His speech was of very short duration, but it was hardly over, before a loud rapping of high-heeled shoes…
- Date of account
- Published 1920
- Source
- The Banshee
- Reference
- The Banshee · selected passage 101
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English
- Record updated
- 2026-08-24
Record summary
His speech was of very short duration, but it was hardly over, before a loud rapping of high-heeled shoes sounded on the stone steps, and a number of women, dressed in every conceivable fashion, from the quaintly picturesque costume of the Middle Ages to the still fondly remembered and popular Empire gown, came troopin…
Published source text
Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.
Source passage
Source text · mention onlyHis speech was of very short duration, but it was hardly over, before a loud rapping of high-heeled shoes sounded on the stone steps, and a number of women, dressed in every conceivable fashion, from the quaintly picturesque costume of the Middle Ages to the still fondly remembered and popular Empire gown, came trooping into the room. Their curiously clumsy movements caused Ronan to scrutinise them somewhat closely, but it was not until, in response to a wild outburst on wheezy flutes and derelict bagpipes, the assembly commenced dancing, that he awoke to the fact which now seemed obvious enough, that these weird-looking women were not women at all, but merely men mummers.
Historical context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyThis material belongs to a folklore tradition. Story type, collector, community, transmission and literary editing matter when comparing it with other sources.
Modern context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyLattice compares motifs and reported features without assuming that a traditional being is a biological species or that similar stories document one external cause.
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