School: Loughanvally (roll number 8363)
- Location:
- Loughanavally, Co. Westmeath
- Teacher: Mrs. O'Connor
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0742, Page 394
Image and data © National Folklore Collection, UCD.
See copyright details.
DownloadOpen data
Available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
- XML School: Loughanvally
- XML Page 394
- XML “Strange Animals”
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
- Long ago fairies used to play on the shore of the lake. Each fairy had golden hair and they danced and sang merrily. One of them went through the fields leading a greyhound and drove a lovely white cow. One day she lost the cow and an old farmer found her. He kept her and grew very fond of her, as all his own cows were red and white no one having a pure white one but the farmer.
Whenever he asked for milk the fairy cow gave it and her milk made ever one wonderful and wise and the farmer grew very rich. He began to imagine the cow was getting old and resolved to kill her.
The day for killing soon came. Everyone was sorry and they all gathered in. However before the butcher could strike a blow a fairy appeared in the sky and said "Arise and come home". Immediately the white cow rose up in the air with all her calves. They went away and never returned. That was the first cow ever seen in Ireland.
- Collector
- Helen Geoghegan
- Gender
- Female
