Elizabeth Andrews describes a day in Maghera for Ulster Folklore, published in 1913. She walked out to Killelagh Church, the cromlech and an old sweat-house with a local man, a coach-builder by trade, whose father had been a school teacher in Maghera for thirty-five years and knew Irish.
Asked about local customs, he told her that on Hallow Eve night salt is put on the heads of children to protect them from the fairies. These fairies, or wee folk, are about three feet high or less, of different races or tribes, and have pitched battles at the Pecht's graveyard, a place covered with rough mounds and stones, regarded as a great playground of the fairies, where people passing through are often led astray. The Pechts, or Picts, were described as small, thickset people about four feet six inches tall with long black hair in tufts and very large feet, who stood on their heads in rain to shelter under them.
He also said the mortar of Killelagh Church had been cemented with the blood of bullocks, which Andrews took for a trace of an ancient building sacrifice. The record keeps to the fairy belief, which is a lively example of the fairy protections of Hallow Eve in mid Ulster.
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