was stupendous for depth and fearfulness. Paul beheld, amongst the
first things there, a great, dark, frightful river. Blacker than coal
was its appearance, and jet black the bubbling terrible water that
was in it, so that one puff alone of the venemous wind that used to
come out of it would kill all the men and women of the world--were
it not for the Spirit of God succouring them it would split stones
and trees--and he beheld many loathly worms and snakes, and devils of
divers shapes in it, raging, beating, gnawing (?), and bone-cutting
one another; cursing the day in which they were born or were created.
And on the other opposite side of the river there was a dark cave in
which were many damned souls screaming(?); being bound (?) and lashed.
And some of them were in this wise, sitting on the fiery hearth of
pains; many black, ugly-shaped devils serving and administering
the insufferable pains to them, such as fiery flames, sharp and
hurting (?), and the devils tossing them and turning them (?) with
sharp-pointed spits in those flames. And there was a resting-lake (?)
of very cold ice, full of venom, into which the damned souls used to
leap, seeking cooling and comfort from the sharp goading of the fire.
However, no sooner would they go to the lake than they would leap out
of it again into the fire, by reason of its cold, and of the sharp
venom that was in the water, and here are the words some of them would
say:--"O all-powerful God, is there any redemption or help in store for
us, or shall we be for ever in these pains, or in what place is Death
that he cometh not unto us to put us into nothingness, so that we might
find a sleep, on our being dead?" Another spirit of them answered and
said: "O accursed, devilish, damned spirits," said he, "there is no
help nor redemption laid out for you for ever and ever, because this
is the end your misdeeds deserved whilst ye were in life, with pride,
with haughtiness, with gluttony, with inordinate desire, and with every
other sort of sin. Ye have spent the gifts that God gave you, namely
feeling, beauty, strength, airiness (?), happiness, the sight of the
eyes, the hearing of the ears, the speaking of the mouth, the movement
of the limbs, and all those [given] to do the service of God. However,
what ye have done was to spend them in the service of the devil, and it
is he who shall give you your wages in pains, without help or relief,
for ever and ever."
"Knowest thou, O Paul," said the angel, "who they are who are pained
like this?"
"I know not," said Paul, "but it is on them are the hardships
impossible to count-up or to show-forth."
"There," said the angel, "are the people of haughtiness and pride,
who used to be bruising-to-pieces the poor, who gave themselves up to
drinking and the evil desires of the world. Yon devils are beating
them, and ministering to them eternal pains, and they shall be so for
ever and ever, in eric for their misdeeds."
* * * * *
Paul beheld another band upon the fiery hearth of pains, many loathsome
beetle-worms and serpents gnawing and bone-cutting each member of them;
some of the worms going into their mouths and their necks and coming
out on their ears, and the spirits themselves collecting and drawing
those devils and those loathsome reptiles to themselves.
"Knowest thou, O Paul," said the angel, "what people are pained like
this?"
"I know not," said Paul.
"Those," said the angel, "are the people of adultery and disgusting
lust; and in eric for the fair-coloured, gaudy clothes that they used
to put upon themselves, both men and women, deceiving one another,
those devils are for ever gnawing, overthrowing, and bone-cutting them."
* * * * *
Paul beheld another lot upon the fiery hearth of hell. Great mountains
of fire on every side of them, many ill-shaped devils throwing down
those mountains upon the very top of them, bruising them together and
bitter-urging them for ever.
"Knowest thou, O Paul," said the angel, "what people are pained like
this?"
"I know not," said Paul.
"Those," said the angel, "are the people of greed, the lot who store
and gather their neighbours' portion unlawfully, who used not to show
mercy or give alms or act with humanity to the poor, and who used to
oppress the feeble."
Paul saw another lot of people on the fiery hearth of pains,
ever-hideous devils, their eyes straying in their heads, being pained
and bitter-tortured, and being tightened with fiery chains.
"Knowest thou, O Paul," said the angel, "what people are pained like
this?"
"I know not," said Paul.
"Those are the people of envy, the lot who used to be tortured
and burnt with envy and with jealousy when they used to see their
neighbours' goods or possessions, and who would not be satisfied with
the gifts that God would give themselves--and in eric for that they
shall be tortured in this way for ever."
* * * * *
Paul beheld another band upon the hearth of fiery pains, up to their
chins in cold frosty water of the colour of coal. More stinking was
that water than a dead carcase after corruption. Many reptiles,
swimming before them in that water, they being tortured with famine and
with thirst, their mouths opened, crying for food and drink, it set
before them, without its being in their power to taste it, for as often
as they would make an attempt it used to remove farther from them.
"Knowest thou, O Paul," said the angel, "what people are pained like
this?"
"I know not," said Paul.
"Those are the people of gluttony, the people who never fasted nor
abstained nor gave alms nor said prayers, who used to be eating and
drinking forbidden food and drink, who used to give to the body its own
satisfaction, with drunkenness, gluttony and lust, and never checked
the want of the poor."
* * * * *
Paul beheld another band upon the hearth of fiery pains, and this is
how that lot were, with fiery flames out of their mouths and gullets.
An evil disgusting, insufferable smell upon that flame. Their eyes
ghastly wandering, straying in their heads; they pulling one another
and beating one another like fully famished lions.
"Knowest thou, O Paul," said the angel, "what people are pained like
that?"
"I know not," said Paul.
"Those are the people of anger, of disobedience and of despair. They
shall be thus for ever and ever."
* * * * *
Paul beheld another lot very cold and dark, upon the hearth of pains,
bound with chains upon their narrow beds, bruised and tortured and
tightened in bondage by those chains, full of foulness and of evil
disgusting smell, and every pain that it is possible to think of.
"What people are those?" said Paul.
"Those," said the angel, "are the people of sloth who used to remain
away from Mass, from sermons, and from the service of God. Through
sloth they used to neglect and disregard good deeds, and alas for him
who is journeying towards that kingdom," said the angel, "for that is
the habitation of the fiery pains and of the misery, the lake of cold,
the prison of gall, the cave of darkness, the congregation of curses,
the hearth of anger, the ford of snow, the captivity of sloth, the
abode of misery, the dungeon of venom, the court of dispute, the war
of the damned devils, the lake and the sea that is filled with wrath,
with want, with envy, with covetous desire, with jealousy, and with all
evil. _Uch hone, uch!_ Alas for him who is journeying to it."
Howsoever, the angel showed Paul, at full length and completely, the
pains of hell. And, on Paul's beholding all that, with the grace
of God, and with the help of the angel, he gave thanks to God for
receiving that vision, and he fell to thinking bitterly about the
numbers of people on the world who were journeying to those pains. Then
the angel led Paul from the clouds of hell until he gave him a sight of
the glory of the heaven of God. And, on Paul's beholding that sight,
no sorrow of all he had had in his life oppressed him. He beheld the
entire glory of the heavenly palace. He beheld our Saviour Jesus Christ
in the midst of the angels on His throne, and the Lord gave Paul a
gentle, friendly welcome, and told him that it was a short time until
he should come to eternal glory. Then the angel took Paul with him from
the sight of the glory [of heaven], and left him in the place where he
had found him at first, bade him farewell, and departed to heaven.
* * * * *
Paul was throughout his life teaching and preaching to the
congregations and to the Gentiles about the glory of the heavens and
the pains of hell.
Glory be to the living God!
OSCAR OF THE FLAIL.
PREFACE.
I wrote down the following story from the mouth of John Cunningham of
Ballinphuill, Co. Roscommon, on the high road between Frenchpark and
Ballaghaderreen, about twenty years ago. Oscar's flail is well known in
Irish tradition. The poet O'Kelly, in his series of English curses on
Doneraile, alludes to it--
May Oscar with his fiery flail
To pieces dash all Doneraile.
Mr. Stephen Gwynn, M.P., found a variant of this story in Donegal and
has given a spirited poetic version of it. The story is also known in
Waterford. It is probably spread all over the lands occupied by the
Gael, and contains elements that are exceedingly old. The very verses
about "the humming gnat or the scintilla of a beam of the sun" which I
wrote down from the mouth of old John Cunningham in the Co. Roscommon,
had been already jotted down in phonetics by Magregor, the Dean of
Lismore, in Argyllshire in the year 1512. I printed the whole story
with a French translation and introduction in the "Revue Celtique,"
vol. 13, p. 425, showing how in the Tripartite life of St. Patrick the
story of piercing a penitent's foot is told of a son of the King of
Munster. But, as his name was doubtless soon forgotten, the story got
fathered upon Oisín.
The story had its rise, no doubt, in the sorrow felt by the people when
the clerics told them that their beloved Fenians and Oisín and Finn
were damned, and the story was probably invented by some clever person
to save them from perdition. There are scores of MSS. which contain
disputes between St. Patrick and Oisín, or Ossian as the Scotch call
him, on this very subject. See "Religious Songs of Connacht," vol. I.,
p. 209. For the allusion to Elphin, see the poem which follows.
THE STORY
Saint Patrick came to Ireland, and Oisín met him in Elphin and he
carrying stones.
And whatever time it might be that he got the food,
It would be long again till he would get the drink.
"Oisín," says he, "let me baptize you."
"Oh, what good would that do me?" says Oisín.
"Oisín," says St. Patrick, "unless you let me baptize you, you will go
to hell where the rest of the Fenians are."
"If," says Oisín, "Diarmaid and Goll were alive for us, and the king
that was over the Fenians, if they were to go to hell they would bring
the devil and his forge up out of it on their back."
"Listen, O gray and senseless Oisín, think upon God, and bow your knee,
and let me baptize you."
"Patrick," says Oisín, "for what did God damn all that of people?"
"For eating the apple of commandment," says St. Patrick.
"If I had known that your God was so narrow-sighted that he damned all
that of people for one apple, we would have sent three horses and a
mule carrying apples to God's heaven to Him."
"Listen, O gray and senseless Oisín, think upon God, and bow your knee,
and let me baptize you."
Oisín fell into a faint, and the clergy thought that he had died.
When he woke up out of it, "O Patrick, baptize me," says he--he saw
something in his faint, he saw the thing that was before him. The
spear was in St. Patrick's hand, and he thrust it into Oisín's foot
purposely; and the ground was red with his share of blood.
"Oh," says St. Patrick to Oisín, "you are greatly cut."
"Oh, isn't that for my baptism?" says Oisín.
"I hope in God that you are saved," says St. Patrick, "you have
undergone baptism and ...?"
"Patrick," says Oisín, "would you not be able to take the Fenians out
of hell"--he saw them there when he was in his sleep.
"I could not," says St. Patrick, "and any one who is in hell, it is
impossible to bring him out of it."
"Patrick," says Oisín, "are you able to take me to the place where Finn
and the Fenians of Erin are?"
"I cannot," says St. Patrick.
As much as the humming gnat
Or a scintilla of the beam of the sun,
Unknown to the great powerful king
Shall not pass in beneath my shield.
"Can you give them relief from the pain?" says Oisín.
* * * * *
St. Patrick then asked it as a petition from God to give them a relief
from their pain, and he said to Oisín that they had found relief. This
is the relief they got from God. Oscar got a flail, and he requested a
fresh thong to be put into the flail, and there went a green rush as a
thong into it, and he got the full of his palm of green sand, and he
shook the sand on the ground, and as far as the sand reached the devils
were not able to follow; but if they were to come beyond the place
where the sand was strewn, Oscar was able to follow _them_, and to beat
them with the flail. Oscar and all the Fenians are on this side of the
sand, and the devils are on the other side, for St. Patrick got it as
a request from God that they should not be able to follow them where
the sand was shaken,--and the thong that was in the flail never broke
since!
OISIN IN ELPHIN.
PREFACE.
In the story which I have just given it is said that St. Patrick met
Oisin when he was carrying stones in Elphin, a small village in the
County Roscommon, which was once a great ecclesiastical centre founded
by St. Patrick. I had often heard other people in Roscommon tell about
Oisín's carrying those stones in Elphin, and of St. Patrick meeting him
there, but I always imagined that they had localised the story because
they themselves belonged to the place. That this is not so, however,
and that the story of the ancient warriors being forced to carry stones
in his old age is old and genuine is proved by Magregor in Argyllshire
jotting down a verse 400 years ago in which Ossian tells how Finn
had prophesied to him that he would yet be carrying stones for the
"Tailgin."
Bea tou schell a tarraing clooch,
Ma in deyt how in weit wronyth.
i.e., [uncial: Béidh tú seal ag tarraing cloch,
Man [rul] dtéld tu ón bhith bhrónach]
and the very poem (which I give here, taken from a Belfast MS.) was
written in phonetics by Magregor in far-away Argyll.
Magregor's first line as read by McLaughlin (Skene's Book of Lismore)
runs "is fadda noch ni nelli fiym," but Dr. Cameron later on gave a
more correct reading "is fadda not ni nelli finni." It is not to be
translated as McLaughlan does, "long are the clouds this night above
me," but "long is to-night in Elphin," ni nelli finni being evidently
to be transliterated as "i n-Ailfinne." This poem may almost be looked
upon as a pendant to the last piece. See my "Religious Songs of
Connacht."
COLD ELPHIN.
Long was last night in cold Elphin,
More long is to-night on its weary way,
Though yesterday seemed to me long and ill,
Yet longer still was this dreary day.
And long, for me, is each hour new-born,
I fall forlorn to grinding grief
For the hunting lands, and the Fenian bands,
And the long-haired generous Fenian Chief.
I make no music, I find no feast,
I slay no beast from a bounding steed,
I give no gold, I am poor and old,
I am cursed and cold without wine or mead.
No more I court, and I hunt no more,
These were before my strong delight,
I have ceased to slay, and I take no prey,
--Weary the day and long the night.
No heroes come in their war array,
No game I play, and no gold I win;
I swim no stream with my men of might,
--Long is to-night in cold Elphin.
Would I were gone from this evil earth,
I am wan with dearth, I am old and thin,
Carrying stones in my own despite,
--Long is to-night in cold Elphin.
Ask, O Patrick, of God, for grace,
And tell me what place he will hold me in,
And save my soul from the Ill One's might
--For long is to-night in cold Elphin.
THE PRIEST WHO WENT TO DO PENANCE.
PREFACE.
This story I wrote down most carefully, word for word, from the telling
of Mairtin Ruadh O Giollarnath, near Monivea, Co. Galway. He knew no
English. I printed it in my "Sgeuluidhe Gaedhealach," published in
Rennes. I know no variant of this story.
THE STORY.
There arose some little difference between three sons. A farmer's sons
they were. One man of them said that he would leave home and go to an
island (_i.e._, emigrate). Another man of them became a priest, and the
eldest brother remained at home.
The young priest never stopped until he went to Athlone to the college
there, and he remained there for five years until his term had expired,
and he was turned out a professed priest. He got himself ready, then,
in the college, and said that he would go home to visit his father and
mother.
He bound his books together in his bag, and then he faced for home.
There was no mode of conveyance at that time; he had to walk. He walked
all through the day until night was coming on. He saw a light at a
distance from him. He went to it and found a gentleman's big house. He
came into the yard and asked for lodgings until the morning. He got
that from the gentleman and welcome, and the gentleman did not know
what he would do for him, with the regard he had for him.
The priest was a fine handsome man, and the daughter of the gentleman
took, as you would say, a fancy to him, when she was bringing his
supper--and a fine supper it was he got. When they went to sleep
then the young woman went into the room where the priest was. She
began entreating him to give up the church and to marry herself. The
gentleman had no daughter but herself, and she was to have the house
and place, all of it, and she told that to the priest.
Says the priest, "don't tell me your mind," says he; "it's no good. I
am wed already to Mary Mother, and I shall never have any other wife,"
says he. She gave him up then when she saw that it was no good for her,
and she went away. There was a piece of gold plate in the house, and
when the young priest fell asleep she came back again into his room,
and she put the gold plate unbeknownst to him into his bag, and out she
went again.
When he rose then, in the morning, he was getting himself ready to be
going off again. It was a Friday, a fast day, that was in it, but she
got a piece of meat and put it into his pocket, unbeknownst to him. Now
he had both the meat and the gold plate in his bag, and off my poor man
went, without any meal in the morning. When he had gone a couple of
miles on his road, up she rose and told her father that the man that he
had last night with him, "it was a bad man he was, that he stole the
gold plate, and that he had meat in his pocket, going away of him, that
she herself saw him eating it as he went the road that morning." Then
the father got ready a horse and pursued him, and came up with him and
got him taken and brought back again to his own house, and sent for the
peelers.
"I thought," said he, "that it was an honest man you were, and it's a
rogue you are," said he.
He was taken out then and given to the jury to be tried, and he was
found guilty. The father took the gold plate out of the bag and showed
it to the whole jury. He was sentenced to be hanged then. They said
that any man who did a thing of that sort, he deserved nothing but to
put his head in the noose[54] and hang him.
[54] Literally, "in the gallows."
He was up on the stage then going to be hanged, when he asked leave to
speak in the presence of the people. That was given him. He stood up,
then, and he told all the people who he himself was, and where he was
going and what he had done; how he was going home to his father and
mother, and how he came into the gentleman's house. "I don't know that
I did anything bad," said he, "but the daughter that this gentleman
had, she came in to me, into the room, where I was asleep, and she
asked me to leave the church and to marry herself, and I would not
marry her, and no doubt it was she who put the gold plate and the fish
into my bag," and he went down on his two knees then, and put up a
petition to God to send them all light that it was not himself who was
guilty.
"Oh, it was not fish that was in your bag at all but meat," said the
daughter.
"It was meat perhaps that _you_ put in it, but it was fish that I found
in it," says the priest.
When the people heard that, they desired to bring the bag before them,
and they found that it was fish in the place of meat that was in it.
They gave judgment then to hang the young woman instead of the priest.
She was put up then in place of him to be hanged, and when she was up
on the stage, going to be hanged, "Well, you devil," said she, "I'll
have you, in heaven or on earth," and with that she was hanged.
* * * * *
The priest went away after that, drawing on home. When he came home
he got, after a while, a chapel and a parish, and he was quiet and
satisfied, and everybody in the place had a great respect for him, for
he was a fine priest in the parish. He was like this for a good while,
until a day came when he went to visit a great gentleman who was in
that place; just as yourself might come into this garden,[55] or like
that, and they were walking outside in the garden, the gentleman and
himself. When he was going up a walk in this garden a lady met him, and
when she was passing the priest on the walk, she struck a light little
blow of her hand on his cheek. It was that lady who had been hanged who
was in it, but the priest did not recognise her, [seemingly] alive, and
thought she was some other fine lady who was there.
[55] This story was told to me in the garden of Mr. Reddington Roche,
at Rye Hill.
She went then into a summer house, and the priest went in after her,
and had a little conversation with her, and it is likely that she
beguiled him with melodious conversation and talk before she went out.
When she herself and he himself were ready to depart, and when they
were separating from one another, she turned to him and said, "you
ought to recognize me," said she, "I am the woman that you hanged; I
told you that day that I would have you yet, and I shall. I came to you
now to damn you." With that she vanished out of his sight.
He gave himself up then; he said that he was damned for ever. He was
getting no rest, either by day or by night, with the fear that was on
him at her having met him again. He said that it was not in his power
either to go back or forward--that he was to be damned for ever. That
thought was preying on him day and night.
He went away then, and he went to the Bishop, and he told him the whole
story and made his confession to him, and told him how she met him and
tempted him. Then the bishop told him that he was damned for ever, and
that there was nothing in the world to save him or able to save him.
"I have no hope at all, so?" said the priest.
The bishop said to him, "you have no hope at all, till you get a small
load of cambrick needles,"--the finest needles at all--"and get a ship,
and go out to sea, and according as you go every hundred yards on the
sea you must throw away a needle from you out of the ship. Be going
then," says he, "for ever," says he, "until you have thrown away the
last of them. Unless you are able to gather them up out of the sea and
to bring them all to me back again here, you will be lost for ever."
"Well that's a thing that I never shall do; it fails me to do that,"
said the priest.
He got the ship and the needles and went out to sea, according as he
used to go a piece he used to throw a needle from him. He was going
until he was very far away from land, and until he had thrown out the
last needle. By the time he had thrown away the last needle, his own
food was used up, and he had not a thing to eat. He spent three days
then, on end, without bite or sup or drink, or means to come by them.
Then on the third day he saw dry land over from him at a distance. "I
shall go," said he, "to yon dry land over there, and perhaps we may
get something there that we can eat." The man was on the road to be
lost. He drew towards the place and walked out upon the dry land. He
spent from twelve o'clock in the day walking until it was eight o'clock
at night. Then when the night had fallen black, he found himself in a
great wood, and he saw a light at a distance from him in the wood, and
he drew towards it. There were twelve little girls there before him and
they had a good fire, and he asked of them a morsel to eat for God's
sake. Something to eat was got ready for him. After that he got a good
supper, and when he had the supper eaten he began to talk to them,
telling them how he had left home and what it was he had done out of
the way, and the penance that had been put on him by the bishop, and
how he had to go out to sea and throw the needles from him.
"God help you, poor man," said one of the women, "it was a hard penance
that was put upon you."
Says he, "I am afraid that I shall never go home. I have no hope of it.
Have you any idea at all for me down from heaven as to where I shall
get a man who will tell me whether I shall save myself from the sins
that I have committed?"
"I don't know," said a little girl of them, "but we have mass in this
house every day in the year at twelve o'clock. A priest comes here to
read mass for us, and unless that priest is able to tell it to you
there is no use in your going back for ever."
The poor man was tired then and he went to sleep. Well now, he was
that tired that he never felt to get up, and never heard the priest
in the house reading mass until the mass was read and priest gone. He
awoke then and asked one of the women had the priest come yet. She told
him that he had and that he had read mass and was gone again. He was
greatly troubled and sorry then after the priest.
Now with fear lest he might not awake next day, he brought in a harrow
and he lay down on the harrow in such a way that he would have no
means, as he thought, of getting any repose.
But in spite of all that the sleep preyed on him so much that he never
felt to get up until mass was read and the priest gone the second day.
Now he had two days lost, and the girls told him that unless he got the
priest the third day he would have to go away from themselves. He went
out then and brought in a bed of briars on which were thorns to wound
his skin, and he lay down on them without his shirt in the corner,
and with all sorts of torture that he was putting on himself he kept
himself awake throughout the night until the priest came. The priest
read mass, and when he had it read and he going away, my poor man went
up to him and asked him to remain, that he had a story to tell him,
and he told him then the way in which he was, and the penance that was
on him, and how he had left home, and how he had thrown the needles
behind him into the sea, and all that he had gone through of every kind.