The Little Red Woman

In the townland of Colt a certain farmer rose early one winter's morning to go to the fair at Ballinakill. After he had prepared himself, he got a lantern, and went to the field neary to get the cattle which he was taking to the fair. It was a dark, bitter cold morning, and after he had chased them many times round the field he could not get them out. In the end, a little woman dressed in red appeared from under an old bush, and assisted the farmer to get them out. She never spoke, and when he had them on the road she disappeared. All the way into the fair she was waiting at every cross-roads and gap, and helped to keep the cattle from escaping. When he was near the town, and past all danger, he never saw her again after Heywood, about one mile from Ballinakill.