Irish Animal Folk Tales for Children

by Doreen McBride

  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 author

  Cover illustration by Su Eaton

  WARNING: This book is

  not 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

  1 Titanic’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?

  I wouldn’t like it at all, but Cuculan was a champion fighter. My Granny was a great storyteller and she told me he could cut off 200 heads with one swipe of his sword! I didn’t believe her so she said, ‘Cuculan was the Champion of Ireland and a great hero and you never know what you can do until you try!’

  That’s true, isn’t it? You don’t know what you can do until you try but I don’t suggest you try cutting anyone’s head off.

  Cuculan wasn’t scared. He stood on the top of Trumpet Hill, between Carlingford and Dundalk, and threw boulders, rocks and stones at Queen Maeve’s army.

  Cuculan was an excellent shot. He killed so many of Queen Maeve’s warriors she became very worried and thought, ‘My army can’t win the battle with Cuculan. I wonder if he’d agree to take part in single combat?’

  Single combat means each side in a war picks a champion to fight for them and the war’s won by the winner. It keeps a lot of people from being killed and is a very sensible idea. Cuculan agreed because it meant he could fight one warrior at a time and not the whole army.

  Queen Maeve decided one of her warriors, called Loch, was to act as her champion.

  He said he’d rather go home, but she said, ‘Loch, get out there and kill Cuculan or I’ll kill you!’ So Loch decided he’d nothing to lose. If he fought Cuculan there was a slight chance he might survive, and if he didn’t Queen Maeve would murder him.

  Queen Maeve was a nasty woman! She guldered, ‘I appoint my champion Loch to fight you at the Yellow Ford.’

  Cuculan yelled, ‘Right you are! I’m on my way.’

  Queen Maeve.

  The Morrigan thought, ‘He won’t fancy me in my ordinary shape. I’ll change into a beautiful young woman, with long fair hair, flashing blue eyes and a gorgeous dress of many colours.’

  She changed shape, walked up to Cuculan and smiled.

  He scowled at her. He was cross. How dare she walk into a war zone? Was she not right in the head? She could get killed.

  The Morrigan thought Cuculan’s expression was cute so she said, ‘Cuculan, I love you.’ Remember she was the Goddess of War so she loved angry people.

  He shouted, ‘Clear off, you edjiot!’

  The Morrigan smiled and said, ‘I love you and you could at least be polite.’

  ‘I said CLEAR OFF! You’re two sandwiches short of a picnic!’

  The Morrigan was annoyed. ‘Watch it wee lad,’ she snarled, ‘or I’ll bust you.’

  ‘You and what army?’

  ‘I don’t need an army. I’ll turn into an eel and trip you, I’ll cause cattle to stampede and run you down. I’ll become a she-wolf and eat you!’

  Cuculan laughed, did a big loud smelly one and shouted, ‘I’ll smash your ribs with my toes, throw stones at you and burst your eyes, or maybe I’ll just break your legs.’

  ‘I’ll use my power to heal myself.’

  ‘You don’t scare me, Sunshine! I’ll put a curse on you. You won’t heal unless I bless you and I’ll never bless you!’

  The Morrigan decided she didn’t love Cuculan, she hated him and he was very rude. She spat at him!

  Spit not only looks revolting, but it’s full of germs.

  She turned back into a raven, flew to the top of a tree, stood on a branch and shouted, ‘Wow-ab-ab-ab-a-duk!’ – which according to my grandson, Cadan, is the rudest thing an animal can say.

  Queen Maeve’s champion, Loch, met him and the fight began.

  It was tough! Loch was a great warrior. His body was covered in snakeskin armour that made Cuculan’s sword bounce off it.

  They moved back and forward up and down the ford in deadly combat.

  The Morrigan turned herself into a huge eel and wrapped three coils of her long body around Cuculan’s legs. He stumbled and fell.

  Loch saw his opportunity and slashed Cuculan with his sword. Blood gushed into the waters of the for
d, turning it red.

  Cuculan thrust his sword into the eel.

  There was a puff of smelly smoke. The eel disappeared and a herd of cattle appeared.

  The Morrigan turned into a she-wolf and snarled at them, so they stampeded.

  Cuculan lifted a stone, took careful aim and burst one of her eyes.

  The Morrigan yelled, ‘Wow-ab-ab-ab-a-duk!’, turned into a red heifer, went back to the herd of cows and stood in front of them.

  They were very surprised to have a new leader, so they all did big smelly ones!

  Cows’ smelly ones are made of methane gas and each cow produces about 120kg of methane gas each year.

  Do you weigh as much as 120kg? What weight are you?

  Do you think you could ever become as heavy as the amount of methane gas a cow produces each year doing smelly ones?

  Do you do smelly ones?

  Every smelly one adds to the amount of methane gas in the atmosphere. So do those done by dogs, cats and other animals. There’s an awful lot of methane gas in our atmosphere! In the past, Earth could deal with it, but it can’t cope today because there are too many people and too many animals, and we are suffering from global warming because the gas acts like a thermal blanket keeping heat on the earth.

  The Morrigan looked at the cows, turned towards Cuculan, guldered, ‘Come on girls!’ and charged. She hoped to trample Cuculan into the dirt.

  Cuculan threw a rock that broke her legs before seeing a weak spot in Loch’s armour. Shouting, ‘Here! Take this!’, he stuck his spear into Loch’s stomach. Loch fell flat on his face in water and Cuculan cut his head off!

  Come on girls! Charge!

  Cuculan had lost a lot of blood. He was exhausted. He went and hid among the trees and sat with his head in his hands.

  The Morrigan dragged herself away from the ford, lay down and cried her eyes out.

  ‘I was beautiful,’ she sobbed, ‘and look at me now! I’ve only got one eye. My chest’s sore. I can just about drag myself along. Cuculan won’t help. He won’t bless me. Maybe I could trick him … He’s very polite … He’s lost a lot of blood … He’s bound to be thirsty … If I gave him a drink of milk he’d bless me!’