School: Cooley

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1. Wild Birds (continued)

   

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   one egg out of the nest every day then she will lay on until she gets up the count and then if the eggs are left back in the nest she will hatch them all.
   One time the birds wanted to know which of them would be the king. They went to St. Columcille to find out this as there was no right agreement among them as to which of them should be king. St. Columcille agreed to be judge between them and he said that the bird which would fly the highest would be the king. All of them agreed that this would be fair and that they should would always live by it. Then he started them to fly and they were not far up till first one dropped out, and so on until at last the eagle only seemed to be left and when he reached the highest what happened but up flew the wren from the eagle's back and it flew a few feet higher in the sky and then came down the king of all the birds. St. Colmcille could not go back on his word and he said that it should never fly any higher above the earth than what it flew above the eagle's back. That is why to the present time that the wren can only fly the height of a man's knee above the ground.

   

   Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.

   History Edit

   Topics

   1. agents (~1)
      1. animal-lore (~1,185)
         1. bird-lore (~2,478)

   Language

   English

   Collector

   Charles Lynch

   Gender

   Male

   Address

   Glencrow, Co. Donegal