The souls on this earth are as thick as the grass (running his walking-stick through a thick clump), and you…
- Date of account
- Published 1911
- Source
- The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries
- Reference
- The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries · selected passage 64
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English with translated testimony
- Record updated
- 2026-08-24
Record summary
The souls on this earth are as thick as the grass (running his walking-stick through a thick clump), and you can't see them; and evil spirits are just as thick, too, and people don't know it
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 onlyThe souls on this earth are as thick as the grass (running his walking-stick through a thick clump), and you can't see them; and evil spirits are just as thick, too, and people don't know it. Because there are so many spirits knocking (going) about they must appear to some people. The old folk saw the _good people_ here on the Hill a hundred times, and they'd always be talking about them. The _good people_ can see everything, and you dare not meddle with them. They live in _raths_, and their houses are in them. The opinion always was that they are a race of spirits, for they can go into different forms, and can appear big as well as little.'
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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