School: Druim na dTréad
- Location:
- Drumnatread, Co. Cavan
- Teacher: S. Stondúin
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 1019, Page 189
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: Druim na dTréad
- XML Page 189
- XML “Herbs - The Bracken”
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
- Locally it is believed that the herb known as the "bracken", (which seems to me to be nothing other than the wild fern) is said to blossom and seed all in one hour, the hour being that from twelve to one o'clock on the night of the 21st (or 2th) of June. Of course to all appearance the bracken or fern never blossoms.
The person who succeeds in catching the seed is supposed to be all powerful. In order to catch it a person must go at its blossoming hour, mentioned above, and stand inside a circle of the brackens which he has carefully placed around him. While waiting inside this circle for the lucky hour, he is supposed to be tempted very strongly by the "Good People" (fairies) to leave the bracken-circle. They offer him all sorts of attractions from outside the ring in the endeavor to allure him out of it; for for once he leaves the ring, he fails to catch the bracken-seed. He must hold in his hands three plates: - a silver plate on the bottom, a copper plate over it and a "plither plather" (pewter) plate on top. It is believed(continues on next page)
- Collector
- Seosamh Stonndúin
- Gender
- Male
- Informant
- Lucás Ó Raghallaigh
- Gender
- Male
- Address
- Drumnatread, Co. Cavan
