The stooped mother
The stooped mother is a fairy tale . It is contained in the Irish fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm at position 21, which they translated in 1825 from Fairy legends and traditions of the South of Ireland by Thomas Crofton Croker .
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The happy old Margareth Barrett tells how her back got so crooked: Out of grief over her husband's death, she had stayed away too long to weed potatoes on the evening before May Day. A huge black billy goat stood on the wall of her estate, stared at her and jumped onto her back. She went home, but could neither move nor be loud. Only when she crossed herself three times did he fall away. That was the púca , she explains to her grandson.
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Grimm gives explanations of the spin game mentioned in the text (apparently similar to hockey ), with which the move of the masked people on May Day is connected. The night before, one fears the evil eye and the touch of the elves.
literature
- Irish fairy tales. In the broadcast by the Brothers Grimm. Frankfurt am Main and Leipzig, first edition 1987. pp. 224-230, 270-273. (Insel Verlag; ISBN 978-3-458-32688-5 ; The text follows the edition: Irische Elfenmärchen. Translated by the Brothers Grimm. Friedrich Fleischer, Leipzig 1826. Orthography and punctuation were slightly normalized.)