Tall tales and legends from new father and daughter partnership

“I had worked with them in the past and when they were working on a new collection, they realised they had very few from the north” he recalls.

“There’s always been a great storytelling tradition in this part of the world.

“So they asked if I knew any and when I said I knew hundreds of them, we decided to do a complete book.”

The result is ‘Ulster Fairytales and Legends’, which the retired primary school teacher co-wrote with daughter Nicola.

Beautifully illustrated by Conor Busuttil, an artists from County Down, it comprises nine tales - one from each county.

They include ‘The Red Hand’ from Co Tyrone, ‘The Horseman of Aileach’ from Donegal, ‘Colmcille and the Book of Movilla’ from Co Down and ‘Paiste’ from Co Derry.

And for Co Antrim it is not, as you might expect, Finn McCool and the Giant’s Causeway, but the tale of Maeve MacQuillan.

““When we started we decided not to pick the obvious stories like Finn McCool as there is no point going over stories that everyone already knows,” Peter says.

“The first story is about the Red Hand of Ulster and it was selected with a hint of irony as we wrote it during the time that Stormont was down and the political future was still very uncertain.”

The story, of course, is one of the better-known tales of the battle between Diarmuid and Heremon to decide who would become the King of Ulster - a sea race decided when Heremon’s detached bloody red hand was thrown onto the land before Diarmuid could reach the beach.

The tale concludes: “Ulster accepted Heremon as its leader. His action is still remembered today: a red hand is the symbol of Ulster and is also on the Tyrone GAA crest.”

“This everyone’s mythology, these are stories that belong to everyone,” says Peter.

Nicola became involved in the project just as that first story was being completed.

“I sent it to her to read,” Peter says. “I expected it to come back more or less the same, but Nicola had reworked and rewritten it, so from then we decided to work on them together.”

Raised in Derry, Nicola taught English Literature in Bristol and Madrid for ten years, before returning home to give up teaching in favour of writing poetry and although she has published poems in various journals, this is her first collection of stories.

Peter taught at Steelstown Primary School for 40 years before he retired in 2012, but his involvement with the school dates back a little further.

“I had a summer job working on the building site of the school just before getting my job there,” he said.

“So when the school was finished I went home and changed out of my work clothes and into my suit and headed straight back again.

“I had 40 wonderful years working at the school, which was one of the biggest anywhere in the UK at that time.

Since his retirement Peter has carried on the tradition of the area of storytelling and he worked on a project for the 2013 City of Culture project, linking storytelling at schools from around the world.

Currently he is working on a new collection of tales, this time connected to local place names.

“For example, Limavady means Dog’s Leap,” he explains.

“It comes from the time of the Vikings when to send a message north from Dungiven it was tied onto a dog who ran along the River Roe and the point where he leapt across the water was named Dog’s Leap, and the name stuck.”

‘Ulster Fairytales and Legends’ published by O’Brien on October 5, is available in hardback edition at £13.99.