This video is from a Milk & Cookies session in Dublin, 2010. In support of the veracity, or at least verisimilitude, of this yarn, here are exterior and interior photos of the cottage I lived in at the time near Avoca, County Wicklow.
River Lodge cottage, 1987
River Lodge cottage interior, 1987. Note the wood-burning stove on the right.
Also, to prove that at least part of the story is factual, here are the Bell Rock and the Spink, from my book Tales of the Wicklow Hills (2007), which includes this tale.
Bell Rock
The Spink
You can see 24 other videos from Milk & Cookies here.
Cúchulainn and Ferdia's Single Combat
A Spoonful of Silence – video
Hellhounds and Hero Horses
Irish King and Hero Tales
Spanish and Basque Legends
Tales of the Wicklow Hills
A Blirt to the End and Other Stories
Au Pair in Ireland
Earn Fire – Key Bearer Saga, Book One
English Like It Is: Right, Wrong and Changing Usage
Once a Hero
Over the Wall to the Trinity Ball and other poems
The Shore of Two Worlds – Key Bearer Saga, Book Two
Utmost Magpie
Irische Königs- und Heldensagen
Meath Folk Tales
The Legends and Lands of Ireland
Richard Marsh, Bardic Storyteller 
Bravo! Here we sit with the leading edge of the newest insult of winter weather bearing down on us and the real curse in the forcast for ice to follow the 2-5″ now the snow is nothing much to consider but the ice is. After the 2 feet of snow and the 12th of the month a few inches seems a paltry effort. But ice is enough to make us quake. The cows will come out of the barn slip on the hill and make their own home deliveries in the valley below. P.S. noted the warping board before I listened, nice post altogether thanks!
Hey, Carolyn – you know I’m new to this blogging thing. What’s a warping board?
In the picture from the interior of the cottage the pegged frame behind you is a warping board for winding out the threads for the warp half of weaving. My Mom was a weaver and when I first saw the picture, I was think wow that looks like a warping board then you mentioned it was a weavers cottage. The warp goes front to back on a loom and the weft is the left to right over and under weaving. Warp has a lot of meanings in language but have never seen weft used in another context. Such a fun post and story this has quickly become my favorite blog to read!
Silly me! THAT warping board. I know it as a warping frame. Yeah, the Donegal loom still took up a quarter of the 16×20 Walden-like one-room cottage at that time. I thought you were referring to a dingle or dongle or other mysterious thingamabob in the blog format.
Here’s “weft used in another context”, metaphorically, from my novel Earn Fire: “Mallory Dock, on the Gulf of Mexico on the western side of the Island City [Key West], is famous for its nightly ritual gathering of Sunset-watchers. It is long established as a place where friends and strangers meet, and expectancy and meeting form the weft and warp of the fabric of its ambience.”
Thanks for the compliments. I’ll try to add intriguing bits and pieces regularly.
PS: Note the belated link at the bottom of the post to other Milk & Cookies videos. Some are pros, others shaky first-timers.