School: Bree (roll number 4183)
- Location:
- Bree, Co. Wexford
- Teacher: Seán Ó Braoin
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0902, Page 246
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- XML “The Fairy and the Child”
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- Years ago it was believed that fairies took away small children and left fairies in their places.This is how the story goes. There was a woman who had a baby boy who never stopped crying. It was the custom in those days for tailors to go from house to house to make cloths. The woman went to the well for water and she left the tailor to mind the child in the cradle. As soon as she had closed the door the child in the cradle jumped up and landed on the rafter. He asked the tailor if he would like a tune on the bagpipes and then he started to play.When he heard the woman coming he jumped back to the cradle and started to cry again. The tailor called the woman outside and told her it was a fairy she had in the cradle and not her own child. He advised her to go to the fairy doctor. The doctor told her to get the fairy in her shirt and cross a bridge and drop him in to the river. She did this. The fairy sailed down the river playing his bagpipes.When the woman went home she had her own child in the cradle
- Collector
- Billy O' Donoghue
- Gender
- Male
- Address
- Clonmore, Co. Wexford
- Informant
- William Redmond
- Gender
- Male
- Age
- 76
- Address
- Sparrowsland, Co. Wexford
