise. When the work was finished, the farmer went to the pasture to bring home the cows. After a time his people at home wondered why neither he nor the cows were returning. At length they went to the field, and found the cows there, but the farmer was not to be found anywhere.

Some of the men engaged in the threshing together with many others began a long tedious search, but this proved of no avail until about four o'clock the following morning he found in the middle of the bog between Clonad and Cashel. He was seated on a turf bank, and a pile of turf about round him.

He could not give any account of himself or how he got there, but it was certain he did not walk, and the vicinity was extremely dangerous, and it would be impossible to reach this spot by himself. There is a rath situated in the field where his cows were grazing, and there is also a pass in the vicinity, and it is common belief of the district that the "good people" carried him away, and left him in this position on the turf bank.