School: Béal Átha 'n Fheadha (B.) (roll number 13631)

Location:
Ballina, Co. Mayo
Teacher:
D. P. Ó Cearbhaill
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The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0147, Page 136

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The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0147, Page 136

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  3. XML “The Barber and the King with Horse's Ears”

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  1. The Barber and the King with horse’s ears.
    This story is about a king who would only allow his hair to be cut once a year. He lived in the middle of Ireland. Well he had his hair cut but once a year and after that nothing more was heard of the barber who cut it.
    When seven barbers vanished there was never a barber in all Ireland who would come within a mile of the castle gates of the king for all the gold in the River Shannon. So the king sent round a proclamation that all the shavers in the country were to draw lots and whoever drew the short straw must cut the kings hair. The first lot fell upon the son of a poor widow woman. When she heard this she ran through the palace gates and rushed into the big stone hall.
    “What does this mad woman want?” roared the king.
    “Go” he shouts to his sentry and put the guards into the dungeon and see they all
    (continues on next page)
    Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.
    Folktales index
    AT0782: Midas and the Ass's Ears
    Language
    English
    Collector
    James Ralph
    Gender
    Male
    Address
    Ballina, Co. Mayo
    Informant
    Mrs Lackie
    Relation
    Grandparent
    Gender
    Female
    Address
    Ballina, Co. Mayo