The Fairy tree

There was a man one time who lived in Malin with his wife. Their house was beside a river. At the side of this river there grew a bunch of "sally rods" which people said they shouldn't be touched because it was a fairy tree .In olden times the people used to make creels and baskets out of rods. So this man went down one might and pulled a burden of the rods to make creels. When he came into the house, his wife asked him what happened to his face and he said nothing happened his face but she said "something must have happened because your nose is on the side of your face. Then she asked him where he got the rods and he told her where he got them, she told him to go back and leave them in the same place where he got them and ask pardon of the fairies if he did anything wrong.So he did what she told him, and when he returned "back" to the house his nose was in the right place. 

A story from Donegal collected by Bernadette McGory from Mary Crampsey, part of the National Folklore Collection compiled in the 1930s.
Hawthorns/blackthorns/whitethorns/salleys - are fairy trees, the moral of the story is do not mess with them! Do not even think of cutting a bit for your home or because it annoys you for the fairies will be swift to retaliate!
This rather magnificent whitethorn/hawthorn was passed on our walk today and treated with appropriate reverence, noses so far in the right place. I believe it is a blip birthday and I abandoned the Index (p160) and dragged Himself off for a walk to find something different than the usual sights on the circuit. It was a mighty walk and we were breathless by the time we reached the top of a fairly considerable incline. We passed:
a clachán (small cluster of buildings) where St Crochan is meant to have lived - so austere was he he made his house so small that his legs protruded from the doorway. All true.
a very handsome chilled bull with is harem
some new born calves and their mummies
a delightful dilapidated door blipped several times before
a ringfort ( the expanse of russet)
and a stone row!


Thank you to everyone working behind the scenes to keep Blip up and running, and here's to us blippers - what a kind, friendly and supportive lot we are. We take some pretty fab photos too.
King of the Fairies