Exorcising the Demon of Voracity
[Cathal MacFinguine, King of Munster, is possessed by a demon of gluttony that “used to devour his rations with him to the ruin of the men of Munster during three half-years; and it is likely he would have ruined Ireland during another half-year.” Anier MacConglinne, “a famous scholar” and satirist, undertakes to banish the demon, whom he entices out of Cathal by marvellous stories of food and feasting, etc., meanwhile keeping him fasting.]
And he called for juicy old bacon, and tender corned-beef, and full-fleshed wether, and honey in the comb, and English salt on a beautiful polished dish of white silver, along with four perfectly straight white hazel spits to support the joints. The viands which he enumerated were procured for him, and he fixed unspeakable huge pieces on the spits. Then putting a linen apron about him below, and placing a flat linen cap on the crown of his head, he lighted a fair four-ridged, four-apertured, four-cleft fire of ash-wood, without smoke, without fume, without sparks. He stuck a spit into each of the portions, and as quick was he about the spits and fire as a hind about her first fawn, or as a roe, or a swallow, or a bare spring wind in the flank of March. He rubbed the honey and the salt into one piece after another. And big as the pieces were that were before the fire, there dropped not to the ground out of theses four pieces as much as would quench a spark of a candle; but what there was of relish in them went into their very centre.
It had been explained to Pichán that the reason why the scholar had come was to save Cathal. Now, when the pieces were ready, MacConglinne cried out, “Ropes and cords here!” “What is wanted with them?” asked Pichán. Now that was a “question beyond discretion” for him, since it had been explained to him before; and hence is the old saying, “a question beyond discretion.” Ropes and cords were given to MacConglinne, and to those that were strongest of the warriors. They laid hands upon Cathal, who was tied in this manner to the side of the palace. Then MacConglinne came, and was a long time securing the ropes with hooks and staples. And when this was ended, he came into the house, with his four spits raised high on his back, and his white wide-spread cloak hanging behind, its two peaks round his neck, to the place where Cathal was. And he stuck the spits into the bed before Cathal’s eyes, and sat himself down in his seat, with his two legs crossed. Then taking his knife out of his girdle, he cut a bit off the piece that was nearest to him, and dipped it in the honey that was on the aforesaid dish of white silver. “Here’s the first for a male beast,” said MacConglinne, putting the bit into his own mouth. (And from that day to this the old saying has remained.) He cut a morsel from the next piece, and dipping it in the honey, put it past Cathal’s mouth into his own. “Carve the food for us, son of learning!” exclaimed Cathal. “I will do so,” answered MacConglinne and cutting another bit of the nearest piece, and dipping it as before, he put it past Cathal’s mouth into his own. “How long wilt thou carry this on, student?” asked Cathal. “No more henceforth,” answered MacConglinne, “for, indeed, thou hast consumed such a quantity and variety of agreeable morsels, that I shall eat the little that is there myself, and this will be ’food from mouth’ for thee.” (And that has been a proverb since.) Then Cathal roared and bellowed, and commanded the killing of the scholar. But that was not done for him. “Well, Cathal,” said MacConglinne, “a vision has appeared to me, and I have heard that thou art good at interpreting a dream.” “By my God’s doom!” exclaimed Cathal, “though I should interpret the dreams of the men of the world, I would not interpret thine.” “I vow,” said MacConglinne, “even though thou dost not interpret it, it shall be related in thy presence.” He then began his vision, and the way he related it was, whilst putting two morsels or three at a time past Cathal’s mouth into his own—
“A vision I beheld last night:
I sallied forth with two or three,
When I saw a fair and well-filled house,
In which there was great store of food.
A lake of new milk I beheld
In the midst of a fair plain.
I saw a well-appointed house
Thatched with butter.
As I went all around it
To view its arrangement:
Puddings fresh-boiled,
They were its thatch-rods.
Its two soft door-posts of custard,
Its daïs of curd and butter,
Beds of glorious lard,
Many shields of thin-pressed cheese.
Under the straps of these shields
Were men of soft sweet-smooth cheese,
Men who knew not to wound a Gael,
Spears of old butter had each of them.
A huge caldron full of luabin—
(Methought I’d try to tackle it)
Boiled leafy kale, browny-white,
A brimming vessel full of milk.
A bacon-house of two-score ribs,
A wattling of tripe—support of clans—
Of every food pleasant to man,
Meseemed the whole was gathered there.”
(MacConglinne then narrates a fable concerning the land of O’Early-Eating, etc.)
Then in the harbour of the lake before me I saw a juicy little coracle of beef-fat, with its coating of tallow, with its thwarts of curds, with its prow of lard, with its stern of butter, with its thole-pins of marrow, with its oars of flitches of old boar in it. Indeed she was a sound craft in which we embarked. Then we rowed across the wide expanse of New-Milk Lake, through seas of broth, past river-mouths of mead, over swelling boisterous waves of butter-milk, by perpetual pools of gravy, past woods dewy with meat-juice, past springs of savoury lard, by islands of cheeses, by hard rocks of rich tallow, by headlands of old curds, along strands of dry-cheese, until we reached the firm level beach between Butter-Mount and Milk-Lake and Curd-Point, at the mouth of the pass to the country of O’Early-Eating, in front of the hermitage of the Wizard Doctor. Every oar we plied in New-Milk Lake would send its sea-sand of cheese-curds to the surface.... Marvellous, indeed, was the hermitage in which I then found myself. Around it were seven score hundred smooth stakes of old bacon, and instead of the thorns above the top of every long stake was fried juicy lard of choice well-fed boar, in expectation of a battle against the tribes of Butter-fat and Cheese that were on New-Milk Lake, warring against the Wizard Doctor. There was a gate of tallow to it, whereon was a bolt of sausage.
Let an active, white-handed, sensible, joyous woman wait upon thee, who must be of good repute.... Let this maiden give thee thy thrice nine morsels, O MacConglinne, each morsel of which shall be as big as a heathfowl’s egg. Those morsels then must be put in thy mouth with a swinging jerk, and thine eyes must whirl about in thy skull whilst thou art eating them. The eight kinds of grain thou must not spare, O MacConglinne, wheresoever they are offered thee—viz., rye, wild-oats, beare, buckwheat, wheat, barley, fidbach, oats. Take eight cakes of each fair grain of these, and eight condiments with every cake, and eight sauces with each condiment; and let each morsel thou puttest in thy mouth be as big as a heron’s egg. Away now to the smooth panikins of cheese-curds, O MacConglinne:
to fresh pigs, to loins of fat, to boiled mutton, to the choice easily-discussed thing for which the hosts contend—the gullet of salted beef; to the dainty of the nobles, to mead; to the cure of chest-disease—old bacon; to the appetite of pottage—stale curds; to the fancy of an unmarried woman—new milk; to a queen’s mash—carrots; to the danger awaiting a guest—ale; to a broken head—butter roll; to hand-upon-all—dry bread; to the pregnant thing of a hearth—cheese; to the bubble-burster—new ale; to the priest’s fancy—juicy kale; to the treasure that is smoothest and sweetest of all food—white porridge; to the anchor—broth; to the double-looped twins—sheep’s tripe; to the dues of a wall—sides (of bacon); to the bird of a cross—salt; to the entry of a gathering—sweet apples; to the pearls of a household—hen’s eggs; to the glance of nakedness—kernels.
When he had reckoned me up those many viands, he ordered me my drop of drink. “A tiny little measure for thee, MacConglinne, not too large, only as much as twenty men will drink, on the top of those viands: of very thick milk, of milk not too thick, of milk of long thickness, of milk of medium thickness, of yellow bubbling milk, the swallowing of which needs chewing, of the milk the snoring bleat of a ram as it rushes down the gorge, so that the first draught says to the last draught, ‘I vow, thou mangy cur, before the Creator, if thou comest down I’ll go up, for there is no room for the doghood of the pair of us in this treasure-house.’...”
At the pleasure of the recital and the recounting of those many pleasant viands in the king’s presence, the lawless beast that abode in the inner bowels of Cathal MacFinguine came forth, until it was licking its lips outside his head. The scholar had a large fire beside him in the house. Each of the pieces was put in order to the fire, and then one after the other to the lips of the king. One time, when one of the pieces was put to the king’s mouth, the son of malediction darted forth, fixed his two claws in the piece that was in the student’s hand, and, taking it with him across the hearth to the other side, bore it below the caldron that was on the other side of the fire. And the caldron was overturned on him.
From an Irish manuscript of the 12th century,
THE ROMAN EARL.
translated by Kuno Meyer.
No man’s trust let woman claim,
Not the same as men are they;
Let the wife withdraw her face
When ye place the man in clay.
Once there was in Rome an earl,
Cups of pearl held his ale.
Of this wealthy earl’s mate
Men relate a famous tale.
For it chanced that of a day,
As they lay at ease reclined,
He in jest pretends to die,
Thus to try her secret mind.
“Och, ochone! if you should die,
Never I should be myself,
To the poor of God I’d give
All my living, lands and pelf.
“Then in satin stiff with gold
I should fold thy fair limbs still,
Laying thee in gorgeous tomb”—
Said the woman bent on ill.
Soon the earl as if in death
Yielded up his breath to try her;
Not one promise kept his spouse
Of the vows made glibly by her.
Jerked into a coffin hard
With a yard of canvas coarse,—
To his hips it did not come—
To the tomb they drove the corse.
Bravely dressed was she that day,
On her way to mass and grave—
To God’s church and needy men
Not one penny piece she gave.
Up he starts, the coffined man,
Calls upon his wife aloud,
“Why am I thus thrust away
Almost naked, with no shroud?”
Then as women will when caught
In a fault, with ready wit,
Answered she upon the wing—
Not one thing would she admit.
“Winding sheets are out of date,
All men state it—clad like this,
When the judgment trump shall sound
You can bound to God and bliss.
“When in shrouds they trip and stumble,
You’ll be nimble then as erst,
Hence I shaped thee this short vest;
You’ll run best and come in first.”
Trust not to a woman’s faith,
’Tis a breath, a broken stem,
Few whom they do not deceive;
Let him grieve who trusts to them.
Though full her house of linen web,
And sheets of thread spun full and fair—
A warning let it be to us—
She left her husband naked there.
Spake the prudent earl: “In sooth,
Woman’s truth you here behold,
Now let each his coffin buy
Ere his wife shall get his gold.
“When Death wrestles for his life,
Let his wife not hear him moan,
Great though be his pain and fear,
Let her hear nor sigh nor groan.”
Translated by Dr. Douglas Hyde from an
old Irish manuscript.