School: Druim Caol (roll number 4552)
- Location:
- Drumkeel, Co. Leitrim
- Teacher: Tomás Mac Suibhne
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0202, Page 503
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 Caol
- XML Page 503
- XML “The Little Red Cow”
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
- Once upon a time there lived a man and his wife and four children on the shores of Lough Gill. They were very poor because the man was so fond of drink. Each time he sold a cow he drank the price of her. When he took out the last cow to the fair his wife told him to bring back some sort of a cow or the children would be at a great loss. He spent all the money and took home no cow. Next evening as his wife sat crying at the fire a little red cow walked in on the floor and began to chew her cud. She stocked the land with heifer calves. As she grew old she became very ugly. When the children grew up they said she was a disgrace on the farm. So they sent for a butcher to kill her. While the butcher was preparing to kill her the cow and all the cattle on the farm took a race into Lough Gill and were never seen again.
- Collector
- Tom Harkin
- Gender
- Male
- Address
- Drumkeel, Co. Leitrim
