The Legend of Knocksheogowna

 

Ordinary white calf or a fairy in disguise? Hard to say.

 

Hello, readers. This week's story comes to us from Ireland. The Legend of Knocksheogowna is an example of why it's a not good idea to bother fairies unless you're prepared to deal with their antics. Read the story in the link above and continue below to analyze it with me.

There's a whole lot of subtext that we could read into the beginning of this story. The fairies have been living in this hill for years when humans decide that they want to keep their cows and sheep on it, and this bothers the fairies. But we don't need to dig into discussions of how we tell who land really belongs to. Just know that the subtext is there.

Since fairies in Irish stories often would rather mess with people than just talk to them, that's exactly what one fairy does. The chief of the fairies not only shows the herdsman disturbing images, she makes him watch them. That sort of makes me wonder if she could have just used her magic to move all of the cows, sheep, and people off of their hill, but I suppose this way is more fun. To her credit, her strategy works for quite awhile. No one will stay on that hill overnight and the herds that stay there are being thinned out.

Then the owner of the hill came across Larry Hoolahan.

Larry, it seems, doesn't fear anything. And he can play an awesome pipe solo. He agrees to go on the hill and watch the herds overnight. The chief of the fairies shows up again to mess with him, but Larry just keeps playing his pipes. I have to wonder why he can move when other herdsmen couldn't. Maybe they couldn't move because they were so afraid and it wasn't the fairy's magic that kept them from moving? Or maybe Larry's music did something to cancel out that part of the fairy's magic?

Larry's already been pretty bold, but my favorite part is after the fairy turns into a calf and he jumps on her back. Wasn't she mad about cows being on the hill? Interesting choice for her to shapeshift into. Anyway, she jumps about 10 miles with Larry on her back and manages to knock him off. That calf has some strong leg muscles.

Larry still isn't bothered by her antics. He gives her a backhanded compliment. The nerve of this man is somewhat inspiring. Fairies in folklore don't have a lot of limitations places on their powers. At any point, she could have turned him into an animal or an inanimate object, or many other things. But she didn't do anything to him directly. He jumped on her back before she took him away from the hill, remember.

Apparently the chief of the fairies is also impressed with him because she says that the fairies will stop bothering the herds that are on that hill as long as Larry keeps them, and that she'll do him a favor if he asks for it. Larry thanks her and the fairies leave the herds alone. We also see that Larry is also smart and not just brave because he never asks the fairy for anything. Fairies could be slippery and if she was in a bad mood when he made his request, she could have made it turn out poorly for him. So it was probably for the best that he never used that favor. In any case, the farmer who owned that hill kept Larry fed and housed until Larry died.

The moral of this story is that you don't mess with fairy hills. Alternatively, if you're going to go toe to toe with fairies, make sure you're not afraid of anything they can do. It will probably work out fine for you if you aren't afraid. Probably.

Curious about why Larry gets a first and last name and no one else gets a name at all? Have a different moral? Want me to talk about a different story? Comment below! And don't forget to subscribe so you know when the next post goes up.