The Fairy Changeling

Year: 1935

Collector: Seán de Buitléir

Location: Wexford

Informant: James Roche


I have heard another story of a fairy changeling similar to the one in the beginning of this book. It is the story of a man and his wife that were married for a long time and had no family.

When they were about five years married this man, Murphy was his name also, ploughed a field in which was a fairy path. Nothing happened for a long time but about a year afterwards a child was born to them. It was exactly the same size at a year old as it was when it was born. At two months old it was able to walk and has its nose in everybody's business, and at six months old it had all its teeth. It could never be got to sleep but would stay awake almost all night and it also had some very strange and witty answers.

One day when its father was ploughing he broke a certain part of it. He brought it to a lot of smiths but none of them could weld it. One evening he came home with the broken part after trying six or seven smiths and told his wife he would have to buy a new part for the plough. The child was listening while he was speaking, and says he. "You need never buy a new part Daddy" says he "but bring it to any smith you like and tell him to heat it in a flame the colour of a bees wing.”

The father got an awful fright when he heard the child talking like that but anyhow he brought it to a smith and told him what the child had said. The smith said he couldn't produce such a flame as that, and also told him that he thought there was no other smith in the county could do it except one man that was living in Gorey.

Murphy set out for Gorey and it wasn't long until he came to the smith’s forge. The smith was inside working and he was a very old man, Murphy thought he was surely one hundred years of age. Murphy told him about the part of the plough, how no smith in the county could weld it, and he also told him what the child had said.

When the smith heard the story he wondered greatly. "There is no other smith in the country knows anything about that charm but myself" says he to Murphy and it is certainly a fairy changeling you have for a son. Murphy was greatly troubled when he heard this for he had only one son. "I'll tell you how you'll find out whether it is a fairy changeling or not" says he "when you go home tell him that Gort na Pisha is ablaze".

Murphy went home with the iron welded. When he got inside says he to the child. "Gort na Pisha is ablaze.” “Gort na Pisha is ablaze?" The child looked at him in a terrible fright. "Oh that's awful" says he "as sure as shot me little bag an’ bellows are burned" and away with him out through the window and off in the direction of Gort na Pisha.


Credit to the Dúchas project at the National Folklore Collection, University College Dublin.

Please find more of their fascinating work here:

https://www.duchas.ie/en/info/res

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The Death of Cuchulain by W.B. Yeats

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