"The sharp outline, however, seen for an
instant, was imprinted on his brain, and he could have
sworn, he said, though it sounded foolish, that,
squirrel or not, it had more than four legs."
"So it was. First, at the fork, they
saw a round body covered with fire — the size of
a man's head — appear very suddenly, then seem to
collapse and fall back. This, five or six times; then
a similar ball leapt into the air and fell on the
grass, where after a moment it lay still. The Bishop
went as near as he dared to it, and saw — what
but the remains of an enormous spider, veinous and
seared! And, as the fire burned lower down, more
terrible bodies like this began to break out from the
trunk, and it was seen that these were covered with
greyish hair"
"All that day the ash burned, and until
it fell to pieces the men stood about it, and from
time to time killed the brutes as they darted out. At
last there was a long interval when none appeared, and
they cautiously closed in and examined the roots of
the tree."
"They fond," says the Bishop of
Kilmore, "below it a rounded hollow place in the
earth, wherein were two or three bodies of these
creatures that had plainly been smothered by the
smoke; and, what is to me more curious, at the side of
this den, against the wall, was crouching the anatomy
or skeleton of a human being, with the skin dried upon
the bones, having some remains of black hair, which
was pronounced by those that examined it to be
undoubtedly the body of a woman, and clearly dead for
a period of fifty years."
M.R. James, The Ash Tree
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