A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.
Overview
The sister arrives for a feast on the household pig, unaware that it is a prince whom Smallhead is about to rescue. After the escape, she is sent to follow the pair and bring back the first strange things she finds. Smallhead says the pursuer has three times her employer’s enchantment. Nevertheless, the hawk overlooks the fugitives when they behave as ordinary doves, showing that greater power does not guarantee correct recognition.
On the next attempt the fugitives become two heather brooms sweeping a village road without handlers. The hawk recognises that this wonder may conceal them, lands and resumes woman form to seize the brooms. Her hurried movement provokes a crowd whose members push and threaten her, believing the sweeping to be a divine benefit. She escapes by becoming a hawk again and vows to perform no further work for her sister. The passage describes an individual transformation and its practical failure; it does not support a separate species of hawk-women, a feather cloak, or a permanent avian body.
Origins & earliest records
Jacobs’s selected 1895 print attributes the containing story to Curtin’s Hero Tales of Ireland newspaper contributions. The Eastern World is the tale’s broad narrative designation, not a verified geographic origin for the figure or a claim about a real population.
Records & interpretation
The two hawk pursuits and intervening human form are explicit literary evidence of shapeshifting. The quantified comparison of enchantment is the storyteller’s description, not a measurable ranking. Her distinct family relationship keeps her separate from the original hag.
In the literature
“The sister then made a hawk of herself”
Smallhead and the King’s Sons, pp146–150; p149; pursuit begins
The hag’s visiting sister transforms into a hawk and pursues the escaped pair. She overlooks ordinary-looking doves, then recognises moving brooms but is beaten by the market crowd. She escapes alive as a hawk and refuses further service to her sister. Greater power does not guarantee recognition.
Selected bibliography
Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.
- 01
More Celtic Fairy Tales: Smallhead and the King’s Sons, pp. 146–150; note XXXIX
Selected episode and relevant source note inspected. Earlier works named by Jacobs are attributed references, not falsely claimed as independently collated texts.
- 02
More Celtic Fairy Tales
Joseph Jacobs, More Celtic Fairy Tales, selected1895 London David Nutt / New York G. P. Putnam edition, PG34453. Complete named tale and relevant source-note paragraph independently read.
Family, evolution & connections
The enchantment hag’s children and hawk sister
The hag’s three daughters, one son and explicitly identified sister.
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- Sibling household roles (grouping, not ancestor)
- Enchantment hag
- First unnamed daughter
- Second unnamed daughter
- Third unnamed daughter
- Unnamed son
Explicit family statements in the named Jacobs retelling. The top node groups sibling households; it is not a parent or ancestor. The children’s father is not stated. The pursuing hawk is the sister’s transformed appearance, not an additional relative.
Enchantment hag of Smallhead’s tale
Smallhead identifies the approaching hawk as the hag’s sister; the narrative also describes her returning to her sister.
Enchantment hag’s three daughters
The household explicitly contains the hag’s three daughters. Her stated sister is their aunt; no father or additional siblings are supplied.
Enchantment hag’s unnamed son
The text gives the hag one son and identifies the hawk woman as her sister. The boy remains unnamed.
Located primary passages
Specific passages supporting details in this entry, grouped by their published witness.
More Celtic Fairy Tales
Joseph Jacobs, More Celtic Fairy Tales, selected1895 London David Nutt / New York G. P. Putnam edition, PG34453. Complete named tale and relevant source-note paragraph independently read.
- The hag’s visiting sister transforms into a hawk and pursues the escaped pair. She overlooks ordinary-looking doves, then recognises moving brooms but is beaten by the market crowd. She escapes alive as a hawk and refuses further service to her sister. Greater power does not guarantee recognition.
Smallhead and the King’s Sons, pp146–150; Greater enchantment, two pursuit failures and refusal
This selected1895 literary witness is independently read; unshown mechanisms and missing later fates are not invented. No song, prayer or ritual formula quoted.
Primary source witness
Joseph Jacobs, More Celtic Fairy Tales, selected1895 London David Nutt / New York G. P. Putnam edition, PG34453. Complete named tale and relevant source-note paragraph independently read.
- Jacobs credits Curtin’s Hero Tales of Ireland as contributed to the New York Sun, and compares Campbell and Molly Whuppie. These are reported source links, not independently collated source publications.
Only the relevant source/comparison paragraph read and adopted; speculative diffusion and antiquity claims not asserted as proven.
References
Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.
- Primary textMore Celtic Fairy Tales, selected 1895 edition: Smallhead and the King’s Sons, pp. 146–150; note XXXIXResearch access: 2026-10-05
Image credits
A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.
