And she took the sieve and went to the well; but the water poured from
it, and she could fetch none for the cake, and she sat down by the
well and wept.
Then a voice came by her and said, "Take yellow clay and moss, and
bind them together, and plaster the sieve so that it will hold."
This she did, and the sieve held the water for the cake; and the voice
said again--
"Return, and when thou comest to the north angle of the house, cry
aloud three times and say, 'The mountain of the Fenian women and the
sky over it is all on fire.'"
And she did so.
When the witches inside heard the call, a great and terrible cry broke
from their lips, and they rushed forth with wild lamentations and
shrieks, and fled away to Slievenamon,[26] where was their chief
abode. But the Spirit of the Well bade the mistress of the house to
enter and prepare her home against the enchantments of the witches if
they returned again.
And first, to break their spells, she sprinkled the water in which she
had washed her child's feet (the feet-water) outside the door on the
threshold; secondly, she took the cake which the witches had made in
her absence of meal mixed with the blood drawn from the sleeping
family, and she broke the cake in bits, and placed a bit in the mouth
of each sleeper, and they were restored; and she took the cloth they
had woven and placed it half in and half out of the chest with the
padlock; and lastly, she secured the door with a great crossbeam
fastened in the jambs, so that they could not enter, and having done
these things she waited.
Not long were the witches in coming back, and they raged and called
for vengeance.
"Open! open!" they screamed, "open, feet-water!"
"I cannot," said the feet-water, "I am scattered on the ground, and my
path is down to the Lough."
"Open, open, wood and trees and beam!" they cried to the door.
"I cannot," said the door, "for the beam is fixed in the jambs and I
have no power to move."
"Open, open, cake that we have made and mingled with blood!" they
cried again.
"I cannot," said the cake, "for I am broken and bruised, and my blood
is on the lips of the sleeping children."
Then the witches rushed through the air with great cries, and fled
back to Slievenamon, uttering strange curses on the Spirit of the
Well, who had wished their ruin; but the woman and the house were left
in peace, and a mantle dropped by one of the witches in her flight was
kept hung up by the mistress as a sign of the night's awful contest;
and this mantle was in possession of the same family from generation
to generation for five hundred years after.
[Footnote 25: _Ancient Legends of Ireland._]
[Footnote 26: _Sliábh-na-mban_--_i.e._, mountains of the women.]