Uploaded October 2025 | Updated September 2026, 4 days ago
Back in 2005, I recorded a collection of folklore in Grantstown Daycare Centre, near Wellingtonbidge, called ‘That’s True You Know’. One of the stories related to me was from two local men, Peter Colfer (Bannow)and John Kehoe (Grantstown), who have since passed away.
They told me a story, childlike in nature, which they had heard growing up, that if you take a hair from the tail of a horse and put it in water, it will turn into an eel.
The men firmly believed this, and I suppose it highlights how such stories were passed on, as we simply didn’t have the wider knowledge that we do now. In saying that, they are lovely stories all the same, there’s something really childlike and magical about them.
I can just imagine the two men as young lads, waiting to see it happen, the transformation from a horse hair to an eel.
Back in 2005, I recorded a collection of folklore in Grantstown Daycare Centre, near Wellingtonbidge, called ‘That’s True You Know’. One of the stories related to me was from two local men, Peter Colfer (Bannow)and John Kehoe (Grantstown), who have since passed away.
They told me a story, childlike in nature, which they had heard growing up, that if you take a hair from the tail of a horse and put it in water, it will turn into an eel.
The men firmly believed this, and I suppose it highlights how such stories were passed on, as we simply didn’t have the wider knowledge that we do now. In saying that, they are lovely stories all the same, there’s something really childlike and magical about them.
I can just imagine the two men as young lads, waiting to see it happen, the transformation from a horse hair to an eel.
