School: Murher (B.) (roll number 13540)

Location:
Murher, Co. Kerry
Teacher:
Tomás Ó Conaill
Browse
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0405, Page 006

Archival Reference

The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0405, Page 006

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: Murher (B.)
  2. XML Page 006
  3. XML “The Fairy Child”

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. Once upon a time there was a man who had one son. The boy was about ten years of age, and he was a cripple. He wwas always tormenting his father and mother, and telling them what to do about the house. One day the man was going to the forge to get a spade fixed by the smith. Before he left the house the cripple told him to put the threddle on the left side of the spade. The man told the smith what his son had told him. The smith asked him what kind his son was. He told him that he was ten years of age, and that he never walked. The smith said that that child was not his own son, that he was a fairy child. "When you go home" said the smith, "the child will ask you if you heard any news, and you can say that such a fort is on fire". When the man went home the boy asked him if he had heard any news. The man threw the spade on the floor and he said that a certain fort is on fire. The boy jumped out of the cradle and ran out the door saying that his wife and all his children burned.
    Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.
    Topics
    1. agents (~1)
      1. supernatural and legendary beings (~14,864)
    Language
    English
    Collector
    Joe Walsh
    Gender
    Male
    Informant
    Mrs Mary Walsh
    Relation
    Parent
    Gender
    Female
    Age
    54
    Address
    Leitrim East, Co. Kerry