School: Scairt (B.), Cill Dairbhe (roll number 4126)
- Location:
- Scart, Co. Cork
- Teacher: Pádraig Ó Rinn
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0375, Page 229
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- XML School: Scairt (B.), Cill Dairbhe
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- XML “Story”
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- 229
Story
There is always pishogues connected with May-Eve but the story I'm about to relate is founded on fact. On Quitrent mountain there lived a family named O'Byrnes. They had one child about one year old, and on May-Eve the father and mother went cutting turf and they took the child with them in a kishawn.
They were about two hundred yards away from the child as they left him in a hollow for the shade, when a sudden gale of wind came and the child gave a roar.
The mother ran to the child and noticed something queer about him and she took him home. From that time his body never grew but his head got very large. He never walked or never talked but used to sit by the fire on the ground with his legs crossed and used to laugh and smile but his head and face were like an old mans.
They left him by the fire another day about thirty years after and they were out again at turf. When they returned to the house there was no sign of the "child" as they called him. They were in a terrible state knowing that the child could not walk, and trying to find out where he had gone. At last they(continues on next page)
- Informant
- Mr Slyne
- Gender
- Male
- Age
- 80
