"I'll tell you now about the trace of Cromwell. There was a young lady
was married to a gentleman, and she died with her first baby, and she
was brought away into a forth by the fairies, the good people, as I
suppose. She used to be sitting on the side of it combing her hair, and
three times her husband saw her there, but he had not the courage to go
and to bring her away. But there was a man of the name of Howley living
near the forth, and he went out with his gun one day and he saw her
beside the forth, and he brought her away to his house, and a young baby
sprang between them at the end of a year. One day the husband was out
shooting and he came in upon Howley's land, and when young Howley heard
the shooting he rose up and went out and he bade the gentleman to stop,
for this was his land. So he stopped, and he said he was weary and
thirsty, and he asked could he rest in the house. So young Howley said
as long as he asked pardon he had leave to use what he liked. So he came
in the house and he sat at the table, and he put his two eyes through
the young lady. 'If I didn't see her dead and buried,' he said, 'I'd say
that to be my own wife.' 'Oh!' said she, 'so I am your wife, and you are
badly worthy of me, and you have the worst courage ever I knew, that you
would not come and bring me away out of the forth as young Howley had
the courage to bring me,' she said. So then he asked young Howley would
he give him back his wife. 'I will give her,' he said, 'but you never
will get the child.' So the child was reared, and when he was grown he
went travelling up to Dublin. And he was at a hunt, and he lost the top
of his boot, and he went into a shoemaker's shop and he gave him half a
sovereign for nothing but to put the tip on the boot, for he saw he was
poor and had a big family. And more than that, when he was going away he
took out three sovereigns and gave them to the blacksmith, and he looked
at one of the little chaps, and he said 'That one will be in command of
the whole of England.' 'Oh, that cannot be,' said the blacksmith, 'where
I am poor and have not the means to do anything for him.' 'It will be as
I tell you,' said he, 'and write me out now a docket,' he said, 'that
if ever that youngster will come to command Ireland, he will give me a
free leg.' So the docket was made out, and he brought it away with him.
And sure enough, the shoemaker's son listed, and was put at the head of
soldiers, and got the command of England, and came with his soldiers to
put down Ireland. And Howley saw them coming and he tied his
handkerchief to the top of his stick, and when Cromwell saw that, he
halted the army, 'For there is some poor man in distress,' he said. Then
Howley showed him the docket his father had written. 'I will do some
good thing for you on account of that,' said Cromwell; 'and go now to
the top of that high cliff,' he said, 'and I'll give as much land as you
can see from it.' And so he did give it to him. It was no wonder Howley
to have known the shoemaker's son would be in command and all would
happen him, because of his mother that got knowledge in the years she
was in the forth. That is the trace of Cromwell. I heard it at a wake,
and I would believe it, and if I had time to put my mind to it, and if I
was not on the road from Loughrea to Ballyvaughan, I could give you the
foundations of it better."