Irish Animal Folk Tales for Children E-Book

Doreen McBride

• Herausgeber: THP Ireland
• Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 107

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

How did a tiny wren manage to be crowned King of the Birds? Why did giant Finn McCool's favourite dogs change into mountains? What happened to turn a friendly cat into a cruel fiend who plotted to destroy mankind? Irish Animal Tales for Children is packed with ghostly goings-on, weird characters and wonderful animals. Irreverently told by award-winning storyteller Doreen McBride, these stories are not for the faint of heart!

Leseprobe

This book is dedicated to my dear friend Dr Joy Higginson, who has been a constant source of encouragement – although as a past headmistress of Victoria College, Belfast, she really should know better – and to my special friends, Alfie (eight), Cadan (five), Chris (thirteen) and Louis (seven).

Illustrated by the authorCover illustration by Su Eaton

WARNING: This book isnot suitable for adults.

First published 2021

The History Press

The Mill, Brimscombe Port

Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QG

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

© Doreen McBride, 2021

The right of Doreen McBride to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the Publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 0 7509 9651 8

Typesetting and origination by Typo•glyphix, Burton-on-Trent

Printed in Great Britain by TJ Books Limited, Padstow, Cornwall.

eBook converted by Geethik Technologies

CONTENTS

Introduction

  1Titanic’s Ghostly Dogs

  2 The Murderous Morrigan

  3 The Dragons on Belfast’s Cave Hill

  4 Culan’s Horrendous Hound

  5 King of the Birds

  6 Saint Patrick and the Snakes

  7 The Fate of Finn McCool’s Favourite Dogs

  8 Moyry Castle’s Killer Cat

  9 Why Spiders are Lucky

10 The Children of Lir

11 Mythological Hares

12 Why Robin has a Red Breast

13 The Mystery of the Black Pig’s Dyke

14 The Dabhur Chur Monster

15 The Talking Cat

16 Bristle and Grunt

INTRODUCTION

Did you ever feel so scared you could poop your pants? Well, that’s how I feel now! I love animals and I love folk tales, so I thought, ‘Why don’t I write a book about animals in folk tales?’

The trouble is I don’t really know what a folk tale is or what an animal is.

I know a folk tale’s a very old story that’s been passed down from one generation to the next. But how old is old?

I know a ‘once upon a time’ sort of time counts but what about fifty years old? How long does it take a story to become a folk tale?

The other thing that’s scaring me is, if a person turns into an animal does he or she count as a person or an animal?

I asked my special friends Alfie and Louis and we decided that if I’ve heard a story from say, fifty years ago, and I like it, I should share it. If a person turns into an animal that person can be counted as an animal. I hope you’ll forgive us if you disagree.

As I’ve said, I’m scared stiff but I’ve just remembered an old story about a scary giant who lived in the mountains above a valley and terrorised people living below. Every time people tried to escape the giant used to come out and shout:

Fee Fi Fo Fum,

I smell your bum!

And they all ran away! Then one day a very brave person decided to get out of the valley.

I’m sorry, I don’t know if it was a boy or a girl – so let’s say it was you in a past life! When you decided to escape you grabbed a sword and charged towards the giant. As you ran, the giant became smaller and smaller and smaller until you were standing in front of him and were able to pick him up in your hand and ask, ‘What is your name?’ He said, ‘My name is Fear!’

Has that ever happened to you? You were scared of doing something, like having to read in Assembly, or sing a solo? Then you did it and were pleased with yourself. You faced your giant and it disappeared.

I think the best thing I can do is face my fear so I’m going to get on with writing. It’s not as if writing stories is dangerous, in which case I’d be sensible and not do it. I don’t want either you, or me, to be stupid and do something dangerous! That’s a no-brainer.

I’ve always been fascinated by Titanic. She was the largest, most beautiful ship in the whole wide world and she was built in Belfast.

My grandfather, Sam Finlay, was a cabinet maker, who worked on the first-class cabins. He said they were fantastic and he wished he had enough money to travel in one of them. (A first-class ticket for a suite on Titanic cost £870 – in today’s money that would be £49,642!) The average working man’s wage was £160 a year and he had to work a fifty-six-hour week to earn that! It’s no wonder Grandpa said, ‘Ye don’t know you’re living today!’ (He died in 1963.)

Titanic was built by the famous White Star Line. On her first, and only, voyage she picked up crew and passengers in Southampton before sailing to Cherbourg, where other passengers embarked.

Titanic was built in Thompson Dry Dock in Belfast’s Titanic Quarter. I climbed down the metal stairway to the bottom of the dock and felt I was surrounded by gigantic cliffs. I dandered along the bottom and an old man came and told me about the Nomadic.

He said, ‘Titanic’s first port of call was Cherbourg. Its harbour wasn’t big enough for such a large ship so two small boats (tenders), Nomadic and Traffic, ferried people across.

‘The Nomadic is one quarter of Titanic’s size and she, like Titanic, was designed by Thomas Andrews and had similar luxurious finishes. The crew stretched a gangway between the Nomadic’s flying bridge and Titanic’s E Deck to enable passengers to board.’

The passengers included Miss Ann Elisabeth Isham with her beloved Great Dane, and one of the world’s richest men, John Jacob Astor, his young wife Madeleine, and their dog, an Airedale called Kitty. (He had booked the most expensive cabin. Imagine that! Nearly £50,000, in today’s money, for a one-way ticket to New York! If I spent £50,000 on a single ticket to cross the Atlantic I’d wet my knickers!)

The sea was very choppy so the gangway swayed like mad and several men did their best to hold it steady, but even so a woman fell and twisted her ankle. The Astors and their dog got across safely.

Kitty and the Great Dane weren’t the only dogs on Titanic. There were twelve altogether, but only the tiny ones you could stick up your coat survived (two Pomeranians and a Pekinese called Sun Yat Sen.) She boarded at Cherbourg.

Titanic sailed from Cherbourg to Queenstown on Ireland’s south coast. More passengers embarked at Queenstown and a few disembarked. Then Titanic set out on the long journey to New York.

(Queenstown’s name has been changed to Cobh. It has an interesting Titanic Museum that’s well worth a visit. I went to see it when I was staying in Cork. I enjoyed the train along the coast from Cork to Cobh.)

The chairman of the White Star Line, Joseph Bruce Ismay, was on board. He wanted to cross the Atlantic in record time so he and the captain, Edward James Smith, ignored all the radio messages about the danger of icebergs and sailed full steam ahead. On 12 April 1912 Titanic hit an iceberg and sank.

When Nomadic’s life at sea ended she was turned into a restaurant and moored on the River Seine beside the Eiffel Tower. Eventually she came up for auction. People in Belfast were very excited, so they decided to buy the old tender and bring her home. The Nomadic Preservation Society was formed and they worked very hard raising the money needed. They succeeded and now she’s moored in Belfast’s Hamilton Dock.

Poor Nomadic was in a very bad way when she arrived home! She’d had her top cut off so she could get under new bridges built over the River Seine after she’d been moored beside the Eiffel Tower, and some of her beautiful panelling had been removed. She was so rusty she was in danger of sinking and had to be tied to another ship to keep her afloat (they were towed by tugs).

When she got home, members of The Nomadic Preservation Society found some more of her panelling in a restaurant in Paris and her lifeboats were in Belgium! They were brought home and restoration work began.

Do you hear yon dog barking? Well it’s not there!

One night two men were working late in the Nomadic. It was dark. They heard voices, a man and a woman talking and dogs barking. There was nobody there! The men’s hair stood on end and shivers shimmied up their spines. Ghosts!

Kitty, the Great Dane and their owners sank with the Titanic. Kitty’s body was never found. John Jacob Astor’s body was identified by the gold watch in his pocket. (His wife survived because he put her into a lifeboat.)

Miss Ann Elizabeth Isham got into a lifeboat, was not allowed to take her dog on board and climbed out again. Several days later her frozen body was recovered floating in the sea with her arms around her Great Dane.

I’ve no proof of this, but as John Jacob Astor was so fond of Kitty he probably went and got her out of Titanic’s kennels and went down with his dog. Titanic was lost, so he, Miss Ann Elizabeth Isham and their dogs have come back to haunt the Nomadic instead.

You can visit the Nomadic. She’s moored in Belfast Lough beside the Titanic Museum. She’s important because she’s the last White Star Line ship anywhere in the world.

This is a very old story, going back to the ancient people, called the Celts, who used to live in Ireland a long, long time ago, about 2,000 years ago. If you count time by the number of sleeps you could have had since this story was first told you’d have to count about 630,000 sleeps! You have to admit that’s very old! It’s been handed down hundreds of years.

The Morrigan was the Goddess of War. She had magic powers so she could change into any shape she liked! One minute she might be a cow, or a human, or a snake, or a wolf, or anything at all. Her ‘proper’ shape was a big black bird called a raven. It looks like a crow, but is much bigger. The Morrigan lived in Ravensdale – that’s near Dundalk. There’s a hamlet there today. You’ll see it signposted on the main road between Dundalk and Newry.

One day the Morrigan was sitting on a tree in Ravensdale. She was bored and making bad-tempered ‘Caw! Caw!’ noises. She was a nasty bird, the kind of animal Ulster people call a ‘bad baist’ (beast).

Suddenly something caught her eye. She strained to see through the trees. What was it? Ahhhhhhhhhhhh! It was Cuculan. He was a Celt and I told you the Celts had a lot of peculiar habits. They loved to fight and wanted to get killed in battle because they thought their souls would go straight to a heaven called The Otherworld!

Before going into battle they took their clothes off and painted ferocious things, like animals, on their bodies in blue with a herb called ‘woad’.

(In this climate I keep my clothes firmly on, although I can see being naked while fighting has advantages because you wouldn’t make your mummy cross by getting your clothes covered in blood! It’s hard to wash off!)

Cuculan was dressed for war! In other words, he was as naked as the day he was born and he’d painted his body blue!

‘Wow!’ thought the Morrigan, as she fell in love, ‘OOOOOOOOOH! Wow! He’s fit and he’s dressed for war. I love a good fight!’

Wow! He’s fit!

Ulster was in terrible danger because it was being attacked by Queen Maeve and her army, while the men of Ulster suffered from a terrible curse. Whenever Ulster was in danger, its warriors had terrible pains in their tummies so they couldn’t get out of bed for nine days and nine nights.

Cuculan didn’t suffer from the curse because he was the son of a god. He was all alone, defending Ulster.

Imagine that! How would you like to be alone fighting a whole army?