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Page:Skeealyn Aesop a Selection of Aesops Fables Translated Into Manx-Gaelic Together with a Few Poems.djvu/94

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it, and stirred it with a potstick all the time it was on the fire, until it was thick and solid, and they ate it for supper with new milk. The Manx people called it "cowree," and a very good feed it was. That was the "cowree" the fairies were so often eating in the houses. The big pot was emptied into dishes, and it was quite solid when it was cold, and lasted for nearly a week for supper in the farm houses. They boiled the milk with the "cowree" when it was cold, and it appears the fairies were very fond of it by all accounts. I hare not seen nor tasted "cowree" in the Island for many years.

I think it a great shame to Mans folk that cannot speak their native language. No doubt the old people of Cregneish were not like some others of their neighbours in the little sea-port towns, with their "perry bane," "keair lheeah" knee breeches and "carranes," but they were more innocent, and kinder one to another; they all used to help one another to get the crops down, and in the harvest helped each other to cut the corn and stack it. There was no word about pay.

My aunt was talking about old times the other day— in her youthful days in Cregneish. When the cows of one family were dry, the rest of the neighbours that had cows milking; were dividing the milk with them that had none. I recollect myself when there was no paying for milk in Cregneish, and a big vessel, something like a quart in shape, but holding