better off than the people who had a religion! Every one of them was
bound to the corner of his own creed, but Paudyeen was able to go in
his choice place, and I'll be so too.
SHEELA.
God help you Maurya; I'm afraid there's a long time before your poor
soul in Purgatory.
MAURYA.
Have sense Sheela; I'll go through Purgatory as quickly as lightning
through a gooseberry bush.
SHEELA.
There's no use talking to you or giving you advice. I'll leave you.
When Sheela was going out, Maurya let a screech out of her which was
heard for a mile on every side of her. Sheela turned round and she saw
Maurya in the midst of a flame of fire. Sheela ran as fast as was in
her to Father Brian's house, and returned with him running to Maurya's
house. But, my grief! the house was burned to the ground, and Maurya
was burnt with it; and I am afraid that the [her] poor soul was lost.
THE MINISTER AND THE GOSSOON.
PREFACE.
This curious little piece is another dialogue in the same form as the
last. These are the only two stories, if one may call them stories,
which I have found couched in this form, so partly for that reason I
give it here.
THE STORY
One day there was a poor little gossoon on the side of the road, and he
taking care of an old sow of a pig, and a litter of bonhams along with
her. A minister came the way, and he riding upon a fine horse, and he
said to the gossoon, "Where does this road bring you?"
GOSSOON.
I'm here for a fortnight, and it never brought me anywhere yet.
MINISTER.
Now, isn't it the wise little boy you are! Whose are the little pigs?
GOSSOON.
They're the old sow's.
MINISTER.
I know that, but I'm asking you who is the master of the bonhams.
GOSSOON.
That little black-and-white devil that you see rooting, he's able to
beat the whole of them.
MINISTER.
That's not what I'm asking you at all, but who is your own master?
GOSSOON.
My mistress's husband, a man as good as you'd get from here to himself.
MINISTER.
You don't understand me yet. Who is your mistress--perhaps you
understand that?
GOSSOON.
I understand you well. She is my master's wife. Everyone knows that.
MINISTER.
You're a wise little boy; and it's as good for me to let you be, but
tell me do you know where Patrick O'Donnell is living?
GOSSOON.
Yes, indeed. Follow this road until you come to a boreen on the side of
your thumb-hand. Then follow your nose, and if you go astray break the
guide.
MINISTER.
Indeed, and you're a ripe (precocious) little lad! What trade will you
have when you'll be older?
GOSSOON.
Herding a pig. Don't you see that I'm putting in my term. What is your
own trade?
MINISTER.
A good trade. I am showing the people what is the way to heaven.
GOSSOON.
Oh, what a liar! _You_ can't show the way to any place. You don't
know the way to Patrick O'Donnell's, a man that everybody--big and
little--in this country knows, and I'm certain sure you have no
knowledge of the road to heaven.
MINISTER.
I'm beaten. Here's half a crown for you for your cleverness, and when I
come again you'll get another.
GOSSOON.
Thank you. It's a pity that a fool like you doesn't come the way every
day.
THE KEENING OF THE THREE MARYS.
PREFACE.
I got the following poem from a schoolmaster called O'Kearney, near
Belmullet, in West Mayo, who told me that he had taken it down from the
recitation of an old man in the neighbourhood. I got another version
of it afterwards from Michael Mac Ruaidhri of Ballycastle, Co. Mayo,
with quite a different "cur-fa" or refrain, namely _[)o]ch [=o]ch agus
[)o]ch [=u]ch [=a]n_ after the first two lines, and _[)o]ch [)o]ch agus
[=o]ch [)o]n [=o]_ after the next two. Spelt phonetically in English
and giving _gh_ the guttural value of _ch_ in German, and _oa_ the same
sound as in English _roach_ and _oo_ the sound of oo in _pool_, it
would run----
Let us go to the mountain
All early on the morrow,
Ugh oagh agus ugh oogh awn.
Hast thou seen my bright darling,
O Peter, good apostle,
Ugh ugh agus oagh on ó.
The agus "and" is pronounced nearly as "oggus." The story I have not
traced, but it may have come from an Irish version of one of the
apocryphal gospels.
THE STORY
Let us go to the mountain
All early on the morrow,
(Ochone! agus ochone, O!)
"Hast thou seen my bright darling,
O Peter, good apostle?"
(Ochone! agus ochone, O!)
"Aye! truly O Mother
Have I seen him lately,
(Ochone agus ochone, O!)
Caught by his foemen,
They had bound him straitly,"
(Ochone agus ochone, O!)
"Judas, as in friendship,
Shook hands, to disarm him,"
(Ochone agus ochone, O!)
Oh, Judas! vile Judas!
My love did never harm him.
(Ochone agus ochone, O!)
No child has he injured,
Not the babe in the cradle,
(Ochone agus ochone, O!)
Nor angered his mother
Since his birth in the stable.
(Ochone agus ochone, O!)
When the demons discovered
That she was his mother,
(Ochone agus ochone, O!)
They raised her on their shoulders
The one with the other;
(Ochone agus ochone, O!)
And they cast her down fiercely
On the stones all forlorn,
(Ochone agus ochone, O!)
And she lay and she fainted
With her knees cut and torn,
(Ochone agus ochone, O!)
"For myself, ye may beat me,
But, oh, touch not my mother,"
(Ochone agus ochone, O!)
"Yourself,--we shall beat you,
But we'll slaughter your mother."
(Ochone agus ochone, O!)
They dragged him off captive,
And they left her tears flowing,
(Ochone agus ochone, O!)
But the Virgin pursued them
Through the wilderness going,
(Ochone agus ochone, O!)
"Oh, who is yon woman?
Through the waste comes another,"
(Ochone agus ochone, O!)
"If there comes any woman
It is surely my mother,"
(Ochone agus ochone, O!)
"Oh John, care her, keep her,
Who comes in this fashion,"
(Ochone agus ochone, O!)
"But Oh, hold her from me
Till I finish this passion,"
(Ochone agus ochone, O!)
When the Virgin had heard him
And his sorrowful saying,
(Ochone agus ochone, O!)
She sprang past his keepers
To the tree of his slaying,
(Ochone agus ochone, O!)
"What fine man hangs there
In the dust and the smother?"
(Ochone agus ochone, O!)
"And do you not know him,
He is _your_ son, O Mother."
(Ochone agus ochone, O!)
"Oh, is that the child whom
I bore in this bosom,
(Ochone agus ochone, O!)
Or is that the child who
Was Mary's fresh blossom"
(Ochone agus ochone, O!)
They cast him down from them
A mass of limbs bleeding,
(Ochone agus ochone, O!)
"There now he is for you,
Now go and be keening."
(Ochone agus ochone, O!)
Go call the three Marys
Till we keene him forlorn,
(Ochone agus ochone, O!)
O Mother thy keeners
Are yet to be born,
(Ochone agus ochone, O!)
Thyself shall come with me
Into Paradise garden,
(Ochone agus ochone, O!)
To a fair place in heaven
At the side of thy darling,
(Ochone agus ochone, O!)
THE FARMER'S SON AND THE BISHOP.
PREFACE.
The following story is an extract from a much longer piece in prose
and verse, which I take from a manuscript in my own possession made by
Patrick O Prunty (grand-uncle, I think of Charlotte Brontë), in 1764.
It is called "the Counsel of Mac Lava from Aughanamullin to Red Archy,
that is Red Shane, son of Bradach, son of Donal the gloomy, son of
Shane, son of Torlogh, etc." In a manuscript in the Royal Irish Academy
I find it entitled "The Counsel of Mac Lavy from Aughanamullin to his
cousin Red Archy Litis on his forsaking his wife to take the yoke of
piety on him, that is of Priestifying; or, the 'Priest of the Stick'
by Laurence Faneen." In another MS. of mine, written by the well-known
scribe Labhrás O Fuartháin from Portlaw in Co. Waterford, in 1786, it
is called "The Counsel of Mac Clava from Aughanamullin to Red Archy Mac
a Brady."
The poem is entirely satirical, and the gist of it is that the writer
advises Archy not to be working like a poor man in dirt and misery, but
from himself to earn the reputation of having a little Latin, and to
become a _bullaire_, a comic word for bull-promulgator or priest. Any
kind of Latin he tells him will do with an uneducated congregation,
such as "Parva nec invideo" or "Hanc tua Penelope," or "Tuba mirum
spargens sonum" or "ego te teneo, Amen!" The poet tells his victim that
when he is reading he can twist and stifle his voice "like a melodious
droning and partly a humming (?) through the nose, and partly the
smothering of a cough, and then the wealthy full-ignorant laity amongst
the congregation shall say that it is a great pity the shortness of
breath, the pressure on the chest, and the tightness round the breast
that strikes the blessed, loud-voiced, big-worded priest at the time
of service." He then proceeds to tell him the following story, in the
style of the Irish romances common in the eighteenth century. For the
original Irish and the poem and notes, see vol. I., p. 180, "Religious
Songs of Connacht."
THE STORY.
O, Cousin Archy, I must now tell you a little allegory which has
a bearing upon your own present case, about a greedy, fat-boned,
stoop-headed, bashful fellow of a son, that a long-bearded,
broad-sided, cow-herd-ful, large-flock-having Farmer had, who was once
on a time residing by the side of the island and the illustrious Church
of Clonmacnois. And this aforesaid Farmer was accustomed to double his
alms to a godly-blessed hermit who was living close by him, [giving]
with excess of diligence beyond [the rest of] the congregation, in
order that he might have the aid of this hermit in putting forward that
blockhead (?) of a son towards the priesthood.
At last, on the priest of that parish in which they were, dying, the
Farmer promulgates and lays bare to the hermit the secret conception
and intention which he had stored up for a long time before that, and
it was what he said to him, that he considered, himself, that there was
no person at all who would better suit that congregation as a parish
priest than this son of his own, from the love of the priesthood which
he had.
The Farmer beseeches and begs him--giving him large offerings on
the head of it--to go with his son to the presence of the Bishop of
Clonmacnois. They set forth all three, side by side, on that journey,
the farmer, the hermit, and the farmer's son, together with a great
congregation of their friends and cousins, and of the Farmer's
acquaintance accompanying him to the strand and harbour of that island
of Clonmacnois.
It was then a gentleman who was in the assembly asked the Farmer with
prophesying truly-wise words whether he knew if his lad of a son were
wise [educated] enough to receive the grade of priesthood on that
occasion. He answered that he knew, himself, that he was, without any
doubt, because he had been for seven years clerk of salt and water
[_i.e._, acolyte] to the blessed godly Father who departed to heaven
from us but now, and moreover, that he was plentiful with his Amens at
time of mass or marriage, and that in this respect he had generally too
much rather than too little. "Oh, I am satisfied," said the gentleman,
turning his back on him, bursting into a fit of laughing.
However, upon the Farmer thus satisfying the gentleman's question, they
were all silent, until the hermit's lad the "Shouting Attendant" (?)
gave a shout at the beach, asking for a curach and means of transport
to row to the island. After that comes to them a broad-wombed,
long-timbered boat, with eight loutish, big-biting, lumpish (?),
dawdling (?), raw-nosed (?), great-sleeping spalpeens of the parish on
the left hand of the Farmer's son. They enjoin on the Farmer with his
people to wait on the beach of the harbour until they themselves should
come back. This they do.
In the meantime, on the above-mentioned couple going into the bishop's
presence, the hermit discloses the reason and meaning of his journey.
The bishop consents, at the request of the hermit, to confer the
degrees of priesthood on the Farmer's son, and makes some of the clergy
who were along with him put scholarly questions to the youth, so that
they might have some knowledge of the amount of his learning to give
the bishop. However, they found nothing either great or small of any
kind of learning whatsoever in him. After that they report to the
bishop about the youth's ability.
The bishop is angry at the clergy on hearing their report, and 'twas
what he said that it was shame or fright (?) they put on the youth, and
he himself calls him with him far apart, to the brink and very margin
of the lake, in solitude, so that they came within the view of the
Farmer and his people on the opposite side, and he addresses him in
Latin with courteous truly-friendly words, and 'twas what he said--
_Quid est sacramentum in nomine Domini?_
_Qui fecit coelum et terram_, says the fellow.
_Numquam accedes ad altare Dei_, says the bishop.
_Ad Deum qui laetificat juventutem meam_, says the lad.
_Non fies sacerdos per me in sæcula sæculorum_, says the bishop.
_Amen_, says he.
Then was the bishop excessively enraged against the Farmer's son, and
raised his arm with a thick-butted apple-knotted * * * *? cudgel of a
stick, that he had in his right hand, and begins lacing and leathering
and whaling the Farmer's son without sparing, so that his blood and
inwards ran down to the very ground.
"Ow! but that's sad, my son's case now," says the Farmer, "and I think
myself that every comfort and satisfaction (?) and roasted hen and
every bottle that he shall get like a prolute (prelate?) sitting in
his coverlet with kindness from this out, is not to be begrudged him;
for it's hard and pitiably, it's patiently, gently, meekly and humbly
my child takes the religious yoke and the grade of priesthood on him
this night, and it's not easily it will be forgotten by him to the
termination of his career and his life, for it's diligently, piously,
firmly, and soundly, the blessed bishop drives it into his memory with
swift hand-blows of the large stick."
However, on the bishop's parting from the Farmer's son, the aforesaid
spalpeens came up to the young priest and asked his blessing. He lifted
up his hands cleric-like and piously above their heads, and gave them
general absolution, saying _Asperges me Domine hysoppo et mundabor,
lavabis me et super nivem dealbabor_.
They carried him with them to the curach after that, and leapt into it,
flowingly and high-spiritedly, until they reached land on the other
side, and all that were in the island harbour made the same reverence
to the Farmer's son, and they asked him where was his bull or charter
of priesthood.
He said he had no charter but the bull of the race of stoop-headed
Conor Mac Lopus of Cavan to the Vicarage of Leargan,--the will of the
people.
They swore by the God of the elements that he never could have a better
charter than that, and they bound themselves by the sun and the moon
to defend that parish for him to the end of his term and his life. And
they did so.
* * * * *
And now Archy, the story which does not concern a smotàn (?) is good,
for it is you that the application of this story concerns, and it is
the good advice to you to take the same grade of priesthood, and if
blows of a stick be struck on you, it is small damage compared with
every comfort and ease that you will get on the head of it, and in
addition to every other advice I have given you, here are a couple of
little ranns for you which shall be in your memory continually, so that
they may be a good help in every pinch that is before you. * * * * * *
SHAUN THE TINKER.
PREFACE.
I wrote down this story carefully from the mouth of Mártain Ruadh O
Giollarnáth from near Monivea, Co. Galway. He had no English. The story
is a well-known one. It is the basis of Father O'Leary's delightful
book "Séadna." It has been examined at great length with much learning
and perspicacity by Carl Marstrander in the Miscellany presented to
Kuno Meyer, pp. 386 ff., to which I refer the reader.
According to a Donegal story, called "Domhnall O Dochartaigh," taken
down and given me by the late Mr. Larminie, Death is the being who is
tricked. But, according to a Galway story which I heard, the Tinker
had a son whose godfather was Death. He became a doctor and cured
everybody at whose feet he saw Death standing. Death gave him leave
to do this. Attracted one day by a huge bribe he turned round the bed
where the patient lay so that Death, who had been at the patient's head
with intent that he should die, was now at the patient's foot, who
consequently recovered. After this Death is tricked in much the same
way as the Devil in our story.
THE STORY.
They were poor, both of them, the man and his wife. The man had no
other means in the world except his day's pay, going here and going
there, and earning his day's wages from place to place.
The beginning of the harvest was come now, and he went in to the wife
and said to her--Elleesh was the wife's name--"Elleesh," says he,
"stand up," says he, "and make ready my meal for me until I go to
Kildare to-morrow."
Elleesh got ready the meal for him as well as ever she was able, and
she washed him and tidied him up and put good clean trousers on him,
and himself got ready to be going. And the poor man did go, off he
went. He had no provisions going away then, only four shillings to pay
his way.
He was going then and journeying until he came to the top of a bridge,
and there he met with a stumble and was thrown on one knee. "Oh,
musha," says he, "the devil break my neck when I'll pass this way
again."
He went on then and he never stopped until he came into Kildare, and
he settled with a farmer there and spent four years with him without
coming home at all. He never took one penny from the farmer in the
course of the four years except as much as put clothing on him. Now at
the end of the four years he took it into his head to be going home
again.
And this was what he was getting in the year--five pounds. And likely
enough, when he took it into his head to be going, that he said to the
farmer and to the farmer's wife that he was to be departing in the
morning. They gave him his share of money then. Then he made for home,
and fifteen pounds was what he had coming home of him. He never spent
but five pounds on his clothes all the time he was with the farmer.
He was coming and ever-coming along the road until he came to a corner
where four roads met. A poor man met him and asked alms of him. "God
salute you," says he.
"God and Mary salute you," says Shaun.
"In Kildare you were," says he.
"Well, yes," says Shaun.
"You have money so," says he, "and I am asking my alms of you in honour
of God and of Mary."
He gave him alms then--five pounds he gave him. "Now Shaun," says the
poor man, when he was going away from him. "I don't like you to go away
without giving you [your] earned reward for your five pounds. What is
the thing that you most wish for?"
"Anything that I desire," says Shaun, "me to have lots of money for it
in my pocket. And anything that would be putting trouble on me, me to
have leave to shut it up in this bottle which I have in my hand."
"You'll get that," says he.
He was going along then until he came to the corner of four other roads
and another poor man met him. "God salute you," says the poor man. "God
and Mary salute you." "You were in Kildare," said the poor man. "That's
the place I was," says Shaun. "If you are coming back out of Kildare
you're not without money, and I am asking my alms of you in honour of
God and Mary." "It's short till I have my money spent," says Shaun.
"But here," says he, putting the hand in his pocket, "here's five
pounds for you."
When he gave it to him, the poor man said, "I don't like you to go away
without giving you a reward for your five pounds. What sort of a thing
is it that you'd like best to have?" "Any person that would be doing
anything at all out of the way with me [me to be able] to put him into
my budget and him to remain there until myself would give him leave to
go away, or until myself would let him out." "You'll have that to get,"
says he.
He went away, then, and he was travelling until he went where four
other roads met. There was another poor man before him there. "This
is the third man," says Shaun. "God salute you, Tinker Shaun," says
he as soon as Shaun came up with him. "God and Mary salute you."
"You're coming out of Kildare, Shaun," says he. "I am, indeed," says
Shaun. But he said to himself, "Isn't it well how every man recognises
me and without me recognising them." "I am asking my alms of you
in honour of God and of Mary if you have any money with you coming
from Kildare." "Oh, musha, I'll give you that and my blessing. I met
another pair before this and I gave five pounds to each man of them,
and here's five pounds for you." "I don't like you to go away Shaun
without your reward, and what is the thing you'd have most desire for?"
"Well, then," says Shaun, "when I was at home I had an apple tree in
the garden at the back of the house, and I used to be troubled with
gossoons coming there and stealing the apples. I should like, since
I am going home again now, that every person except myself who shall
lay his hand on that tree that his hand should stick to it, and that
he should have no power of himself to go away without leave from me."
"You'll get that Shaun," says he.
He was travelling then until he came to the bridge where he had
stumbled as he was going to Kildare the time he was thrown on one knee.
Who should be standing on the bridge before him but the Devil. "Who are
you?" says Tinker Shaun. "I am the Devil," says he.
"And what sent you here?" says Shaun.
"Well," says he, "when you went this way before didn't you say that if
you were to go this way again might the Devil break your neck?"
"I said that," says Shaun.
"Well, I've come before you now that I may break your neck."
"Try if you can," said Shaun. The Devil moved over towards him and
was going to kill him, when Shaun said, "In with you into my bag this
moment and don't be troubling me." The Devil had to go into the bag
because Shaun had that power.
Shaun was going along then, and the Devil in the bag slung over his
back. When he came to the next bridge he stood to take a rest and there
were two women washing there. "I'll give ye five pounds and give my
bag a good dressing with the beetles." They began beating it. "The bag
is harder than the Devil himself," say they. "It is the Devil himself
that's in it," says Shaun, "and lay on him." They beat it really then
until they gave him enough.
He threw it up over his back then and off he went until he came to a
forge. He went into the forge. "I'll give you five pounds," says he to
the smith, "and strike a good spell on this bag." There were two smiths
there and they began leathering the bag. "Why, then," says one of the
smiths, "your bag is harder than the Devil himself." "It is the Devil
himself that's in it," says Shaun, "and lay on him, ye, and beat him."
One of the men put a hole in the bag with the blow he gave it and he
looked in on the hole and he saw the Devil's eye at the hole. The poker
was in the fire and it red hot. The smith stuck it into the hole in
such a way that he put it into the Devil's eye, and that's the thing
which has left the old Devil half blind ever since.
He raised the bag on his back then, and he was going away when the
Devil rose up and burst the bag and departed from him. Shaun came home.
At the end of a quarter of a year when Shaun was at home with the wife
the Devil came to him again "You must come with me, Shaun," says he;
"make your soul," says he, "I'll give you death without respite."
"I'll go with you," says Shaun; "but give me respite until to-morrow
until I have everything ready, and I'll go with you then and welcome."
"I won't give you any respite at all; neither a day nor an hour, you
thief."
"I won't ask you for any respite," says Shaun, "only as long as I would
be eating a single apple off that tree. Pull me one yourself, and I'll
be with you."
The old Devil moved over to the tree, and took hold of a branch to
pluck an apple off it and he stuck to the branch, and was not able to
loose himself. He remained there on the branch during seven years.
One day that Shaun was in the garden again by himself he was not
thinking, but he went gathering a bundle of kippeens for Elleesh, to
make a fire for her, and what was the branch it should fall to him to
cut for Elleesh but the branch in which the Devil was. The Devil gave a
leap into the air. "Now Shaun," says he, "be ready; you will never go
either forward nor back. You must come with me on the spot."