School: Mastersons (roll number 8390)

Location:
Manorhamilton, Co. Leitrim
Teacher:
Gobnait de Búit
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The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0197, Page 240

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The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0197, Page 240

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  1. Out I went in I came
    From the dead the living sprang
    God had ordered it to be
    The sixth to set the seventh free
    A robin's nest in a tomb.
    A man was supposed to have committed a crime and was being tried for it in a Courthouse beside a graveyard. The jury were all agreed on his guilt except one man who tried to persuade the others to let him off. In the end he got them to agree that if the prisoner could ask them a riddle in connection with the graveyard that they could not answer then he should go free. They let him go into the graveyard and he wasn't long there when he spied a robin's nest with five young ones in it in a tomb, and he gave the above riddle to the jurymen when he came in- a riddle they couldn't answer and so he got free.
    Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.
    Topics
    1. genre
      1. verbal arts (~1,483)
        1. riddles (~7,209)
    Language
    English
    Informant
    Mrs Middleton
    Gender
    Female
    Age
    65
    Address
    Gortgarrigan, Co. Leitrim