Beside The Fire

Beside The Fire
by Douglas Hyde

"An Alp-luachra is an evil, greedy fairy from Irish mythology. When a person falls asleep by the side of a stream, the Alp-luachra appears in the form of a newt and crawls down the person's mouth, feeding off the food that they had eaten. Douglas Hyde's Beside the Fire tells of how a person got back at an Alp-luachra by eating large amounts of salted meat and sleeping near the stream. The Alp-luachra fed upon him, but jumped to the water in thirst."