Page 148. The abrupt beginning of this story is no less curious than
the short, jerky sentences in which it is continued. Mr. Larminie, who
took down this story phonetically, and word for word, from a native of
Glencolumkille, in Donegal, informed me that all the other stories of
the same narrator were characterized by the same extraordinary style.
I certainly have met nothing like it among any of my shanachies. The
_crumskeen_ and _galskeen_ which Neil orders the smith to make for
him, are instruments of which I never met or heard mention elsewhere.
According to their etymology they appear to mean “stooping-knife” and
“bright-knife,” and were, probably, at one time, well-known names of
Irish surgical instruments, of which no trace exists, unless it be in
some of the mouldering and dust-covered medical MSS. from which Irish
practitioners at one time drew their knowledge. The name of the hero,
if written phonetically, would be more like Nee-al O Corrwy than Neil O
Carree, but it is always difficult to convey Gaelic sounds in English
letters. When Neil takes up the head out of the skillet (a good old
Shaksperian word, by-the-by, old French, _escuellette_, in use all
over Ireland, and adopted into Gaelic), it falls in a _gliggar_ or
_gluggar_. This Gaelic word is onomatopeic, and largely in vogue with the
English-speaking population. Anything rattling or gurgling, like water in
an india-rubber ball, makes a _gligger_; hence, an egg that is no longer
fresh is called a glugger, because it makes a noise when shaken. I came
upon this word the other day, raised proudly aloft from its provincial
obscurity, in O’Donovan Rossa’s paper, the _United Irishman_, every
copy of which is headed with this weighty _spruch_, indicative of his
political faith:
“As soon will a goose sitting upon a glugger hatch goslings, as an
Irishman, sitting in an English Parliament, will hatch an Irish
Parliament.”
This story is motivated like “The King of Ireland’s Son.” It is one of
the many tales based upon an act of compassion shown to the dead.