“And do you say you’re a son of Sean Feichin’s?” says she. “Your father
was in the public-house in Uachtar Ard that night....” She stopped
suddenly with that, and there came some change on her. She put her hand
to her head. You’d think that it’s madness was struck on her. She sat
before the fire then, and she stayed for a while dreaming into the heart
of the fire. It was short till she began moving herself to and fro over
the fire, and crooning or keening in a low voice. I didn’t understand
the words right, or it would be better for me to say that it’s not on
the words I was thinking but on the music. It seemed to me that there
was the loneliness of the hills in the dead time of night, or the
loneliness of the grave when nothing stirs in it but worms, in that
music. Here are the words as I heard them from my father after that:--
Sorrow on death, it is it that blackened my heart,
That carried off my love and that left me ruined,
Without friend, without companion under the roof of my house
But this sorrow in my middle, and I lamenting.
Going the mountain one evening,
The birds spoke to me sorrowfully,
The melodious snipe and the voiceful curlew,
Telling me that my treasure was dead.
I called on you, and your voice I did not hear,
I called again, and an answer I did not get.
I kissed your mouth, and O God, wasn’t it cold!
Och, it’s cold your bed is in the lonely graveyard.
And O sod-green grave, where my child is,
O narrow, little grave, since you are his bed,
My blessing on you, and the thousand blessings
On the green sods that are over my pet.
Sorrow on death, its blessing is not possible--
It lays fresh and withered together;
And, O pleasant little son, it is it is my affliction,
Your sweet body to be making clay!
When she had that finished, she kept on moving herself to and fro, and
lamenting in a low voice. It was a lonesome place to be, in that
backward house, and you to have no company but yon solitary old woman,
mourning to herself by the fireside. There came a dread and a creeping
on me, and I rose to my feet.
“It’s time for me to be going home,” says I. “The evening’s clearing.”
“Come here,” says she to me.
I went hither to her. She laid her two hands softly on my head, and she
kissed my forehead.
“The protection of God to you, little son,” says she. “May He let the
harm of the year over you, and may He increase the good fortune and
happiness of the year to you and to your family.”
With that she freed me from her. I left the house, and pushed on home
with me.
* * * * *
“Where were you, Coilin, when the shower caught you?” says my mother to
me that night. “It didn’t do you any hurt.”
“I waited in the house of yon old woman on the east side of Glashaduff
bridge,” says I. “She was talking to me about her son. He’s in Uachtar
Ard these two days, and she doesn’t know why he hasn’t come home ere
this.”
My father looked over at my mother.
“The Keening Woman,” says he.
“Who is she?” says I.
“The Keening Woman,” says my father. “Muirne of the Keens.”
“Why was that name given to her?” says I.
“For the keens she does be making,” answered my father. “She’s the most
famous keening-woman in Connemara or in the Joyce Country. She’s always
sent for when anyone dies. She keened my father, and there’s a chance
but she’ll keen myself. But, may God comfort her, it’s her own dead she
does be keening always, it’s all the same what corpse is in the house.”
“And what’s her son doing in Uachtar Ard?” says I.
“Her son died twenty years since, Coilin,” says my mother.
“He didn’t die at all,” says my father, and a very black look on him.
“_He was murdered._”
“Who murdered him?”
It’s seldom I saw my father angry, but it’s awful his anger was when it
would rise up in him. He took a start out of me when he spoke again, he
was that angry.
“Who murdered your own grandfather? Who drew the red blood out of my
grandmother’s shoulders with a lash? Who would do it but the English? My
curse on--”
My mother rose, and she put her hand on his mouth.
“Don’t give your curse to anyone, Sean,” says she. My mother was that
kind-hearted, she wouldn’t like to throw the bad word at the devil
himself. I believe she’d have pity in her heart for Cain and for Judas,
and for Diarmaid of the Galls. “It’s time for us to be saying the
Rosary,” says she. “Your father will tell you about Coilin Muirne some
other night.”
“Father,” says I, and we going on our knees, “we should say a prayer for
Coilin’s soul this night.”
“We’ll do that, son,” says my father kindly.
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