I have a new wife now, says the old man who had come back from
Ballinrobe; to keep my victuals ready and the door open before me. She’s
a quiet woman at some times, but she has a queer way in her mind at the
time of the full moon, but it will pass away after. And here is a story
now, and I’ll word it easy to you.
There was a woman one time and she had three sons. Well, one day one of
them said the quarter was too small for the three of them to be in it.
‘And I’ll go,’ says he, ‘and I’ll try to do for myself. And let you turn
and make a cake for me to bring with me,’ says he to the mother.
The mother went at night and she baked two cakes, a big one and a small
one. And when he was going to start in the morning: ‘Which would you
sooner have now,’ says she, ‘to have the big one and my curse, or the
small one and my blessing?’ ‘I’ll take the big one and your curse,’ says
he; ‘the other one is too small and the road being long before me.’
Well, he tripped on till he got hungry, and sat down on the brink of a
lake, and he spread out a cloth for the dinner the way he would lose
none of the crumbs, and he broke up a piece of the cake then and
commenced eating it. The Robineen Redbreast was coming around him and he
was hooshing him away. ‘Every crumb that will fall,’ says the Robineen,
‘it will be for me.’ ‘Every crumb that will fall,’ says he, ‘it is
little enough for myself.’ So he hooshed away the Robineen.
When he had part of it ate, then he got dry, and he went to the lake to
take a drink; and the Robineen walked to the lake before him and
commenced washing herself and shaking out her wings in the lake, and she
turned it all into blood instead of water. He took a drink of it, and he
fell dead after taking the drink. The Robineen got people to bury him
under a big stone was in it; for the Robineen was enchanted, and they
say the birds of the air had talk at that time.
The two brothers then were sitting by the hearth, the same as himself,
till the end of seven years. ‘It is this day seven years,’ says the
second one, ‘that the brother went out from this. And I’ll go make a
poke for him. And it’s as good for you,’ says he to the mother, ‘go bake
a cake for the road in the morning.’
Well, the mother did the same thing as before, and she made a big cake
and a small cake, and asked him would he have the small one with her
blessing, or the big one with her curse. ‘I’ll have the big one with
your curse,’ says he. So he set out, and when he came to the same place
he sat down on the same stone where the brother had sat, and he spread a
cloth the way any crumb that would fall, he could pick it up for
himself. The Robineen came around him asking for the crumbs, and he
wouldn’t give them and he hooshed her away. So when he was going to the
lake for a drink, she went into it before him, and spread out her wings
and scattered the water, and after he took one drink of it he fell dead;
and she buried the two of them under one stone, the Robineen did, the
two brothers.
Well, they were fourteen years gone when the third man said he would go
look for them, and the mother made two cakes the same as she made for
the other two. Well, the mother told him then to take the big one or the
small one; to take the big one with her curse, or to take the small one
with her blessing. ‘There’s nothing like a mother’s blessing,’ says he.
‘And I’ll take the small one with your blessing,’ he said.
It happened that he was walking till he went in the same place where the
brothers were killed, and commenced eating the cake. The Robineen was
coming anear him, and there wasn’t a bite he would take but he would
give a second bite to the Robineen. She didn’t stir up the lake, but let
him take his full drink, and she made a well in the lake and made wine
in it and gave enough of it to him to drink. ‘Here is a little bush,’
she says then, ‘an enchanted bush; and give a tip to that stone there,
and you can rise your two brothers.’ So, thanks be to God, he struck the
two tips on the stone, and they rose as well as ever and as fresh. Says
the Robineen: ‘They may be thankful to you, they would never stir out of
that only for you coming.’
She gave this young fellow a bag of gold for himself and his two
brothers, a fine three men. They never met with the Robineen from that
out. The mother’s blessing is better with a small cake than her curse
with a big one.
After the three brothers went home, they lived together in the house.
And the Robineen had told the youngest brother to go where there was a
holly-bush in the garden and to root around it. So they went out and
rooted around it, and what they found was a crock of gold, and they
brought it away with them. There was a little flag, now, in the top of
the crock, and the flag was left aside on the grass. It happened there
came after a while a poor scholar walking the road, and he took notice
of the little slab, and that there was writing on it. And he was able to
read the writing, and it is what it said: ‘The other side is as lucky as
this side.’ So he showed that to the brothers, and they went rooting the
other side, and what did they find but two more crocks of gold, the way
there was one apiece for them. So there were no richer farmers in the
country than those three brothers, and they got gold and divided it and
scattered it.
And that is a nice story and a wonderful story, and a true thing that
fell out. And Lofarey, the man that told it to me, said it was a true
story, and that his own father told him he was speaking to the poor
scholar that read the flag.
------------------------------------------------------------------------