School: An Chúil Árd (roll number 12587)
- Location:
- Coolard, Co. Kerry
- Teacher: Seán Ó Duilleáin
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0401, Page 220
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- XML “An Old Story”
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- Long ago there lived a man who had two children a boy and a girl. Their mother died when they were young and their father married the second time. The wife had a daughter who was ugly. She hated her step-children and wanted to kill them. One day she went to a druid and the druid gave her an enchanted rod. When she came home she struck the boy with it and he was turned into a calf. Then she struck the girl and she was turned into a pigeon. She told their father that they were gone visiting. Not long after this her daughter got sick and nothing would cure her but the liver and lights of the calf. The calf was to be killed one day when a butcher came. When he was going to stick the calf the pigeon flew in and began to say. "O brother, O brother are you going to die? O brother, O brother sorry am I". The butcher would not stick the calf. They could get no butcher to stick him. Next day he went at him the pigeon began the same thing. The man followed her. The pigeon went into the room where the stick was. She rubbed herself to it and got her own shape back again. She took the rod and did the same thing to the calf and he got his own shape. The old woman and her daughter were killed.
- Collector
- Diarmuid Mahony
- Gender
- Male
- Address
- Coolkeragh, Co. Kerry
- Informant
- William Stack
- Gender
- Male
- Age
- 75
- Address
- Coolkeragh, Co. Kerry
