School: Loughill

Location:
Ballymunterhiggin, Co. Donegal
Teacher:
Eibhlis Ní Mhathghamhna
Browse
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 1026, Page 209

Archival Reference

The Schools’ Collection, Volume 1026, Page 209

Image and data © National Folklore Collection, UCD.

See copyright details.

Download

Open data

Available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

  1. XML School: Loughill
  2. XML Page 209
  3. XML “Bird-Lore - The Crow”
  4. XML “Bird-Lore - The Cuckoo”

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

  1. (continued from previous page)
    numbers cawing and dive down straight on a “dead wing’ it is a sign of wind. If they go home quietly flying very high in the sky it is a sign of very good weather.
    Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.
  2. “The cuckoo comes in April,
    Sings her song in May.
    In the middle of June
    She turns her tune
    And then she flies away.
    Another old rhyme is:-
    “The cuckoo is a small bird,
    She sings as she flies
    She brings us good tidings
    And tells us no lies.”
    If one hears her in the morning when one is fasting one will die that year. She builds no nest but lays one egg in a thrushes’ nest. She throws out of it the thrushes' eggs before she lays her own. Sometimes she lays it in a lark’s nest. The thrush or lark rears her young. The young cuckoo is very proud because it is bigger than the other young birds and before long
    (continues on next page)
    Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.
    Topics
    1. agents (~1)
      1. animal-lore (~1,185)
        1. bird-lore (~2,478)
    Language
    English