Gentle Places and Simple Things: Irish Customs and Beliefs

’If the four-leafed shamrock was lucky, the hungry grass who quite the opposite, and very unlucky he who trod on it.’ In point of fact if you trod on the hungry grass you almost expired of hunger -- for this is where some poor wretch died of starvation in the famine days. The hungry grass is still remembered in Ireland, like the stories of highwaymen and travelling people, of summer pastures, of the typical Irish ’whiteboys, of lost and hidden treasures.

Danaher tells all sorts of tales about the beliefs associated with birds, insects and big and little animals, of plants, bushes, trees and stones. Then we hear about dwarfs and fabulous water monsters, and ghosts and witches, about castles and drowned cities.