School: Gort Sceithe (roll number 13062)

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1. Story about a Hawk

   

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   A few seasons ago I happened to be in the bog cutting turf. There did a man come to me with his eyes as big as two potatoes, startled to the world with a fine bird that he had seen. This man's name was Patteen. This bird that I mention had a nest all to himself, and was hatched and maintained by a foster mother that was not the size of my thumb.
   And this man, Patteen, made out to me that he was some kind of a foreign canary. I asked him how he could come and he told me that he was sent to some gentleman but that he had stayed away. He made out that this nest was his cage. Patteen said that the bird was worth at least forty pounds sterling.
   But the best of it all was, he asked a few other neighbours in the bog and myself, good supple fellows to join up this evening to catch his majesty, the foreign canary. At all vents we knew what the bird was so we volunteered to go. Patteen wanted to be first for fear the bird would not be his own, but we made sure to him that he would. So we tightened ourselves up and Patteen led the way to the nest. We had bargained not to kill the bird but to try to catch him alive.
   At last we surrounded the nest with branches and sticks in our hands, Patteen leading all the while. He made

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   Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.

   History Edit

   Language

   English

   Collector

   Tomás Ó Cléirigh

   Gender

   Male

   Occupation

   Múinteoir

   Address

   Annefield, Co. Mayo