School: Roisín (roll number 12395)
- Location:
- Rusheen, Co. Cork
- Teacher: Cáit, Bean Uí Chorcoráin
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0343, Page 157
Image and data © National Folklore Collection, UCD.
See copyright details.
DownloadOpen data
Available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
- XML School: Roisín
- XML Page 157
- XML “Bird-Lore”
- XML “Bird-Lore”
Note: We will soon deprecate our XML Application Programming Interface and a new, comprehensive JSON API will be made available. Keep an eye on our website for further details.
On this page
- The birds commonly seen in this district are crows, magpies, pigeons, jackdaws, robins, wrens, blackbirds, thrushes, and sparrows. In the Summer time we have cuckoos, corncrakes, and swallows.
The robin, and wren build their nests in holes in fences the jackdaw builds his nest on chimenys, and the pigeon, crow and magpie build their nests on trees. Old people tell us that when Our Lord was dying on cross a little robin flew up to Him, and pulled all the thorns from His Head. While doing so his breast go stained with blood, and that is the reason why the robin has a red breast.
- Collector
- Joan Neville
- Gender
- Female
- The wren is called the "Devils birds" because it was the wren that betrayed Our Lord to the soliders when they were going to turn away some other way to look for Him. The reason why the robins breast is red is because when Our Lord was passing through a corn field the drops of blood were dropping from his wounds the robin came and layed down on every drop of blood that marked the Saviour's track so that the soldiers
