We spent time over a couple of years in London with an elderly traditional singer/dancer who had left his home in County Clare in Ireland as a young man and never returned, but he brought away a whole load of stories and songs which he generously allowed us to record, among them being many dozens of rural 'yarns' which were, in fact reduced folk tales.
"An old farmer and his wife living high up on the Burren, a vast isolated limestone area in North Clare, spent their lives living alone, tending their small farm and doing little else other than when, each Friday, the wife would take the ass and cart into the local town of Lisdoonvarna for necessary supplies; other than that, one day was pretty much the same as another.
One morning, quite uncharacteristically, the farmer's wife carefully made herself, combed her hair, put on her best dress and announced she was going into town.
The farmer thought to himself, "it must be an anniversary or something - maybe my luck's in tonight"
So, when she left, he set about cleaning the house from top to bottom, laying the table with the best crockery and cutlery and placing candles all round the kitchen.
He ended by paying especial attention to the bedroom, where he re-made the bed with the freshest linen, plumped up the pillows, went out to the field and picked a Gentian flower and carefully laid it on top of the bed - again he placed candles around the room to produce a romantic atmosphere.
Just as he was finishing, he happened to look under the bed, where he saw a wooden box he had never seen before, which he took out, placed on the bed and opened, inside he found a wad of paper money, on the of which were neatly set two hens eggs.
When she returned home, he confronted her with the box.
She slumped down in a chair, hung her head and confessed, "I have to tell you Mike, I've been unfaithful to you, and every time I was, I went into the yard, took an egg from under the hen and placed it in the box to remind me not to do it again"
He stood stunned for a minute, then he said, "Well, after thirty years marriage, hard work and living up here alone together, I suppose that the two times you have been unfaithful is understandable, but what's all this money, there must be hundreds of pounds?"
"Well", she said, "whenever the eggs got to a dozen, I took them down into town, sold them to the shop and put the money by for our old age"".
Jim Carroll