The Story of the McAndrew Family

Long ago, in County Mayo, there lived a rich man called McAndrew. He owned cows and horses beyond counting, not to mention ducks and geese and pigs, and his land stretched as far as you could see in every direction. The neighbours all said McAndrew was a lucky man. But when he looked at his seven big sons, shooting up like weeds with hardly any more sense, he felt sore at heart, for of all the foolish dunces in the land, the seven McAndrew brothers were the most foolish.

When the youngest had grown up, the father built a house for each of them and gave each a piece of land and a few cows, hoping they would grow into sensible men while he still lived. “While God spares me,” said the old man, “I can keep an eye on them, and maybe they will learn from experience.”

The seven lads were content. With green fields and glossy, well-fed cows, they were sure hard times would never come near them. For a while nothing went wrong, and the day of the fair at Killala was as fine a day as ever shone on Ireland. The seven set off bright and early, each driving three fine cows, and when they were all together, a finer herd had never been seen in the countryside.

Now there was a sharp farmer named O’Toole whose fields bordered the McAndrews’, and he had long had his eye on his easy-going neighbours’ fine cattle. When he saw them going by with their twenty-one cows, he came out and called to them.

“Where are you off to this fine morning?”

“To the fair at Killala, to sell the fine cows our father gave us,” they all answered together.

“And would you sell cows that the Evil Eye has been on this long while? Oh, Con and Shamus, I’d never have believed it of you, even if that rascal Pat would do such a thing. Anyone would think the spirit of the good mother who bore you would reach out a hand to stop you committing such a sin.” He said this to the three eldest, who stood trembling, while the four younger ones rubbed their knuckles in their eyes and began to cry.

“Oh, indeed, Mr. O’Toole, we never knew the cows were under the Evil Eye,” said Con. “How did you find out? Oh, it’s a sad day when such a fine lot of cattle goes to ruin.”

“Well may you ask, when it was I, like the good neighbour I always was, who kept watch on old Judy the witch when she stood yonder cackling at the ravens circling over your herd. Do you remember the time your father spoke sharply to her down at the crossroads? She never forgot it, and now your twenty-one fine cows won’t be worth the hides on their backs.”

“Oh, oh, oh!” wailed the seven McAndrews, so loudly that pretty Katie O’Toole poked her head out of the window and the cows at the back began to caper about like mad things.

“The spell has come on them!” cried Shamus. “Oh, what will we do?”

“Hush, man,” said O’Toole. “I’m a good neighbour, as I said, so to give you a start in the world, I’ll take the risk myself and buy the cows from you for the price of their hides. No harm can come to the hides for making leather, so I’ll give you a shilling apiece, and that’s better than nothing. Twenty-one bright shillings at the fair might make your fortune.”

It seemed to the McAndrews that it was that or nothing, so they took his offer, thanked O’Toole for his kindness and helped him drive the cows into his field. Then they went on to the fair. They had never been to a fair, and when they saw all the fine sights, they forgot all about the cows and remembered only that they each had shillings to spend. Everybody knew the McAndrews, and soon a crowd gathered round them, praising their good looks and saying what a fine father they had to give them so much money, until the seven dunces lost their heads completely and treated everyone right and left until there was not a farthing left of the twenty-one shillings. Then they stumbled home, rather the worse for all the treating.

Old McAndrew’s heart sank when his sons came back with nothing at all to show for twenty-one good cows, and he swore he would never give them anything more. Time went on, and the brothers stayed as merry as larks, until the good old father fell ill and died.

The eldest son inherited everything his father had, and he felt like a lord. The way he strutted and swaggered would have made the grumpiest man laugh. One day, to show how grand he was, he dressed in his best and set off for the market town with a purse full of gold coins. There he walked into an inn, ordered the best of everything and, to look like a fine fellow, paid the landlord three times the price. When he had finished, his eye fell on a little keg, gilded all over to look like gold, that hung outside the door as a sign. Con had never noticed it, and he asked the landlord what it was.

Now the landlord, like many another, saw a chance to squeeze a McAndrew, and he said straight off, “You foolish dunce, don’t you know what that is? It’s a mare’s egg.”

“Will it hatch a foal?”

“It will, of course. Imagine asking an honest man such a thing!”

“I never saw one before,” said Con, amazed.

“Well, you see one now, Con, so take a good look.”

“Will you sell it?”

“Oh, Con McAndrew, do you think I’d sell that fine egg after keeping it hung up in the sun all this time, just when it’s ready to hatch a foal that will be worth twenty good guineas to me?”

“I’ll give you twenty guineas for it.”

“Done,” said the landlord, unhooking the keg and passing it across, and Con handed over twenty guineas, all the money he had. “Be careful with it, carry it as gently as you can, and hang it in a sunny spot at home.”

Con gave his word and headed off with his treasure. At the top of a hill he met his brothers.

“What have you got, Con?”

“The most wonderful thing in the world, a mare’s egg.”

“Faith, what’s it like?” said Pat, taking it from him.

“Gently, can’t you? You have to be very careful with it.”

But the brothers paid no attention, and before you could say “hush,” away rolled the keg down the hill with all seven running after it. Nobody reached it in time. It bounced into some bushes, and out shot a hare.

“Bedad, there’s the foal!” cried Con, and all seven gave chase, but there was no catching a hare. “That’s the finest foal there ever was,” said Con. “If he were five years old, the devil himself couldn’t catch him.” And with that the seven dunces gave up the chase and went quietly home.

As I said, everybody meant to get all they could out of the McAndrews. “One man might as well have it as another,” they said, “for they’re bound to spend every penny they have.” So their money dwindled away. They traded a good horse for some glass beads they took to be jewels, and a pair of pigs or two fat geese for a scrap of hat ribbon, and in the end the land itself started slipping away.

One day Shamus was sitting warming himself by his fire, and to make a good blaze, he threw on a great heap of turf, until the fire was roaring hot and Shamus, who had been chilly, was as hot as a joint of pork on a spit. Just then his youngest brother came in.

“That’s a great fire you have, Shamus.”

“It is indeed, and too close to me it is. Run like a good lad to Giblin the mason and see whether he could shift the chimney across the room.”

Off went the youngest, and soon Giblin the mason came in. “You’re in a sad way, Shamus, roasting alive. What can I do for you?”

“Can you move the chimney over there?”

“Faith, I can, but you’ll have to get out of the way. Go for a walk with your brother, and the job will be done when you come back.”

Shamus did as he was told, and Giblin moved the chair Shamus had been sitting on away from the fire, then sat down to have a quiet laugh to himself and think about what to charge for the job. On Shamus’s return Giblin sat him down in it. “Now, isn’t that a great deal better?”

“You’re a fine man, Giblin, and you did it without making a bit of mess. What shall I give you for such a fine job?”

“If you don’t mind, I’d like the meadow next to mine. It’s little enough for a job like that.”

“It’s yours and welcome, Giblin.” And without another word the deed was drawn up. That was the finest of the McAndrew fields and the only pasture Shamus had left.

It was not long before first one brother and then another lost the house he lived in, until all seven had to live together in their father’s old house. O’Toole and Giblin had crept in field by field, till all that remained was the old house and a patch of garden none of them had the wit to dig. Times were hard for them, yet the brothers stayed cheerful so long as their bellies were full, and full they always were, for the wives of the men who had taken their fine lands and cattle were sore at heart to see their husbands grow rich at the expense of the poor dunces, and every day, without their husbands knowing, they brought the brothers food and drink.

Now O’Toole and Giblin had their greedy eyes on the house and garden, and they were watching for a chance to grab them, when luck, or something worse, put the chance in O’Toole’s way. He was coming home from town one cool afternoon when he came on the seven brothers squatting in a ring at the side of the road, face to face.

“What are you doing here instead of earning your keep, you seven big lumps?”

“We’re in a bad fix, Mr. O’Toole,” said Pat. “We can’t get up.”

“And what’s to stop you getting up, I’d like to know?”

“Can’t you see all our feet are mixed up together in the middle, and none of us can make out which ones belong to him? If one of us gets up, he won’t know which pair of feet to take with him.”

O’Toole had never been so ready to laugh in his life, but he thought, “Now’s my chance to get the house and garden ahead of Giblin the mason.” So he looked very serious. “I suppose it is hard to tell one man’s feet from another’s when they’re all in a heap, but I think I can help you, the way I always have. It would be a sorry day for you if you didn’t have me for a neighbour. What will you give me if I help you find your feet?”

“Anything, anything we have, so long as we can get up from here!” cried all seven together.

“Will you give me the house and garden?”

“We will, surely. What use is a house to men stuck on the road for ever?”

“Then it’s a bargain,” said O’Toole. He went to the side of the road, pulled up a good stout stick and began whacking the poor McAndrews over their heads, feet, shoulders and anywhere else he could land a stroke, until with yells of pain they all leaped up, each finding his own feet, and away they ran. So O’Toole got the last of the McAndrews’ property, and there was nothing left for them but to go out and beg.

About this story

Joseph Jacobs’s source for this tale in More Celtic Fairy Tales was Mrs. Gale, then living in the United States, who had it from her mother, who left Ireland more than fifty years earlier. Jacobs notes that “noodle tales” like this are found all over Europe, that Mr. Clouston had written a whole book about them, The Book of Noodles (1889), and that the trick at the end is like one in “The Wise Men of Gotham.”

Mrs. Gale explained that in Ireland it was commonly believed that a raven hovering over cattle meant a withering blight had been put on them, which is why O’Toole’s story about old Judy and the ravens frightens the brothers.

In the original the brothers spend their shillings on whisky at the fair; here they simply treat everyone until the money is gone.

Read the original: Joseph Jacobs, More Celtic Fairy Tales (Project Gutenberg #34453, The Story of the McAndrew Family)

Best for ages 9–12 — a comic Irish noodle tale about seven very foolish brothers and the neighbours who fleece them.

The neighbours know exactly what they are doing

The brothers misunderstand cattle, eggs and chimneys, but O’Toole and Giblin understand both the facts and the value of the property they take. Their wives’ secret meals supply a counterexample to the excuse that someone might as well profit from the brothers’ confusion. The exaggerated foolishness is a comic device, not a reason to treat exploitation as deserved.

Check the claimed service

For the cursed cows, mare’s egg and moved chimney, write what was claimed, what actually happened and what was paid. Choose one exchange and name an independent person the brothers could consult before agreeing.

Think about it

• How did O’Toole trick the brothers out of their cows?
• What did Con think the gilded keg was, and what really jumped out of the bushes?
• Was it fair of O’Toole and Giblin to take the brothers’ land? Who in the story was kind to them?

More stories like this

• The Field of Boliauns — another comic Irish tale of a trick
• The Russet Dog — another string of trickster tales from More Celtic Fairy Tales
• King O’Toole and His Goose — an Irish tale with a very different O’Toole