Irish Animal Folk Tales for Children Read online

  Come on Daisy! Let’s trick him.

  She turned into an old woman, hid her blind eye under straggly dirty hair and limped towards Cuculan, leading an old cow.

  Cuculan said, ‘I’m very thirsty. Could you give me a drink of milk? Please?’

  The Morrigan milked the cow into an earthenware bowl. He drank it, felt better and said, ‘Thank you kindly and bless you.’

  ‘Ha! Ha! Ha!’ laughed the Morrigan, ‘I thought you said you’d never bless me!’ She turned back into a raven and flew away to cause more trouble – but that’s another story.

  My friend John Gray told me this story about forty years ago. Is that old enough to qualify? In all honesty I don’t know. I like it so I’m going to tell it because it explains something I always wondered about.

  I can’t quite remember John’s story exactly, so my version might be slightly different. That’s what happens with folk tales. They change a bit over time, unless they are learnt off by heart.

  Belfast is a beautiful city surrounded by hills. When I was wee you could stand in the middle of the city, look up and see them.

  Unfortunately houses have been built on the Castlereagh Hills so you can’t see green hills to the east of the city, but you can still see the Cave Hill. It towers above Belfast and has a huge cliff called Napoleon’s Nose.

  I grew up in Belfast and I often saw small fires on the Cave Hill and wondered what caused them. I asked my mummy and she said it was the farmers burning gorse.

  I didn’t think that was right so I asked Granda Finlay.

  Granda said, ‘I think those fires are caused by magic dragons we can’t see. Let’s go and have a look and see if we can find out. It’s a long walk. Are you game? We could bring Scamp.’

  I was game. I loved going for long walks with Granda. He was fun. He used to do interesting things like call the cows to the gates of fields and talk to them. He grew up in the country and knew how to call the cows and what they were saying and he told me.

  Mummy said Granda was an ‘auld fool’ but if I wanted to go with him and look for dragons that was all right with her, so off we went.

  It was a long walk, up through Belfast Castle grounds and on to the hills, along the steep path past the three caves.

  Granda told me in the distant past many people were so poor they couldn’t afford a house so they lived in caves.

  He said, ‘Naughty people lived in the big cave at the bottom of the cliff. They made it into a shebeen. That’s a place where you can buy Mountain Dew, an illegal drink also called poiteen! It’s the strongest alcoholic drink you can get. It would blow your head off!’

  I agreed that was a bad thing, but we couldn’t blame them. Granda said, ‘When I was a lad you couldn’t come into the castle grounds because the game warden would have shot you! Lots of people were starving so they went into big estates, like this, to hunt rabbits and deer.

  ‘The people who owned the land lived in the big houses and had plenty to eat. They didn’t like starving people stealing rabbits and deer so they put signs up saying, “Trespassers will be shot” and hired gamekeepers to shoot strangers. It didn’t matter if the person shot was killed because he’d been warned!’

  I was shocked!

  It was very difficult to walk on the top of Cave Hill. One minute I had to take a big step up and the next step was away down a hole.

  Granda said, ‘The way the land goes up and down in ridges is what remains of the old lazy beds.’

  I asked what lazy beds were. He said, ‘In the late 1700s and early 1800s there were so many people living in Ireland every square inch of land was used to grow potatoes. People hadn’t anything to eat, apart from potatoes, so they grew them everywhere, even on top of mountains. You can see the land up here’s very wet. If you planted potatoes in it they would rot.

  ‘Farmers were very crafty. They put a line of manure on top of the earth, placed their potatoes on top, dug a trench beside the line and put the earth from the trench on top of the potatoes.

  ‘That was very clever because the trench drained water off the land and the farmers saved time because they didn’t dig a whole field, only half of it. That’s why they’re called lazy beds.

  ‘There was a great famine beginning in 1845. The potato crop failed for several years in a row and many people either died of hunger or emigrated. The population became so scarce it hasn’t recovered. That’s why potatoes aren’t grown up there and all we can see is the remains of the old lazy beds.’

  I think those flames are caused by dragons.

  When Granda and I were on top of the Cave Hill it was covered by wild heather and gorse. The gorse was on fire and we didn’t see anybody!

  We watched the fires for some time. The flames spread slowly but sometimes we could see a small ripple pass over them.

  Granda said, ‘I think invisible dragons might be eating the gorse.’

  I agreed and didn’t think much more about it until my friend, John Gray, told me the following story.

  A long time ago in the 1930s a boy, called, Michael, who was 12 years of age, lived with his mummy and daddy in Clara Street, in east Belfast. He went to Elmgrove Primary School and was miserable because three nasty boys, Scrap, Mitcher and Mosey, bullied him, and his mummy was very house proud. She was so fussy she’d have made the sun wipe its feet before it came in the house! The sun never got in because the blinds were kept shut so it wouldn’t fade the furniture.

  Everybody told Michael he lived in a little palace. He thought he’d rather live in a house, so he could get covered in mud without being scolded and his mummy wasn’t always polishing furniture or fluffing up cushions. He didn’t have any brothers or sisters, so he was very lonely.

  One day Scrap crept up behind him and hissed, ‘I’m going to knock the melt out of you on the way home from school!’

  Michael was so scared he did a soft smelly one and ran towards his house as fast as his legs would carry him out.

  Scrap nearly caught him outside Boxy’s shop, but Michael dashed inside and stood there panting.

  Nobody knew why Boxy was called Boxy. Perhaps it was because he had so many boxes in his shop, or perhaps because he’d once been a boxer?

  His mother said he was a ‘scruffy old man’ but Michael liked him. He was interesting, very wise and full of stories about the time he’d been a sailor and had travelled the world.

  Boxy said, ‘Hello Michael, is that big bully outside annoying you?’

  Michael was so upset he couldn’t answer. Boxy smiled and said, ‘My old women has made some apple tart. I think she’d give you a share.’

  He opened the door at the back of the shop and led Michael into his cosy kitchen.

  ‘Wife,’ he said, ‘here’s a young fella whose tongue is hanging out for a piece of tart.’

  Boxy’s wife drew a chair up in front of the American stove. (It looked something like the wood-burning stoves we have today but it burnt coal and had a lid on the top so you could drop fuel on the fire. It was used for cooking. There’s one in one of the houses in the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum at Cultra. That’s on the main road between Holywood and Bangor, County Down.)

  The shop bell sounded. Boxy answered, served a customer, returned and sat down with a cup of tea in one hand and a piece of tart in the other. ‘Michael,’ he said, ‘have you ever thought about getting a pet? I think a boy such as you could do with one.’

  ‘I can’t have a pet. I’d love a dog, but Mummy says dogs are smelly, they’d poo in the yard, cause a mess and drop hairs all over the place. She won’t let me have a cat ’cos she says cats give her the shivers and they’d probably scratch our nice new settee and I can’t have a rabbit, or a guinea pig, or a hamster, or even a fish.

  ‘She says a pet would be a nuisance and she’d end up looking after it.’

  Boxy said, ‘You need something special, something magical, something like a dragon. Come to the back door and look at the Cave Hill.

  ‘Do you see that big clif
f beyond the ships and the cranes? Do you see the three caves where people used to live? They are deep and black as soot. Dragons live there now.

  ‘Do you see patches of smoke drifting over the hill caused by young dragons eating gorse?

  ‘Tell you what, Michael, next Saturday take a wee dander round Smithfield. Go to the pet shop in Gresham Street, walk past it and look carefully at all the doors. There’s a magic shop run by an old man. He has baby dragons and he might give you one.

  ‘If there’s magic in the air you’ll see a special door. I can’t describe it but you’ll recognise it. Go inside and see what happens.’

  Michael was so excited he did big loud smelly ones, so he sounded like a motorbike all the way home!

  That night he dreamt of dragons. At first he was frightened but the dragons were friendly. A baby one smiled and rubbed its scaly head against him. He woke up and thought, ‘I’d love a pet dragon!’

  Next Saturday, Michael got up early, walked down the Castlereagh Road, over the Albert Bridge and into the centre of Belfast. He went past the big Albert Clock, up High Street, along the side of the Bank Buildings (they burnt down last year but are being rebuilt) and into Gresham Street. He stood outside the pet shop and looked at the puppies in the window. There was a cute little black and white one with a curly tail and big eyes. It came over to the window, looked at Michael and seemed to say, ‘I’d love to be your dog!’

  Michael gulped and walked slowly up the street looking carefully at the doors. Suddenly he saw a strange shop. It didn’t have a name, the paintwork was peeling and covered with peculiar signs. There was nothing in the window, just a black curtain. He turned the handle and went in.

  An old man with a long black beard stood at the back of the shop. He said, ‘Come this way Michael, I’ve been expecting you.’ He opened the door to another room. It was very dark and everything had a weird glow.

  The old man went over to a door in the back and opened a furnace that was burning fiercely inside. He took a shovel, and, quick as a flash, thrust it into the flames, pulled it out again, slammed the door shut and looked at what was on it. Nothing apart from ash and coals. He did the same thing again – nothing.

  The old man sighed, ‘Oh dear!’ He said, ‘It looks as if none of the baby dragons want to come and live with you. I can only try once more. Here goes, Fingers crossed!’ He put the shovel back into the fire. When he took it out again there was a tiny dragon that was glowing red hot. Its eyes sparkled like diamonds, wee puffs of smoke came out of its nose. It smiled up at Michael and wagged its tiny spiky tail.

  Look Michael! There’s your dragon.

  ‘That’s your dragon,’ said the old man.

  Michael nearly burst into tears, ‘I haven’t any money!’ he gasped.

  The old man laughed, ‘You can’t buy magic! You don’t need money. Here you are, here’s your dragon.’

  Michael picked the dragon up and put it into his pocket. He was very happy. He walked home, opened the front door and went in. His mummy was sitting on the sofa having a wee cup of tea in her hand.

  That’s one of Ireland’s strange sayings. ‘Would you like a wee cup of tea in your hand?’ doesn’t mean anyone’s going to pour tea into your hand. It means, ‘Would you like a cup of tea (usually with a biscuit and a piece of cake) sitting beside the fire rather than at a table.’

  Michael’s mummy was tired so she was sitting on the sofa drinking tea and eating a bit of chocolate cake. She’d spent the whole day polishing, tidying, washing clothes, ironing, cooking and scrubbing floors and the outside step. When she was tired she was cross, so she snapped at Michael, ‘Where have you been all day?’

  ‘I walked down to Smithfield and an old man gave me a dragon.’

  ‘Michael, how many times have I told you, you mustn’t tell stories?’

  ‘Honestly Mummy, I’m telling the truth. Look!’ He lifted the dragon out of his pocket and held it out so his mummy could see it. She screamed!

  A big flame shot out of the dragon’s mouth and scorched one of her slippers.

  Michael’s dad came in through the front door.

  ‘That looks interesting,’ he said. ‘What is it?’

  The moment he spoke, the dragon stopped belching fire and flame, looked up, turned its head towards Michael’s dad and smiled.

  Michael’s mother screamed, ‘It’s a wee monster! It’s scorched one of my slippers.’

  The dragon turned round, breathed another flame and scorched the other one.

  Michael’s dad laughed, ‘Maisie,’ he said, ‘I think that dragon doesn’t like hearing you scolding.’

  The dragon immediately stopped belching flames and sat quietly in Michael’s hand.

  Michael’s dad said, ‘Michael I think you should put the dragon in the coal scuttle. It’ll like being in there and it can see us while we have our tea.’

  He opened out the gate-leg table, and Michael helped set it while his mother cooked a big fry of potato bread, soda bread, bacon, tomatoes, eggs and sausages.

  Michael gave the dragon a piece of fried bread. The dragon spat it out.

  Magic dragons know that fries aren’t good for you. They’re full of cholesterol that clogs up your arteries so your blood can’t flow round your body properly, if you have them too often.

  The dragon looked very happy in the coal scuttle. Michael’s mum threw it a piece of coal. The dragon caught it in its mouth and everybody laughed.

  Mum smiled and said, ‘It’s really cute, isn’t it?’

  Once the dishes were washed and dried they had a lovely night playing with the dragon.

  At bedtime Mum said, ‘The dragon can’t go to bed with you, Michael. It might set the bedclothes on fire.’

  Dad said, ‘I think it’ll be fine in the coal bucket. It looks happy and if it gets hungry it can always eat a piece of coal.’

  Mum said, ‘I think we should put it out in the yard to do a poo.’

  Dad said, ‘It’s magic, so it doesn’t poo, or do smelly ones. The only trouble is it won’t stay long. Magic doesn’t hang around.’

  The family had a lovely weekend, the nicest Michael could remember. They went as usual to McQuiston Memorial Church in the morning, had Sunday lunch then walked up the Castlereagh Hills. It was a beautiful day and the dragon enjoyed looking at the marvellous view over Belfast.

  Dad pointed out Harland and Wolff Shipyard, where the Titanic had been built.

  Michael tried to look interested. Dad told him that every time they walked up there. Grown-ups are like that aren’t they? They keep repeating themselves.

  On Monday, Michael discovered the dragon had grown but it was still small enough to fit into his schoolbag so he took it to school. He popped some pieces of coal into his pockets so the dragon could have lunch. He’d a great time in the playground showing the dragon to his friends and explaining how he couldn’t keep it for long. Scrap, Mitcher and Mosey looked as if they’d like to bully him but didn’t dare come near because he had so many friends round him.

  After school Scrap, Mitcher and Mosey chased Michael along the Beersbridge Road and caught up with him at the end of Clara Street. Mitcher grabbed him by the shoulders, while Scrap and Mosey yelled, ‘What have you got in your schoolbag?’

  Michael was very worried in case they hurt his precious dragon so he held it tight, kicked Mitcher’s shins and yelled, ‘Wind yer neck in.’

  The dragon burst out of Michael’s schoolbag. It was furious so it belched flames. Mosey did a big smelly one. Smelly ones are made of methane gas. It’s easily set alight so Mosey’s trousers went on fire. Michael laughed and laughed. The dragon set Scrap’s and Mitcher’s trousers on fire so they had to go home with bare bums! Their mums were very cross. They didn’t believe their sons’ trousers had been burnt by a dragon. They thought the boys had set their pants on fire by smoking.

  Ha! Ha! Ha! Let that larn ye!

  That night the dragon flew away. Michael missed it but life had changed for him. Mum stopped
spending all day every day polishing and cleaning. He was allowed to bring friends home and his house became a fun place to live.

  Scrap, Mitcher and Mosey didn’t bully him any more. They were scared because they thought Michael might have another dragon in his schoolbag!

  Bullies are like that. They are cowards and if you stand up to them they run away. Best of all, Dad came home with a puppy and Michael had a pet to love.

  I hope Michael knows I’m here.

  Michael never forgot his dragon. Sometimes, in bed at night, he heard drumming on the roof and knew his dragon was sitting there, and when he saw fires burning on Cave Hill he thought, ‘My dragon and his friends are enjoying the fresh air and eating gorse. I bet that’s more tasty than lumps of coal.’

  Hound awoke, stretched and growled. He was cross. He was always cross. He went over to the edge of his cage and looked out through the bars. The warriors and their wives were preparing for the night. The huge gates in the fence were shut and vats of mead were being carried into the house.

  Hound howled, ‘WOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHH! WOOOOOOOOOH! WOOOOOOOOH!’

  The sound sent shivers up the spines of all those who heard it, except Culan, who thought, ‘That hound is a fantastic watchdog! It’ll eat intruders on sight.

  ‘Now, is everyone safely inside? Hound’ll kill you if he sees you.’

  Culan did a head count of his wife and children, King Conor and his courtiers. They were all there.

  ‘Right you are,’ he said, ‘I’ll feed Hound and let him out.’

  Culan was very pleased with himself. He was very rich, the best blacksmith in the land. He made shields, spears, swords and needles by royal appointment for King Conor himself.

  He’d invited King Conor and his courtiers to spend the night. The party was going well. The king drank a lot of mead, enjoyed stories told by the bard, laughed at the juggler and enjoyed the dancing girls!