J. F. Campbell Collection > Fireside stories of Ireland

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HAIRY ROUCHY.
There was once a widow woman, as often there was, and
she had three daughters. The ekiest and the second
eldest were as handsome as the moon and the evening star,
but the youngest was all covered with hair, and her face
was as brown as a berry, and they called her Hairy
Rouchy. She lighted the fire in the morning, cooked the
food, and made the beds, while her sisters would be string-
ing flowers on a hank, or looking at themselves in the
glass, or sitting with their hands across. " ^o one will
ever come to marry us in this lonesome place,'' said the
eldest one day ; " so you and I," said she to the second
sister, " may as well go seek our fortune." " That's the
best word you ever spoke/' said the other. "Bake our
cake and kill our cock, mother, and away we go." Well,
so she did ; " And now, girls," said she, " which will you
have, half this with my blessing, or the whole of it with my
curse ?" " Curse or no curse, mother, the whole of it is
little enough."
Well they set off, and says Hairy Rouchy to her mo-
ther when they got to the end of the lane, "Mother, give
me your blessing, and a quarter of the griddle cake, I must
go after these girls, for I fear ill luck is in their road."
She gave her her blessing and the whole of the cake, and
she went off running, and soon overtook them. " Here's
Hairy Rouchy," says the eldest, " she'll make a show of us.
We'll tie her to this big stone." So they tied her to the
big stone and went their way, but when they were a quar-
ter of a mile further, there she was three perches behind
them. Well, they were vexed enough, and the next clamp
of turf they passed, they made her lie down, and piled every
sod of it over her.
When they were a quarter of a mile further they looked
back again, and there was the girl three perches behind
them, and wern't they mad % To make a long story short,
they fastened her in a pound, and they put the tying of the
three smalls on her, and fastened her to a tree. The next
quarter of a mile she was up by their side, and at last they
were tired, and let her walk behind them.