An Chraobh Airgid

Idea

The Fairy Thorn

The old hawthorn standing by itself that nobody would cut: the Good People’s bush.

Open it on the full site There every name opens, and a web shows who is kin to whom.

In Irish folklore a big old hawthorn growing alone, in a field, beside an old well or in an old fort, belonged to the Good People, and nobody would cut it. Lady Wilde wrote in 1887 that under it was their “favourite camp and resting-place”, that they danced under its branches at night, and that it generally stood in the middle of a fairy ring. In The Lone Thorn, J. Doheny cuts a thorn in a thicket, thinking no harm since it was not standing by itself, and hears a voice that he takes for one of them, mourning for it.

In the tales

  • The Lone Thorn Nobody would cut a lone old thorn in a field: it was the Good People’s. One man cut a thorn in a thicket, and heard a voice he took for one of them, mourning for it.

See also

Sources

Collected folklore. Recorded from storytellers and local tradition.

Each tale above lists the sources it is retold from. Every source the site draws on is listed on the full site.