Page:Shiana - Peadar Ua Laoghaire.djvu/115

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SHIANA
101

of my senses to some degree. Whatever it was that was wrong with me, it is clean gone—great thanks be to the God of Glory for it!"

"Amen, O Lord!" said Hannah.

Sheila.—Whisper, Peg, wasn't "John of the Moon" a very funny name for a ghost? Was it that he was never seen except by moonlight?
Peg.—The night Short Mary saw him was a sky-bright night.
Sheila.—That's just it. And then, why was he called "John of the Moon," if he used to be seen when the moon was not up at all?

Peg.—He was a mortal man at first, and he was a thief, and he used to be out at night stealing, by moonlight. His name was John, and they called him John of the Moon as a nickname, because of the stealing. He used to be in Bohar na Bro at night, watching the people who would be coming along the road late in the night, and he used to rob them. At last he killed a man there on a dark night, and after a while he killed another. Then those people's friends came and hid themselves near the road, and when it was pretty late in the night one of them went out on the road and pretended to be drunk. John was watching too, and when he saw the drunken man, as he thought he was, he jumped out and attacked him. Then they all jumped out, and John of the Moon was killed. And from that time onward the ghost used to be seen in Bohar na Bro, and "John of the Moon" stuck to the ghost as its name.