all that the other priest had to tell him, "to-morrow," says the saint
to him, "go up to such and such a street that was in the town in that
country; there is a woman there," says he, "selling fish, and the first
fish you take hold of bring it with you. Fourpence the woman will want
from you for the fish, and here is the fourpence to give her. And when
you have the fish bought, open it up, and there is never a needle of
all you threw into the sea that is not inside in its stomach. Leave the
fish there behind you, everything you want is in its stomach; bring the
needles with you, but leave the fish." The saint went away from him
then.
The priest went to that street where the woman was selling fish, as the
saint had ordered, and he brought the first fish he took hold of, and
opened it up and took out the thing which was in its stomach, and he
found the needles there as the saint had said to him. He brought them
with him and he left the fish behind him. He turned back until he came
to the house again. He spent the night there until morning. He rose
next day, and when he had his meal eaten he left his blessing to the
women and faced for his own home.
He was travelling then until he came to his own home. When the bishop
who had put the penance on him heard that he had come back he went to
visit him.
"You have come home?" said the bishop.
"I have," said he.
"And the needles with you?" said the bishop.
"Yes," says the priest, "here they are."
"Why then, the sins that are on me," said the bishop, "are greater than
those on you."
* * * * *
The bishop had no rest then until he went to the Pope, and he told him
that he had put this penance on the priest, "and I had no expectation
that he would come back for ever until he was drowned," said he.
"That same penance that you put upon the priest you must put it on
yourself now," said the Pope, "and you must make the same journey. The
man is holy," said he.
The bishop went away, and embarked upon the same journey, and never
came back since.
THE FRIARS OF URLAUR.
PREFACE.
There is scarcely another country in Europe, outside perhaps of a part
of Switzerland and the Tyrol, in which there is the same veneration
for purity and female chastity as in the Irish-speaking provinces of
Ireland. In the pathetic and well-known song which begins "tá mé sínte
ar do thuamba," "I am stretched upon thy tomb," the man who was in love
with the maiden who had died says:
The priests and the friars
Wear faces of gloom
At me loving a maiden
And she cold in her tomb.
I would lie on your grave-sod
To shield you from rain,
This the thought of you there, love,
Has numbed me with pain.
When my people are thinking
That I am asleep,
It is on your cold grave, love,
My vigil I keep.
With desire I pine
And my bosom is torn,
You were mine, you were mine,
From your childhood my storeen.
But the mourner is not left entirely without comfort when he remembers
the purity of her who had died:
You remember the night
'Neath the thorn on the wold.
When the heavens were freezing
And all things were cold.
Now thanks be to Jesus,
No tempter came o'er you,
And your maidenhood's crown
Is a beacon before you.
In the story about St. Peter we saw how our Lord is made to say that
the old drunkard who had kept a woman from evil had done more good than
the friars themselves.
The following story seems to contain the same moral. It shows how it
was not in the power of anything except virginity itself to banish the
foul and evil spirit which had invaded the peace of the friars. There
is a certain humour in the way in which the laziness, drunkenness and
carelessness of the piper are portrayed, for by this is thrown into
better relief the excellence of the only good deed he had performed.
The monastery of the friars is on the brink of the lake called Urlaur
(floor), Orlar on the map. Àr-làr (slaughter-site) suggested in the
text, is only folk-etymology. The remains are still to be seen, just
inside the borders of the County Roscommon, and on the brink of the
Co. Mayo. The monastery was built by Edward Costello and his wife
Finuala, a daughter of the O'Conor Donn for the Dominican Friars, and
was dedicated to St. Thomas. The Dominicans settled in it about the
year 1430. On the dissolution of the monasteries it was granted to
Lord Dillon, and it has now, with the rest of his enormous property,
been bought by the Congested Districts Board and distributed amongst
the tenants. We are told that there was once a town there, but there
is now no trace of it. The monastery, being in such a retired spot,
was set aside for the reception of novices throughout Connacht. The
"pattern" here spoken of, _i.e._, the gathering held in honour of the
"patron" saint, used to take place on the 4th of August, St. Dominick's
day. The place is four or five miles from the town of Kilkelly, and
Tavran or Towrann, where the piper came from, is a townland between
Ballaghaderreen and Lough Errit, not very far from Urlaur. For the
original, see "Religious Songs of Connacht."
THE STORY.
In times long ago there was a House of Friars on the brink of Loch
Urlaur but there is nothing in it now except the old walls, with the
water of the lake beating up against them every day in the year that
the wind be's blowing from the south.
Whilst the friars were living in that house there was happiness in
Ireland, and many is the youth who got good instructions from the
friars in that house, who is now a saint in heaven.
It was the custom of the people of the villages to gather one day in
the year to a "pattern," in the place where there used to be fighting
and great slaughter when the Firbolgs were in Ireland, but the friars
used to be amongst the young people to give them a good example and
to keep them from fighting and quarrelling. There used to be pipers,
fiddlers, harpers and bards at the pattern, along with trump-players
and music-horns; young and old used to be gathered there, and there
used to be songs, music, dancing and sport amongst them.
But there was a change to come and it came heavy. Some evil spirit
found out its way to Loch Urlaur. It came at first in the shape of a
black boar, with tusks on it as long as a pike, and as sharp as the
point of a needle.
One day the friars went out to walk on the brink of the lake. There
was a chair cut out of the rock about twenty feet from the brink, and
what should they see seated in the chair but the big black boar. They
did not know what was in it. Some of them said that it was a great
water-dog that was in it, but they were not long in doubt about it,
for it let a screech out of it that was heard seven miles on each side
of it; it rose up then on its hind feet and was there screeching and
dancing for a couple of hours. Then it leaped into the water, and no
sooner did it do that than there rose an awful storm which swept the
roof off the friar's house, and off every other house within seven
miles of the place. Furious waves rose upon the lake which sent the
water twenty feet up into the air. Then came the lightning and the
thunder, and everybody thought that it was the end of the world that
was in it. There was such a great darkness that a person could not see
his own hand if he were to put it out before him.
The friars went in and fell to saying prayers, but it was not long till
they had company. The great black boar came in, opened its mouth, and
cast out of it a litter of bonhams. These began on the instant running
backwards and forwards and screeching as loud as if there were the
seven deaths on them with the hunger. There was fear and astonishment
on the friars, and they did not know what they ought to do. The abbot
came forward and desired them to bring him holy water. They did so, and
as soon as he sprinkled a drop of it on the boar and on the bonhams
they went out in a blaze of fire, sweeping part of the side-wall with
them into the lake. "A thousand thanks to God," said the Father Abbot,
"the devil is gone from us."
But my grief! he did not go far. When the darkness departed they went
to the brink of the lake, and they saw the black boar sitting in the
stone chair that was cut out in the rock.
"Get me my curragh," said the Father Abbot, "and I'll banish the thief."
They got him the curragh and holy water, and two of them went into the
curragh with him, but as soon as they came near to the black boar he
leaped into the water, the storm rose, and the furious waves, and the
curragh and the three who were in it were thrown high up upon the land
with broken bones.
They sent for a doctor and for the bishop, and when they told the story
to the bishop he said, "There is a limb of the devil in the shape of
a friar amongst you, but I'll find him out without delay." Then he
ordered them all to come forward, and when they came he called out the
name of every friar, and according as each answered he was put on one
side. But when he called out the name of Friar Lucas he was not to be
found. He sent a messenger for him, but could get no account of him.
At last the friar they were seeking for came to the door, flung down
a cross that he had round his neck, smote his foot on it, and burst
into a great laugh, turned on his heel, and into the lake. When he came
as far as the chair on the rock he sat on it, whipped off his friar's
clothes and flung them out into the water. When he stripped himself
they saw that there was hair on him from the sole of his foot to the
top of his head, as long as a goat's beard. He was not long alone, the
black boar came to him from the bottom of the lake, and they began
romping and dancing on the rock.
Then the bishop enquired what place did the rogue come from, and the
(father) Superior said that he came a month ago from the north, and
that he had a friar's dress on him when he came, and that he asked no
account from him of what brought him to this place.
"You are too blind to be a Superior," said the bishop, "since you do
not recognise a devil from a friar." While the bishop was talking the
eyes of everyone present were on him, and they did not feel till the
black boar came behind them and the rogue that had been a friar riding
on him. "Seize the villain, seize him," says the bishop.
"You didn't seize me yourself," says the villain, "when I was your pet
hound, and when you were giving me the meat that you would not give to
the poor people who were weak with the hunger; I thank you for it, and
I'll have a hot corner for you when you leave this world."
Some of them were afraid, but more of them made an attempt to catch the
black boar and its rider, but they went into the lake, sat on the rock,
and began screaming so loud that they made the bishop and the friars
deaf, so that they could not hear one word from one another, and they
remained so during their life, and that is the reason they were called
the "Deaf Friars," and from that day (to this) the old saying is in the
mouth of the people, "You're as deaf as a friar of Urlaur."
The black boar gave no rest to the friars either by night or day: he
himself, and the rogue of a companion that he had, were persecuting
them in many a way, and neither they themselves nor the bishop were
able to destroy or banish them.
At last they were determining on giving up the place altogether, but
the bishop said to them to have patience till he would take counsel
with Saint Gerald, the patron saint of Mayo. The bishop went to the
saint and told him the story from beginning to end. "That sorrowful
occurrence did not take place in my county," said the saint, "and I do
not wish to have any hand in it." At this time Saint Gerald was only a
higher priest in Tirerrill (?) but anything he took in hand succeeded
with him, for he was a saint on earth from his youth. He told the
bishop that he would be in Urlaur, at the end of a week, and that he
would make an attempt to banish the evil spirit.
The bishop returned and told the friars what Gerald had said, and that
message gave them great courage. They spent that week saying prayers,
but the end of the week came, and another week went by, and Saint
Gerald did not come, for "not as is thought does it happen." Gerald was
struck with illness as it was fated for him, and he could not come.
One night the friars had a dream, and it was not one man alone who
had it, but every man in the house. In the dream each man saw a woman
clothed in white linen, and she said to them that it was not in the
power of any man living to banish the evil spirit except of a piper
named Donagh O'Grady who is living at Tavraun, a man who did more good,
says she, on this world than all the priests and friars in the country.
On the morning of the next day, after the matin prayers, the Superior
said, "I was dreaming, friars, last night about the evil spirit of the
lake, and there was a ghost or an angel present who said to me that it
was not in the power of any man living to banish the evil spirit except
of a piper whose name was Donagh O'Grady who is living at Tavraun, a
man who did more good in this world than all the priests and friars in
the country."
"I had the same dream too," says every man of them.
"It is against our faith to believe in dreams," says the Superior, "but
this was more than a dream, I saw an angel beside my bed clothed in
white linen."
"Indeed I saw the same thing," says every man of them.
"It was a messenger from God who was in it," said the Superior, and
with that he desired two friars to go for the piper. They went to
Tavraun to look for him and they found him in a drinking-house half
drunk. They asked him to come with them to the Superior of the friars
at Urlaur.
"I'll not go one foot out of this place till I get my pay," says the
piper. "I was at a wedding last night and I was not paid yet."
"Take our word that you will be paid," said the friars.
"I won't take any man's word; money down, or I'll stop where I am."
There was no use in talk or flattery, they had to return home again
without the piper.
They told their story to the Superior, and he gave them money to go
back for the piper. They went to Tavraun again, gave the money to the
piper and asked him to come with them.
"Wait till I drink another naggin; I can't play hearty music till I
have my enough drunk?"
"We won't ask you to play music, it's another business we have for you."
O'Grady drank a couple of naggins, put the pipes under his oxter
(arm-pit) and said, "I'm ready to go with ye now."
"Leave the pipes behind you," said the friars, "you won't want them."
"I wouldn't leave my pipes behind me if it was to Heaven I was going,"
says the piper.
When the piper came into the presence of the Superior, the Superior
began examining him about the good works he had done during his life.
"I never did any good work during my life that I have any remembrance
of," said the piper.
"Did you give away any alms during your life?" said the Superior.
"Indeed, I remember now, that I did give a tenpenny piece to a daughter
of Mary O'Donnell's one night. She was in great want of the tenpenny
piece, and she was going to sell herself to get it, when I gave it to
her. After a little while she thought about the mortal sin she was
going to commit, she gave up the world and its temptations and went
into a convent, and people say that she passed a pious life. She died
about seven years ago, and I heard that there were angels playing
melodious music in the room when she was dying, and it's a pity I
wasn't listening to them, for I'd have the tune now!"
"Well," said the Superior, "there's an evil spirit in the lake outside
that's persecuting us day and night, and we had a revelation from an
angel who came to us in a dream, that there was not a man alive able to
banish the evil spirit but you."
"A male angel or female?" says the piper.
"It was a woman we saw," says the Superior, "she was dressed in white
linen."
"Then I'll bet you five tenpenny pieces that it was Mary O'Donnell's
daughter was in it," says the piper.
"It is not lawful for us to bet," says the Superior, "but if you banish
the evil spirit of the lake you will get twenty tenpenny pieces."
"Give me a couple of naggins of good whiskey to give me courage," says
the piper.
"There is not a drop of spirits in the house," says the Superior, "you
know that we don't taste it at all."
"Unless you give me a drop to drink," says the piper, "go and do the
work yourself."
They had to send for a couple of naggins, and when the piper drank it
he said that he was ready, and asked them to show him the evil spirit.
They went to the brink of the lake, and they told him that the evil
spirit used to come on to the rock every time that they struck the bell
to announce the "Angel's Welcome" [Angelical Salutation].
"Go and strike it now," says the piper.
The friars went, and began to strike the bell, and it was not long till
the black boar and its rider came swimming to the rock. When they got
up on the rock the boar let a loud screech, and the rogue began dancing.
The piper looked at them and said, "wait till I give ye music." With
that he squeezed on his pipes, and began playing, and on the moment the
black boar and its rider leapt into the lake and made for the piper. He
was thinking of running away, when a great white dove came out of the
sky over the boar and its rider, shot lightning down on top of them and
killed them. The waves threw them up on the brink of the lake, and the
piper went and told the Superior and the friars that the evil spirit
of the lake and its rider were dead on the shore.
They all came out, and when they saw that their enemies were dead they
uttered three shouts for excess of joy. They did not know then what
they would do with the corpses. They gave forty tenpenny pieces to the
piper and told him to throw the bodies into a hole far from the house.
The piper got a lot of tinkers who were going the way and gave them ten
tenpenny pieces to throw the corpse into a deep hole in a shaking-scraw
a mile from the house of the friars. They took up the corpses, the
piper walked out before them playing music, and they never stopped till
they cast the bodies into the hole, and the shaking-scraw closed over
them and nobody ever saw them since. The "Hole of the Black Boar" is
to be seen still. The piper and the tinkers went to the public house,
and they were drinking till they were drunk, then they began fighting,
and you may be certain that the piper did not come out of Urlaur with a
whole skin.
The friars built up the walls and the roof of the house and passed
prosperous years in it, until the accursed foreigners came who banished
the friars and threw down the greater part of the house to the ground.
The piper died a happy death, and it was the opinion of the people that
he went to Heaven, and that it may be so with us all!
DIALOGUE BETWEEN TWO OLD WOMEN
PREFACE.
This story of the two women I got from Francis O'Connor. He said he
heard it from one Mary Casey, a Co. Galway woman, but I don't know from
what part of Galway. It is I who am responsible for the dialogue form
of it, which I have used instead of putting in an occasional bald "said
Mary," "said Sheela"; but it really was told more in a dramatic then a
narrative form, the reciter's voice showing who was speaking. The words
I have not interfered with.
I once heard a dialogue not unlike this between two Melicete Indians
in Canada who fell to discussing Theology over the camp-fire at night
after hunting. One was a Catholic and the other a close replica of
Maurya in our dialogue.
The story of Páidin Críona seems familiar to me, but I cannot think
where or in what literature I have met it before.
THE STORY.
MAURYA.
A hundred welcomes Sheela, it's a cure for sore eyes to see you; sit
down and rest and tell us your news.
SHEELA.
Musha! I have no news. It is not news that's troubling me.
MAURYA.
Arrah! and what's troubling you? sure you're not ill!
SHEELA.
I'm not ill, thanks be to God and to His blessed mother, but I do be
thinking of the four last ends--the Death and the Judgment, and Hell
and Heaven, for I know I shan't be much longer in this sorrowful world,
and I wouldn't mind if I were leaving it to-morrow.
MAURYA.
No nonsense at all of that sort ever comes into _my_ head, and I'm
older than you. I'm not tired of this world yet. I have knowledge of
this world, and I have no knowledge at all of the other world. Nobody
ever came back to tell me about it. I'll be time enough thinking of
Death when he comes. And, another thing,--I don't believe that God
created anyone to burn him in hell eternally.
SHEELA.
You're going astray Maurya; were you at mass last Sunday?
MAURYA.
Indeed and I was not! I was doing a thing more profitable. It was
taking care of my hens I was, to keep them from laying abroad, or I
wouldn't have the price of a grain of tea or sneesheen throughout the
week. That _bolgán-béiceach_ Father Brian wouldn't give me a penny
if it was to keep me from being hanged. He's only a miserable greedy
_sanntachán_. I had a little sturk of a pig last Christmas and he asked
me to sell it to give him a shilling on Christmas Day, and as I didn't
do that, he called out my name the Sunday after, in the chapel. He's
not satisfied with good food, and oats for his horse, and gold and
silver in his pocket. As I said often, I don't see any trade as good
as a priest's trade; see the fine working clothes they wear, and poor
people earning it hard for them.
SHEELA.
I wonder greatly at your talk. Your unbelief is great. I wonder that
you speak so unmannerly about Father Brian, when if you were dying
to-morrow, who would give you absolution but the same father?
MAURYA.
Arrah! Sheela, hold your tongue. Father Brian wouldn't turn on his
heel, either for you or for me, without pay, even if he knew that it
would keep us out of hell.
SHEELA.
The cross of Christ on us! I never thought that it was that sort of a
woman you were. Did you ever go to confession?
MAURYA.
I went the day I was married, but I never bowed my knee under him
before or since.
SHEELA.
You have not much to do now, and you ought to think about your poor
soul.
MAURYA.
That wouldn't keep the hens from laying abroad on me, and if I were to
go to confess to Father Brian, instead of absolution it's a barging I'd
get from him, unless I had a half-crown on the top of my fingers to
give him.
SHEELA.
Father Brian isn't half as bad as you say; I'm to go to his house this
evening with fresh eggs and a pint of butter. I'll speak to him about
you if you give me leave.
MAURYA.
Don't trouble yourself about me, for I'm not going near Father Brian:
when I'll be on my death-bed _he'll_ come to _me_.
SHEELA.
And how do you know that it's not a sudden death you'd get, and what
would happen to you if you were to get a "death without priest?"
MAURYA.
And wouldn't I be as well off as the thousands who got death without
e'er a priest. I haven't much trust in the priests. It's sinners that's
in them all; they're like ourselves, exactly. My own notion is that
there's nothing in religion but talk. Did you ever hear mention of
Páidín Críona[56] [wise Patsy].
[56] Pronounced "Paudyeen Creeöna."
SHEELA.
I did, often.
MAURYA.
Very well; did you ever hear his opinion about religion?
SHEELA.
Indeed, I never did, but tell it to me if you please.
MAURYA.
Musha, then, I will. There were three officers living in one house and
Paudyeen Críona [Cree-on-a] was servant to them. There were no two of
them of the same religion, and there used often to be a dispute amongst
them--and every man of them saying that it was his own religion was
the best religion. One day a man of them said, "We'll leave it to Wise
Paudyeen as to which of us has the best religion." "We're satisfied,"
said the other two. They called in Paudyeen and a man of them said to
him, "Paudyeen, I'm a Catholic, and what will happen to me after my
death?"
"I'll tell you that," says Paudyeen. "You'll be put down into the
grave, and you'll rise again and go up to the gate of heaven. Peter
will come out and will ask you, 'what religion are you of.' You'll tell
him, and he'll say, 'Go and sit in that corner amongst the Catholics.'"
"I'm a Protestant," said the second man, "and what'll happen to me
after my death?"
"Exactly as the other man. You will be put sitting in the corner of the
Protestants!"
"I'm a Hebrew," says the third man, "and what will happen to me after
my death?"
"Exactly as the other two; you will be put sitting amongst the Hebrews."
Now there was no one of them better off than the other, as Paudyeen
left them, and so the Catholic asked Paudyeen, "Paudyeen, what's your
own religion?"
"I have no religion at all," says he.
"And what'll happen to you after your death?"
"I'll tell you that. I shall be put down into the hole, I shall rise
again and go up to the gate of heaven. Peter will come and ask me, 'of
what religion are you?' I will say that I have no religion at all, and
Peter will say then, 'come in, and sit down, or walk about in any place
that you have a wish for.'"