There was once a wealthy farmer in Connacht, and he had plenty of
substance and a fine family, and there was nothing putting grief
nor trouble on him, and you would say yourself that it’s he was the
comfortable, satisfied man, and that the luck was on him as well as on
e’er a man alive. He was that way, without mishap or misfortune, for
many years, in good health and without sickness or sorrow on himself or
his children, until there came a fine day in the harvest, when he was
looking at his men making hay in the meadow that was near his own house,
and as the day was very hot he drank a drink of buttermilk, and stretched
himself back on the fresh cut hay, and as he was tired with the heat
of the day and the work that he was doing, he soon fell asleep, and he
remained that way for three or four hours, until the hay was all gathered
in and his workpeople gone away out of the field.
When he awoke then, he sat up, and he did not know at first where he was,
till he remembered at last that it was in the field at the back of his
own house he was lying. He rose up then and returned to his house, and
he felt like a pain or a stitch in his side. He made nothing of it, sat
down at the fire and began warming himself.
“Where were you?” says the daughter to him.
“I was asleep a while,” says he, “on the fresh grass in the field where
they were making hay.”
“What happened to you, then?” says she, “for you don’t look well.”
“Muirya,[24] musha, then,” says he, “I don’t know; but it’s queer the
feeling I have. I never was like it before; but I’ll be better when I get
a good sleep.”
He went to his bed, lay down, and fell asleep, and never awoke until the
sun was high. He rose up then and his wife said to him: “What was on you
that you slept that long?”
“I don’t know,” says he.
He went down to the fire where the daughter was making a cake for the
breakfast, and she said to him:
“How are you to-day, father; are you anything better?”
“I got a good sleep,” said he, “but I’m not a taste better than I was
last night; and indeed, if you’d believe me, I think there’s something
inside of me running back and forwards.”
“Arrah, that can’t be,” says the daughter, “but it’s a cold you got and
you lying out on the fresh grass; and if you’re not better in the evening
we’ll send for the doctor.”
He was saying then that there was a pain on him, but that he did not
know rightly what place the pain was in. He was in the same way in the
evening, and they had to send for the doctor, and when the doctor was not
coming quickly there was great fright on him. The people of the house
were doing all they could to put courage in him.
The doctor came at last, and he asked what was on him, and he said again
that there was something like a _birdeen_ leaping in his stomach. The
doctor stripped him and examined him well, but saw nothing out of the
way with him. He put his ear to his side and to his back, but he heard
nothing, though the poor man himself was calling out: “Now! now! don’t
you hear it? Now, aren’t you listening to it jumping?” But the doctor
could perceive nothing at all, and he thought at last that the man was
out of his senses, and that there was nothing the matter with him.
He said to the woman of the house when he came out, that there was
nothing on her husband, but that he believed himself to be sick, and that
he would send her medicine the next day for him, that would give him a
good sleep and settle the heat of his body. He did that, and the poor
man swallowed all the medicines and got another great sleep, but when he
awoke in the morning he was worse than ever, but he said he did not hear
the thing jumping inside him any longer.
They sent for the doctor again, and he came; but he was able to do
nothing. He left other medicines with them, and said he would come again
at the end of a week to see him. The poor man got no relief from all that
the doctor left with him, and when he came again he found him to be worse
than before; but he was not able to do anything, and he did not know
what sort of sickness was on him. “I won’t be taking your money from you
any more,” says he to the woman of the house, “because I can do nothing
in this case, and as I don’t understand what’s on him, I won’t let on[25]
to be understanding it. I’ll come to see him from time to time, but I’ll
take no money from you.”
The woman of the house could hardly keep in her anger. Scarcely ever was
the doctor gone till she gathered the people of the house round her and
they took counsel. “That doctor _braduch_,” says she, “he’s not worth a
_traneen_; do you know what he said—that he wouldn’t take any money from
me any more, and he said himself he knew nothing about anything; _suf_ on
him, the _behoonuch_, he’ll cross this threshold no more; we’ll go to the
other doctor; if he’s farther from us, itself, I don’t mind that, we must
get him.” Everybody in the house was on one word with her, and they sent
for the other doctor; but when he came he had no better knowledge than
the first one had, only that he had knowledge enough to take their money.
He came often to see the sick man, and every time he would come he would
have every name longer than another to give his sickness; names he did
not understand himself, nor no one else, but he had them to frighten the
people.
They remained that way for two months, without anyone knowing what was on
the poor man; and when that doctor was doing him no good they got another
doctor, and then another doctor, until there was not a doctor in the
county, at last, that they had not got, and they lost a power of money
over them, and they had to sell a portion of their cattle to get money to
pay them.
They were that way for half a year, keeping doctors with him, and the
doctors giving him medicines, and the poor man that was stout and
well-fed before, getting bare and thin, until at last there was not an
ounce of flesh on him, but the skin and the bones only.
He was so bad at last that it was scarcely he was able to walk. His
appetite went from him, and it was a great trouble to him to swallow
a piece of soft bread or to drink a sup of new milk, and everyone was
saying that he was better to die, and that was no wonder, for there was
not in him but like a shadow in a bottle.
One day that he was sitting on a chair in the door of the house, sunning
himself in the heat, and the people of the house all gone out but
himself, there came up to the door a poor old man that used to be asking
alms from place to place, and he recognised the man of the house sitting
in the chair, but he was so changed and so worn that it was hardly he
knew him. “I’m here again, asking alms in the name of God,” said the poor
man; “but, glory be to God, master, what happened to you, for you’re not
the same man I saw when I was here half a year ago; may God relieve you!”
“Arrah, Shamus,” said the sick man, “it’s I that can’t tell you what
happened to me; but I know one thing, that I won’t be long in this world.”
“But I’m grieved to see you how you are,” said the beggarman. “Tell me
how it began with you, and what the doctors say.”
“The doctors, is it?” says the sick man, “my curse on them; but I
oughtn’t to be cursing and I so near the grave; _suf_ on them, they know
nothing.”
“Perhaps,” says the beggarman, “I could find you a relief myself, if you
were to tell me what’s on you. They say that I be knowledgable about
diseases and the herbs to cure them.”
The sick man smiled, and he said: “There isn’t a medicine man in the
county that I hadn’t in this house with me, and isn’t half the cattle
I had on the farm sold to pay them. I never got a relief no matter
how small, from a man of them; but I’ll tell you how it happened to
me first.” Then he gave him an account of everything he felt and of
everything the doctors had ordered.
The beggarman listened to him carefully, and when he had finished all his
story, he asked him: “What sort of field was it you fell asleep in?”
“A meadow that was in it that time,” says the sick man; “but it was just
after being cut.”
“Was it wet,” says the beggarman.
“It was not,” says he.
“Was there a little stream or a brook of water running through it?” said
the beggarman.
“There was,” says he.
“Can I see the field?”
“You can, indeed, and I’ll show it to you.”
He rose off his chair, and as bad as he was, he pulled himself along
until he came to the place where he lay down to sleep that evening.
The beggarman examined the place for a long time, and then he stooped
down over the grass and went backwards and forwards with his body bent,
and his head down, groping among the herbs and weeds that were growing
thickly in it.
He rose at last and said: “It is as I thought,” and he stooped himself
down again and began searching as before. He raised his head a second
time, and he had a little green herb in his hand. “Do you see this?”
said he. “Any place in Ireland that this herb grows, there be’s an
alt-pluachra near it, and you have swallowed an alt-pluachra.”
“How do you know that?” said the sick man. “If that was so, sure the
doctors would tell it to me before now.”
“The doctors!” said the beggarman. “Ah! God give you sense, sure they’re
only a flock of _omadawns_. I tell you again, and believe me, that it’s
an alt-pluachra you swallowed. Didn’t you say yourself that you felt
something leaping in your stomach the first day after you being sick?
That was the alt-pluachra; and as the place he was in was strange to him
at first, he was uneasy in it, moving backwards and forwards, but when he
was a couple of days there, he settled himself, and he found the place
comfortable, and that’s the reason you’re keeping so thin, for every bit
you’re eating the alt-pluachra is getting the good out of it, and you
said yourself that one side of you was swelled; that’s the place where
the nasty thing is living.”
The sick man would not believe him at first, but the beggarman kept on
talking and proving on him that it was the truth he was saying, and when
his wife and daughter came back again to the house, the beggarman told
them the same things, and they were ready enough to believe him.
The sick man put no faith in it himself, but they were all talking
to him about it until they prevailed on him at last to call in three
doctors together until he should tell them this new story. The three came
together, and when they heard all the _boccuch_ (beggarman) was saying,
and all the talk of the women, it is what they laughed, and said they
were fools altogether, and that it was something else entirely that was
the matter with the man of the house, and every name they had on his
sickness this time was twice—three times—as long as ever before. They
left the poor man a bottle or two to drink, and they went away, and they
humbugging the women for saying that he had swallowed an alt-pluachra.
The boccuch said when they were gone away: “I don’t wonder at all that
you’re not getting better, if it’s fools like those you have with you.
There’s not a doctor or a medicine-man in Ireland now that’ll do you any
good, but only one man, and that’s Mac Dermott the Prince of Coolavin,
on the brink of Lough Gara, the best doctor in Connacht or the five
provinces.”
“Where is Lough Gara?” said the poor man.
“Down in the County Sligo,” says he; “it’s a big lake, and the prince is
living on the brink of it; and if you’ll take my advice you’ll go there,
for it’s the last hope you have; and you, Mistress,” said he, turning to
the woman of the house, “ought to make him go, if you wish your man to be
alive.”
“Musha!” says the woman, “I’d do anything that would cure him.”
“If so, send him to the Prince of Coolavin,” says he.
“I’d do anything at all to cure myself,” says the sick man, “for I know I
haven’t long to live on this world if I don’t get some relief, or without
something to be done for me.”
“Then go to the Prince of Coolavin,” says the beggarman.
“Anything that you think would do yourself good, you ought to do it,
father,” says the daughter.
“There’s nothing will do him good but to go to the Prince of Coolavin,”
said the beggarman.
So they were arguing and striving until the night came, and the beggarman
got a bed of straw in the barn, and he began arguing again in the morning
that he ought to go to the prince, and the wife and daughter were on one
word with him; and they prevailed at last on the sick man, and he said
that he would go, and the daughter said that she would go with him to
take care of him, and the boccuch said that he would go with them to show
them the road; “and I’ll be on the pinch of death, for ye, with anxiety,”
said the wife, “until ye come back again.”
They harnessed the horse, and they put him under the cart, and they took
a week’s provision with them—bread, and bacon, and eggs, and they went
off. They could not go very far the first day, for the sick man was so
weak, that he was not able to bear the shaking he was getting in the
cart; but he was better the second day, and they all passed the night in
a farmer’s house on the side of the road, and they went on again in the
morning; but on the third day, in the evening, they came to the dwelling
of the prince. He had a nice house, on the brink of the lake, with a
straw roof, in among the trees.
They left the horse and the cart in a little village near the prince’s
place, and they all walked together, until they came to the house.
They went into the kitchen, and asked, “Couldn’t they see the prince?”
The servant said that he was eating his meal, but that he would come,
perhaps, when he was ready.
The prince himself came in at that moment, and asked what it was they
wanted. The sick man rose up and told him, that it was looking for
assistance from his honour he was, and he told him his whole story. “And
now can your honour help me?” he said, when he had finished it.
“I hope I can,” said the prince; “anyhow, I’ll do my best for you, as you
came so far to see me. I’d have a bad right not to do my best. Come up
into the parlour with me. The thing that old man told you is true. You
swallowed an alt-pluachra, or something else. Come up to the parlour with
me.”
He brought him up to the parlour with him, and it happened that the meal
he had that day was a big piece of salted beef. He cut a large slice off
it, and put it on a plate, and gave it to the poor man to eat.
“Oro! what is your honour doing there?” says the poor man; “I didn’t
swallow as much as the size of an egg of meat this quarter,[26] and I
can’t eat anything.”
“Be silent, man,” says the prince; “eat that, when I tell you.”
The poor man eat as much as he was able, but when he left the knife and
fork out of his hand, the prince made him take them up again, and begin
out of the new (over again). He kept him there eating until he was ready
to burst, and at last he was not able to swallow another bit, if he were
to get a hundred pounds.
When the prince saw that he would not be able to swallow any more, he
brought him out of the house, and he said to the daughter and the old
beggarman to follow them, and he brought the man out with him to a fine
green meadow that was forenent[27] the house, and a little stream of
water running through it.
He brought him to the brink of the stream, and told him to lie down on
his stomach over the stream, and to hold his face over the water, to open
his mouth as wide as he could, and to keep it nearly touching the water,
and “wait there quiet and easy,” says he; “and for your life don’t stir,
till you see what will happen to you.”
The poor man promised that he would be quiet, and he stretched his body
on the grass, and held his mouth open, over the stream of water, and
remained there without stirring.
The prince went backwards, about five yards, and drew the daughter and
the old man with him, and the last word he said to the sick man was: “Be
certain, and for your life, don’t put a stir out of you, whatever thing
at all happens to you.”
The sick man was not lying like that more than a quarter of an hour, when
something began moving inside of him, and he felt something coming up
in his throat, and going back again. It came up and went back three or
four times after other. At last it came to the mouth, stood on the tip of
his tongue, but frightened, and ran back again. However, at the end of a
little space, it rose up a second time, and stood on his tongue, and at
last jumped down into the water. The prince was observing him closely,
and just as the man was going to rise, he called out: “Don’t stir yet.”
The poor man had to open his mouth again, and he waited the same way as
before; and he was not there a minute until the second one came up the
same way as the last, and went back and came up two or three times, as if
it got frightened; but at last, it also, like the first one, came up to
the mouth, stood on the tongue, and when it felt the smell of the water
below it, leaped down into the little stream.
The prince said in a whisper: “Now the thirst’s coming on them; the
salt that was in the beef is working them; now they’ll come out.” And
before the word had left his mouth, the third one fell, with a plop, into
the water; and a moment after that, another one jumped down, and then
another, until he counted five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven,
twelve.
“There’s a dozen of them now,” said the prince; “that’s the clutch; the
old mother didn’t come yet.”
The poor sick man was getting up again, but the prince called to him:
“Stay as you are; the mother didn’t come up.”
He remained as he was, but no other one came out, though he stayed there
more than a quarter of an hour. The prince himself was getting uneasy
for fear the old alt-pluachra might not stir at all. The poor man was
so tired and so weak that he wished to get up; and, in spite of all the
prince told him, he was trying to stand on his feet, when the prince
caught him by one leg, and the boccuch by the other, and they held him
down in spite of him.
They remained another quarter of an hour without speaking a word, or
making a sound, and at the end of that time the poor man felt something
stirring again in his side, but seven times worse than before; and it’s
scarcely he could keep himself from screeching. That thing kept moving
for a good while, and he thought the side was being torn out of himself
with it. Then it began coming up, and it reached the mouth, and went back
again. At last it came up so far that the poor man put the two fingers to
his mouth and thought to catch hold of it. But if he put in his fingers
quick, the old alt-pluachra went back quicker.
“Oh, you _behoonach_!” cried the prince, “what made you do that? Didn’t
I tell you not to let a stir out of you? Remain quiet if she comes up
again.”
They had to remain there for half an hour, because the old mother of the
alt-pluachras was scared, and she was afraid to come out. But she came
up at last, perhaps, because there was too much thirst on her to let her
stand the smell of the water that was tempting her, or perhaps she was
lonesome after her children going from her. Anyhow, she came up to his
mouth, and stood there while you would be counting about four score; and
when she saw nothing, and nothing frightened her, she gave a jump down
into the water, like her clutch before her; and the plop of her into the
water was seven times heavier than theirs.
The prince and the other two had been watching the whole, and they
scarcely dared to breathe, for fear of startling the horrid beast. As
soon as ever she jumped down into the water, they pulled back the man,
and put him standing again on his two feet.
He was for three hours before he could speak a word; but the first thing
he said was: “I’m a new man.”
The prince kept him in his own house for a fortnight, and gave him great
care and good feeding. He allowed him to go then, and the daughter and
the boccuch with him; and he refused to take as much as a penny from them.
“I’m better pleased than ten pounds on my own hand,” said he, “that my
cure turned out so well; and I’d be long sorry to take a farthing from
you; you lost plenty with doctors before.”
They came home safely, and he became healthy and fat. He was so thankful
to the poor boccuch that he kept him in his own house till his death. As
long as he was alive he never lay down on green grass again; and another
thing, if there was any sickness or ill-health on him, it isn’t the
doctors he used to call in to him.
That was small wonder!