School: Convent of Mercy, Kilmacthomas

Location:
Coill Mhic Thomáisín, Co. Phort Láirge
Teacher:
Sr M. Aloysius
Browse
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0648, Page 150

Archival Reference

The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0648, Page 150

Image and data © National Folklore Collection, UCD.

See copyright details.

Download

Open data

Available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

  1. XML School: Convent of Mercy, Kilmacthomas
  2. XML Page 150
  3. XML “An Old Story - Widow's Son”

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

  1. (continued from previous page)
    his sickness," said the Druid. "until he tells it he will never be well. Let him go to where four roads meet. He must turn to the right, there tell his secret to the first tree he sees before him".
    The son did so. He walked to the place where the four roads met. No sooner had he spoken that he was as well as ever.
    Shortly after that, the King's Harper broke the wooden post of his harp, and mended it with a piece of that very tree to which the widow's son had told his secret. Next time the Harper played on it, the hearers heard no music, but instead they heard "Labhra the King has horse's ears". Now the King's secret was a secret no longer, and the people all knew why so many innocent men were put to death.
    Labhra became full with shame, and he felt sorry for so many men to be put death, because of his own foolish and sinful pride. He tore the hood from his head, and from that day he never hid his long and ugly ears.
    Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.
    Folktales index
    AT0782: Midas and the Ass's Ears
    Language
    English
    Collector
    Stacia Barron
    Gender
    Female
    Address
    Faiche Fuíollach, Co. Phort Láirge