An Irish Story-Teller
Meehawl Theige Oge (Murphy) was the name of the man of whom I speak. Though small in stature, he himself deemed that there never lived a more powerful man. He was not fond of speaking truth, as may be easily learnt from the following story.
He lived near Miskish, and reclaimed as much land at the base of this hill as afforded pasture to a cow or two. This, he often swore, he made so fertile that it would grow potatoes without sowing them at all. Somebody once asked him how were the new potatoes. “I’ll tell you, then,” says he. “I was setting down yesterday west there near the end of wan of the ridges, and I heard the sweetest music that ever a singer made. Wid the hate (heat) of the sun, ’tis how the knapawns31 were fighting wid aich other, and they making noise and they saying like this:—
“‘Move out from me and don’t crush me so,
But you won’t, you won’t, O bitter woe!’
West wid me to the house for a spade and a skive. I hadn’t the spade in the ground right, when up popped every knasster32 as big as your head. I went home in high glee,—sure, a wran’s egg wouldn’t break under me, my heart was so light,—I washed the praties for myself and hung them over the fire. Then I sat on the seestheen,33 and reddened (lit) my pipe. I hadn’t a shoch (whiff) and a half pulled when here are the praties fubbling. I tuk ’em off the fire at my dead aise and put ’em on the table after a spell. Glory be to God that gave ’em to me; ’tis they wor the fine ating; I never ate the like of ’em, and I won’t again too till the Day of Flags (day of his burial). ’Tisn’t that itself, but they wor laffing with me, widout they knowing I was going to lie my back-teeth on ’em.”
Meehawl was often obliged to go to England. Once, after returning home, a contemptible little fellow asked him would himself find any kind of suitable employment there. Meehawl looked at him from head to foot, as he stood by the fire warming himself, though the sun was splitting the trees, the heat was so great. A fly alighted on his nose; but he gave him a slap which put an end to his pricking. “The divel,” says Meehawl, “if you had a whip I am sure you would keep the flies from the hams of bacon which I used see hanging in the houses in England!”
He was very fond of liquor, but alas! he had not the means whereby to indulge his desires. At times, however, he used to have a few shillings; then he would go to the fair,—not without bringing his blackthorn stick,—and finding some neighbour whom he made much of, they would both go and have a “drop” together, till his money was spent; after which he would make his exit from the tavern like a mad thunderbolt. And if anybody came near him he was sure to get a taste of his blackthorn. To do him justice, there were few men who could beat him fighting with a stick.
One day he came home drunk; “he had a blow on the cat and a blow on the dog.” His wife was sitting in the corner as mute as a cat, but she uttered not a word till he had slept off the effects of the drunkenness; then she asked him why he had come home as he did the night before. It did not take him long to find his answer:—“Sure,” said he, “I had to drink something to clane the cobwebs out of my throat!” The poor fellow had no stripper that winter, so that he had to eat his food dry.
I have stated before that Meehawl often had to go to England. Here is one of the stories which he used to relate after coming back:—“After going to England I was a spell widout any work, and sure it did not take me long to spind the little penny of money that I brought wid me, and I wouldn’t get a lodging anywhere, since my pocket wasn’t stiff. I put my hand in my pocket, trying for my pipe, and what should I get there but tuppence (2d.) by the height of luck. I bought a loaf of bread for myself; I ate a bit of it, and put the rest of it in the pocket of my casoge.34 When it was going of me to get a lodging anywhere, what should I see a couple of steps from me but a big gun. It was a short delay for me to get into its mouth, and while you’d be closing your eye I wasn’t inside when I fell asleep. In the morning, when I was waking myself up, I didn’t feel a bit till I got a bullet that put so much hurry on me that I couldn’t ever or ever stop till I fell in a fine brickle (brittle) moantawn35 in France. ‘Well, Meehawl,’ says I to myself, ‘maybe you oughtn’t complain since you didn’t fall into the say where you’d get swallowing without chawing (chewing).’ Then I thanked God who brought me safe and sound so far. I put my hand in the pocket of my casoge and what should be there before me but the small little bit of bread I put into it the night before that. ‘Food is the work-horse, wherever you’ll be,’ says I to myself, ating up the bread dry as fast as I could. When I had it ate, I looked around me just as cute as Norry-the-bogs36 when she’d be trying for fish in a river, but sure if I stopped looking till the Day of Flags, I wouldn’t get as much as the full of my eye of wan Frenchman.
“‘Well, that’s best,’ says I, going to a fine cock of hay, as high as Miskish, but high as it was, I went on top of it. I made a hole through it, and left myself into it, widout a bit of me out but the top of my nose, to draw my breath. I wasn’t there long till I fell asleep, and I didn’t feel anything till morning. When I woke up I looked round me—where was I? God for ever wid me! where was I only in the middle of the say, and my heart ruz as I thought of it right. I suppose ’tis how a cloud fell near the cock, and that ruz the flood in the river so much that it swept myself and the cock all together away—widout letting me know of it. I gave myself up to God, but if I did ’tis likely I didn’t deserve much of the good from Him, for again a spell here’s a whale to me (there’s a creeping could running through me when I think of him!), and he opened his dirty mouth and he swallowed myself and the cock holus bolus.
“I wasn’t gone right till that happened me. People say that Hell is dark, but if it is as dark as the stomach of that baste, the divil entirely is in it. But that isn’t here nor there; you’d see the fish running hither and over about his stomach, some of ’em swimming fine and aisy for theirself, more of ’em lepping as light as flays (fleas), and some more of ’em bawling like young childer. ‘Ye haven’t any more right to do that nor me,’ says I, and I tuk out and opened a big knife; widout a lie it was sharp—wan blow of it would cut off the leg of the biggest horse that ever trod or walked on grass. Here am I cutting, and ’tis short till the pain pinched the whale, and begor I saw that he would like to turn off. ‘Squeeze out,’ says I, and wid that I saw the fish running out. ‘That your road may rise wid ye,’ says I; but I wasn’t going to stop till he would give the same tratement or better to myself. Here’s he blowing; ‘Blow on wid you,’ says I, and I was cutting always at such a rate that it wasn’t long till I put my knife out through his side, and I fell on the top of my head. ‘Fooisg! fooisg!’ says the stomach of the whale, and praise and thanks be to God, he blew me out through his mouth. He was tired of me and I was no less tired of him too. He blew me so high in the sky that I couldn’t be far from the sun, there was so much hate (heat) there. But any way I fell down safe and sound on a fine soft bog of turf that was cut only a few days before that. Nothing happened to me, only that the nail was taken off the loodeen37 of my left leg!”
Patrick O’Leary.
THE HAUNTED SHEBEEN.
A very queer story I heard
Long ago,
In Kerry. ’Tis gruesome and weird:
Stage went slow
As we passed a ruined shebeen
On our way to Cahirciveen.
“They drank and they feasted galore,
With each breath
Loud calling for one bottle more!
Father Death
Came in in the midst of the cheer,
With ‘Long life to all of yez here!’
“By Crom’ell! his eyes they were bright;
Loud he laughed,
Saying, ‘Boys, we will make it a night.’
Then he quaffed
A dandy of punch in a trice,
Remarking, ‘Da di! it is nice!’
“’Tis whisky that loosens the tongue!
Beard o’ Crom’!
And that same has been often sung;
Not a gom38
Was filea39 that clairsech’d40 the line:
O whisky’s a nectar divine!
“One welcomed the pale king with cheers;
All his life
Was channelled with woe’s soulful tears;
He had wife
That came, a black fate, in his way,
When his years were just clasping the May.
“Another—he gave furtive glance,
And grew pale—
‘This coming,’ mused he, ’won’t entrance,
I’ll go bail,
This meeting of ours!’—week ere this,
God Hymen had made for him bliss.
“And another?—Rises the din
Loud and strong;
The whisky a-firing, Neill Finn
Said, ‘A song
We’ll have from our guest ere we’ll go!’
The guest said, ‘Well, Neill, be it so!’
“He sang them a spirited stave,
Written where
The poet for bread is no slave
To black care—
‘Long life to yez!’ shouted Neill Finn;
Death smiled, and said, ‘Neill, boy, amin!’
“They called for the cards and they played,
Sure the same
‘Forty-fives’ it was named—Mike Quade
In the game
So cheated that Death said: ‘’Tis like
The wind from your sails I’ll take, Mike.’
“What time with a blow from his stick,
To the earth
He struck Mick. Then kippeens41 took quick
Striking birth;
The Quade boys were there to the fore,
All longing, my dear, for red gore!
“They went for the old man, but he
Used to fight,
His glass drained, and quick as a bee
Left and right
Blows laid—when they woke from their fix,
They waited for Charon by Styx.
“The old one he stuck to the drink,
(So they tell),
Till being o’ercome (as they think),
That he fell
Down under the table—nor woke
Till day o’er the Atlantic broke.
“Forgetful of all that had passed,
He looked round,
And seeing his subjects all massed
On the ground,
He said, ‘Oh, get up from the floor,
And help me with one bottle more!’
“Since that time, the peasantry say,
Every night
Sure there is the devil to pay!
And the sight
They see—‘Sirs, no lie! ’pon my soul!’
Death drunk, singing Beimedh a gole!”42
Charles P. O’Conor (1837?).
FAN FITZGERL.
Wirra, wirra! ologone!
Can’t ye lave a lad alone,
Till he’s proved there’s no tradition left of any other girl—
Not even Trojan Helen,
In beauty all excellin’—
Who’s been up to half the divilment of Fan Fitzgerl?
Wid her brows of silky black
Arched above for the attack,
Her eyes they dart such azure death on poor admiring man;
Masther Cupid, point your arrows,
From this out, agin the sparrows,
For you’re bested at Love’s archery by young Miss Fan.
See what showers of goolden thread
Lift and fall upon her head,
The likes of such a trammel-net at say was never spread;
For, whin accurately reckoned,
’Twas computed that each second
Of her curls has cot a Kerryman and kilt him dead.
Now mintion, if you will,
Brandon Mount and Hungry Hill,
Or Mag’llicuddy’s Reeks, renowned for cripplin’ all they can;
Still the country-side confisses
None of all its precipices
Cause a quarther of the carnage of the nose of Fan.
But your shatthered hearts suppose,
Safely steered apast her nose,
She’s a current and a reef beyand to wreck them roving ships.
My meaning it is simple,
For that current is her dimple,
And the cruel reef ’twill coax ye to’s her coral lips.
I might inform ye further
Of her bosom’s snowy murther,
And ah ankle ambuscadin’ through her gown’s delightful whirl;
But what need when all the village
Has forsook its peaceful tillage,
And flown to war and pillage all for Fan Fitzgerl!
Alfred Perceval Graves (1846).
FATHER O’FLYNN.
Of priests we can offer a charmin’ variety,
Far renown’d for larnin’ and piety;
Still, I’d advance ye without impropriety,
Father O’Flynn is the flow’r of them all.
Here’s a health to you, Father O’Flynn,
Slainthe, and slainthe, and slainthe agin;
Powerfullest preacher, and tenderest teacher,
And kindliest creature in ould Donegal.
Don’t talk of your Provost and Fellows of Trinity,
Famous for ever at Greek and Latinity,
Faix, and the divil and all at Divinity,
Father O’Flynn ’d make hares of them all!
Come, I venture to give ye my word,
Never the likes of his logic was heard,
Down from Mythology into Thayology,
Troth! and Conchology, if he’d the call.
Och! Father O’Flynn, you’ve a wonderful way wid you,
All the ould sinners are wishful to pray wid you,
All the young childer are wild for to play wid you,
You’ve such a way wid you, Father avick!
Still for all you’ve so gentle a soul,
Gad, you’ve your flock in the grandest control;
Checking the crazy ones, coaxing onaisy ones,
Lifting the lazy ones on with a stick.
And though quite avoidin’ all foolish frivolity,
Still, at all seasons of innocent jollity,
Where was the play-boy could claim an equality
At comicality, Father, wid you?
Once the Bishop looked grave at your jest,
Till this remark set him off wid the rest:
“Is it lave gaiety all to the laity?
Cannot the clargy be Irishmen too!”
Alfred Perceval Graves.
PHILANDERING.
Maureen, acushla, ah! why such a frown on you!
Sure, ’tis your own purty smiles should be there,
Under those ringlets that make such a crown on you,
As the sweet angels themselves seem to wear,
When from the picthers in church they look down on you,
Kneeling in prayer.
Troth, no, you needn’t, there isn’t a drop on me,
Barrin’ one half-one to keep out the cowld;
And, Maureen, if you’ll throw a smile on the top o’ me,
Half-one was never so sweet, I’ll make bowld.
But, if you like, dear, at once put a stop on me
Life with a scowld.
Red-haired Kate Ryan?—Don’t mention her name to me!
I’ve a taste, Maureen darlin’, whatever I do.
But I kissed her?—Ah, now, would you even that same to me?—
Ye saw me! Well, well, if ye did, sure it’s true,
But I don’t want herself or her cows, and small blame to me
When I know you.
There now, aroon, put an ind to this strife o’ me
Poor frightened heart, my own Maureen, my duck;
Troth, till the day comes when you’ll be made wife o’ me,
Night, noon, and mornin’, my heart’ll be brack.
Kiss me, acushla! My darlin’! The life o’ me!
One more for luck!
William Boyle (1853).
HONIED PERSUASION.
“Terry O’Rourke, ’tis your presence that tazes me;
Haven’t I towld you so often before?
If you’ve the smallest regard for what plazes me,
Never come prowlin’ round here any more.
Why you persist in this game’s what amazes me;
Didn’t I tell you I’d beaus be the score?
There’s Rody Kearney would give twenty cows to me
Any fine day that I’d let him be spouse to me.”
“Biddy, asthore, an’ ’tis you that is hard on me,
Whin ’tis me two wicked legs are to blame;
Troth, I believe if you placed a strong guard on me,
They’d wandher back to this spot all the same.
Saving the gates of the prison are barr’d on me,
You might as well try to keep moths from the flame,
Ducks from the water, or bees from the flowers,
As thim same legs from your door, be the powers!
“Come now, me darlin’, ’tis no use to frown on me;
Tho’ I’ve no cows, but two mules an’ a car,
You wouldn’t know but I’d yet have the gown on me,
Ringing the tunes of me tongue at the Bar.
Whin I’ve won you, who despised and looked down on me,
Shure ’tis meself that might come to be Czar.
What are you smilin’ at? Give me the hand of you,
I’ll make the purtiest bride in the land of you.”
J. De Quincey (185-).