People may have heard of the renowned adventures of Daniel O’Rourke, but
how few are there who know that the cause of all his perils, above and
below, was neither more nor less than his having slept under the walls
of the Phooka’s tower. I knew the man well: he lived at the bottom of
Hungry Hill, just at the right hand side of the road as you go towards
Bantry. An old man was he at the time that he told me the story, with
gray hair, and a red nose; and it was on the 25th of June, 1813, that I
heard it from his own lips, as he sat smoking his pipe under the old
poplar tree, on as fine an evening as ever shone from the sky. I was
going to visit the caves in Dursey Island, having spent the morning at
Glengariff.
“I am often _axed_ to tell it, sir,” said he, “so that this is not the
first time. The master’s son, you see, had come from beyond foreign
parts in France and Spain, as young gentlemen used to go, before
Buonaparte or any such was heard of; and sure enough there was a dinner
given to all the people on the ground, gentle and simple, high and low,
rich and poor. The _ould_ gentlemen were the gentlemen, after all,
saving your honour’s presence. They’d swear at a body a little, to be
sure, and, may be, give one a cut of a whip now and then, but we were no
losers by it in the end;--and they were so easy and civil, and kept such
rattling houses, and thousands of welcomes;--and there was no grinding
for rent, and few agents; and there was hardly a tenant on the estate
that did not taste of his landlord’s bounty often and often in the
year;--but now it’s another thing: no matter for that, sir, for I’d
better be telling you my story.
“Well, we had every thing of the best, and plenty of it; and we ate, and
we drank, and we danced, and the young master by the same token danced
with Peggy Barry, from the Bohereen--a lovely young couple they were,
though they are both low enough now. To make a long story short, I got,
as a body may say, the same thing as tipsy almost, for I can’t remember
ever at all, no ways, how it was that I left the place: only I did leave
it, that’s certain. Well, I thought, for all that, in myself. I’d just
step to Molly Cronahan’s, the fairy woman, to speak a word about the
bracket heifer what was bewitched; and so as I was crossing the
stepping-stones of the ford of Ballyashenogh, and was looking up at the
stars and blessing myself--for why? it was Lady-day--I missed my foot,
and souse I fell into the water. ‘Death alive!’ thought I, ‘I’ll be
drowned now?’ However, I began swimming, swimming, swimming away for the
dear life, till at last I got ashore, somehow or other, but never the
one of me can tell how, upon a _dissolute_ island.
“I wandered and wandered about there, without knowing where I wandered,
until at last I got into a big bog. The moon was shining as bright as
day, or your fair lady’s eyes, sir, (with your pardon for mentioning
her,) and I looked east and west, and north and south, and every way,
and nothing did I see but bog, bog, bog;--I could never find out how I
got into it; and my heart grew cold with fear, for sure and certain I
was that it would be my _berrin_ place. So I sat down upon a stone
which, as good luck would have it, was close by me, and I began to
scratch my head, and sing the _Ullagone_--when all of a sudden the moon
grew black, and I looked up, and saw something for all the world as if
it was moving down between me and it, and I could not tell what it was.
Down it came with a pounce, and looked at me full in the face; and what
was it but an eagle? as fine a one as ever flew from the kingdom of
Kerry. So he looked at me in the face, and says he to me, ‘Daniel
O’Rourke,’ says he, ‘how do you do?’ ‘Very well, I thank you, sir,’ says
I: ‘I hope you’re well;’ wondering out of my senses all the time how an
eagle came to speak like a Christian. ‘What brings you here, Dan?’ says
he. ‘Nothing at all, sir,’ says I; ‘only I wish I was safe home again.’
‘Is it out of the island you want to go, Dan?’ says he. ‘’Tis, sir,’
says I: so I up and told him how I had taken a drop too much, and fell
into the water; how I swam to the island; and how I got into the bog,
and did not know my way out of it. ‘Dan,’ says he, after a minute’s
thought, ‘though it was very improper for you to get drunk on Lady-day,
yet as you are a decent, sober man, who ’tends mass well, and never
flings stones at me or mine, nor cries out after us in the fields--my
life for yours,’ says he; ‘so get up on my back, and grip me well for
fear you’d fall off, and I’ll fly you out of the bog.’ ‘I am afraid,’
says I, ‘your honour’s making game of me; for who ever heard of riding a
horseback on an eagle before?’ ‘’Pon the honour of a gentleman,’ says
he, putting his right foot on his breast, ‘I am quite in earnest; and so
now either take my offer or starve in the bog--besides, I see that your
weight is sinking the stone.’
“It was true enough as he said, for I found the stone every minute
going from under me. I had no choice; so thinks I to myself, faint heart
never won fair lady, and this is fair persuadance:--‘I thank your
honour,’ says I, ‘for the loan of your civility; and I’ll take your kind
offer.’ I therefore mounted upon the back of the eagle, and held him
tight enough by the throat, and up he flew in the air like a lark.
Little I knew the trick he was going to serve me. Up--up--up--God knows
how far up he flew. ‘Why, then,’ said I to him--thinking he did not know
the right road home--very civilly, because why?--I was in his power
entirely;--‘sir,’ says I, ‘please your honour’s glory, and with humble
submission to your better judgment, if you’d fly down a bit, you’re now
just over my cabin, and I could be put down there, and many thanks to
your worship.’
“‘_Arrah_, Dan,’ said he, ‘do you think me a fool? Look down in the next
field, and don’t you see two men and a gun? By my word it would be no
joke to be shot this way, to oblige a drunken blackguard that I picked
up off of a _could_ stone in a bog.’ ‘Bother you,’ said I to myself, but
I did not speak out, for where was the use? Well, sir, up he kept,
flying, flying, and I asking him every minute to fly down, and all to no
use. ‘Where in the world are you going, sir?’ says I to him. ‘Hold your
tongue, Dan,’ says he: ‘mind your own business, and don’t be interfering
with the business of other people.’ ‘Faith, this is my business, I
think,’ says I. ‘Be quiet, Dan,’ says he: so I said no more.
“At last where should we come to, but to the moon itself. Now you can’t
see it from this, but there is, or there was in my time a reaping-hook
sticking out of the side of the moon, this way (drawing the figure on
the ground with the end of his stick.)
“‘Dan,’ said the eagle, ‘I’m tired with this long fly; I had no notion
’twas so far.’ ‘And my lord, sir,’ said I, ‘who in the world _axed_ you
to fly so far--was it I? did not I beg, and pray, and beseech you to
stop half an hour ago?’ ‘There’s no use talking, Dan,’ said he; ‘I’m
tired bad enough, so you must get off, and sit down on the moon until I
rest myself.’ ‘Is it sit down on the moon?’ said I; ‘is it upon that
little round thing, then? why, then, sure I’d fall off in a minute, and
be _kilt_ and spilt, and smashed all to bits: you are a vile
deceiver--so you are.’ ‘Not at all, Dan,’ said he: ‘you can catch fast
hold of the reaping-hook that’s sticking out of the side of the moon,
and t’will keep you up.’ ‘I won’t, then,’ said I. ‘May be not,’ said he,
quite quiet. ‘If you don’t, my man, I shall just give you a shake, and
one slap of my wing, and send you down to the ground, where every bone
in your body will be smashed as small as a drop of dew on a cabbage-leaf
in the morning.’ ‘Why, then, I’m in a fine way,’ said I to myself, ‘ever
to have come along with the likes of you;’ and so giving him a hearty
curse in Irish, for fear he’d know what I said, I got off of his back
with a heavy heart, took a hold of the reaping-hook, and sat down upon
the moon, and a mighty cold seat it was, I can tell you that.
“When he had me there fairly landed, he turned about to me, and said,
‘Good morning to you, Daniel O’Rourke,’ said he: ‘I think I’ve nicked
you fairly now. You robbed my nest last year,’ (’twas true enough for
him, but how he found it out is hard to say,) ‘and in return you are
freely welcome to cool your heels dangling upon the moon like a
cockthrow.’
“‘Is that all, and is this the way you leave me, you brute, you?’ says
I. ‘You ugly unnatural _baste_, and is this the way you serve me at
last? Bad luck to yourself, with your hook’d nose, and to all your
breed, you blackguard.’ ’Twas all to no manner of use: he spread out his
great big wings, burst out a laughing, and flew away like lightning. I
bawled after him to stop; but I might have called and bawled for ever,
without his minding me. Away he went, and I never saw him from that day
to this--sorrow fly away with him! You may be sure I was in a
disconsolate condition, and kept roaring out for the bare grief, when
all at once a door opened right in the middle of the moon, creaking on
its hinges as if it had not been opened for a month before. I suppose
they never thought of greasing ’em, and out there walks--who do you
think but the man in the moon? I knew him by his bush.
“‘Good morrow to you, Daniel O’Rourke,’ said he: ‘How do you do?’ ‘Very
well, thank your honour,’ said I. ‘I hope your honour’s well.’ ‘What
brought you here, Dan?’ said he. So I told him how I was a little
overtaken in liquor at the master’s, and how I was cast on a _dissolute_
island, and how I lost my way in the bog, and how the thief of an eagle
promised to fly me out of it, and how instead of that he had fled me up
to the moon.
“‘Dan,’ said the man in the moon, taking a pinch of snuff when I was
done, ‘you must not stay here.’ ‘Indeed, sir,’ says I, ‘’tis much
against my will I’m here at all; but how am I to go back?’ ‘That’s your
business,’ said he, ‘Dan: mine is to tell you that here you must not
stay, so be off in less than no time.’ ‘I’m doing no harm,’ says I,
‘only holding on hard by the reaping-hook, lest I fall off.’ ‘That’s
what you must not do, Dan,’ says he. ‘Pray, sir,’ says I, ‘may I ask how
many you are in family, that you would not give a poor traveller
lodging: I’m sure ’tis not so often you’re troubled with strangers
coming to see you, for ’tis a long way.’ ‘I’m by myself, Dan,’ says he;
‘but you’d better let go the reaping-hook.’ ‘Faith, and with your
leave,’ says I, ‘I’ll not let go the grip.’ ‘You had better, Dan,’ says
he again. ‘Why, then, my little fellow,’ says I, taking the whole weight
of him with my eye from head to foot, ‘there are two words to that
bargain; and I’ll not budge, but you may if you like.’ ‘We’ll see how
that is to be,’ says he; and back he went, giving the door such a great
bang after him (for it was plain he was huffed), that I thought the moon
and all would fall down with it.
“Well, I was preparing myself to try strength with him, when back again
he comes, with the kitchen cleaver in his hand, and without saying a
word, he gave two bangs to the handle of the reaping-hook that was
keeping me up, and _whap!_ it came in two. ‘Good morning to you, Dan,’
says the spiteful little old blackguard, when he saw me cleanly falling
down with a bit of the handle in my hand; ‘I thank you for your visit,
and fair weather after you, Daniel.’ I had not time to make any answer
to him, for I was tumbling over and over, and rolling and rolling at the
rate of a fox-hunt. ‘God help me,’ says I, ‘but this is a pretty pickle
for a decent man to be seen in at this time of night: I am now sold
fairly.’ The word was not out of my mouth, when whiz! what should fly by
close to my ear but a flock of wild geese; and the _ould_ gander, who
was their general, turning about his head, cried out to me, ‘Is that you
Dan?’ I was not a bit daunted now at what he said, for I was by this
time used to all kinds of _bedevilment_, and, besides, I knew him of
_ould_. ‘Good morrow, to you,’ says he, ‘Daniel O’Rourke: how are you in
health this morning?’ ‘Very well, sir,’ says I, ‘I thank you kindly,’
drawing my breath, for I was mightily in want of some. ‘I hope your
honour’s the same.’ ‘I think ’tis falling you are, Daniel,’ says he.
‘You may say that, sir,’ says I. ‘And where are you going all the way so
fast?’ said the gander. So I told him how I had taken the drop, and how
I came on the island, and how I lost my way in the bog, and how the
thief of an eagle flew me up to the moon, and how the man in the moon
turned me out. ‘Dan,’ said he, ‘I’ll save you: put out your hand and
catch me by the leg, and I’ll fly you home.’ ‘Sweet is your hand in a
pitcher of honey, my jewel,’ says I, though all the time I thought in
myself that I don’t much trust you; but there was no help, so I caught
the gander by the leg, and away I and the other geese flew after him as
fast as hops.
“We flew, and we flew, and we flew, until we came right over the wide
ocean. I knew it well, for I saw Cape Clear to my right hand, sticking
up out of the water. ‘Ah! my lord,’ said I to the goose, for I thought
it best to keep a civil tongue in my head any way, ‘fly to land if you
please.’ ‘It is impossible, you see, Dan,’ said he, ‘for a while,
because you see we are going to Arabia.’ ‘To Arabia,’ said I; ‘that’s
surely some place in foreign parts, far away. Oh! Mr. Goose: why then,
to be sure, I’m a man to be pitied among you.’ ‘Whist, whist, you fool,’
said he, ‘hold your tongue; I tell you Arabia is a very decent sort of
place, as like West Carbery as one egg is like another, only there is a
little more sand there.’
“Just as we were talking, a ship hove in sight, scudding so beautiful
before the wind: ‘Ah! then, sir,’ said I, ‘will you drop me on the ship,
if you please?’ ‘We are not fair over it,’ said he. ‘We are,’ said I.
‘We are not,’ said he: ‘If I dropped you now, you would go splash into
the sea.’ ‘I would not,’ says I; ‘I know better than that, for it is
just clean under us, so let me drop now at once.’
“‘If you must, you must,’ said he. ‘There, take your own way;’ and he
opened his claw, and faith he was right--sure enough I came down plump
into the very bottom of the salt sea! Down to the very bottom I went,
and I gave myself up then for ever, when a whale walked up to me,
scratching himself after his night’s sleep, and looked me full in the
face, and never the word did he say, but lifting up his tail, he
splashed me all over again with the cold salt water, till there wasn’t a
dry stitch upon my whole carcass; and I heard somebody saying--’twas a
voice I knew, too--‘Get up, you drunken brute, off of that:’ and with
that I woke up, and there was Judy with a tub full of water, which she
was splashing me all over;--for, rest her soul! though she was a good
wife, she never could bear to see me in drink, and had a bitter hand of
her own.
“‘Get up,’ said she again: ‘and of all places in the parish, would no
place _sarve_ your turn to lie down upon but under the _ould_ walls of
Carrigaphooka? an uneasy resting I am sure you had of it.’ And sure
enough I had; for I was fairly bothered out of my senses with eagles,
and men of the moons, and flying ganders, and whales, driving me through
bogs, and up to the moon, and down to the bottom of the great ocean. If
I was in drink ten times over, long would it be before I’d lie down in
the same spot again, I know that.”
* * * * *