Part 5
Well, he tripped on till he got hungry, and sat down on the brink of a lake, and he spread out a cloth for the dinner the way he would lose none of the crumbs, and he broke up a piece of the cake then and commenced eating it. The Robineen Redbreast was coming around him and he was hooshing him away. ‘Every crumb that will fall,’ says the Robineen, ‘it will be for me.’ ‘Every crumb that will fall,’ says he, ‘it is little enough for myself.’ So he hooshed away the Robineen.
When he had part of it ate, then he got dry, and he went to the lake to take a drink; and the Robineen walked to the lake before him and commenced washing herself and shaking out her wings in the lake, and she turned it all into blood instead of water. He took a drink of it, and he fell dead after taking the drink. The Robineen got people to bury him under a big stone was in it; for the Robineen was enchanted, and they say the birds of the air had talk at that time.
The two brothers then were sitting by the hearth, the same as himself, till the end of seven years. ‘It is this day seven years,’ says the second one, ‘that the brother went out from this. And I’ll go make a poke for him. And it’s as good for you,’ says he to the mother, ‘go bake a cake for the road in the morning.’
Well, the mother did the same thing as before, and she made a big cake and a small cake, and asked him would he have the small one with her blessing, or the big one with her curse. ‘I’ll have the big one with your curse,’ says he. So he set out, and when he came to the same place he sat down on the same stone where the brother had sat, and he spread a cloth the way any crumb that would fall, he could pick it up for himself. The Robineen came around him asking for the crumbs, and he wouldn’t give them and he hooshed her away. So when he was going to the lake for a drink, she went into it before him, and spread out her wings and scattered the water, and after he took one drink of it he fell dead; and she buried the two of them under one stone, the Robineen did, the two brothers.
Well, they were fourteen years gone when the third man said he would go look for them, and the mother made two cakes the same as she made for the other two. Well, the mother told him then to take the big one or the small one; to take the big one with her curse, or to take the small one with her blessing. ‘There’s nothing like a mother’s blessing,’ says he. ‘And I’ll take the small one with your blessing,’ he said.
It happened that he was walking till he went in the same place where the brothers were killed, and commenced eating the cake. The Robineen was coming anear him, and there wasn’t a bite he would take but he would give a second bite to the Robineen. She didn’t stir up the lake, but let him take his full drink, and she made a well in the lake and made wine in it and gave enough of it to him to drink. ‘Here is a little bush,’ she says then, ‘an enchanted bush; and give a tip to that stone there, and you can rise your two brothers.’ So, thanks be to God, he struck the two tips on the stone, and they rose as well as ever and as fresh. Says the Robineen: ‘They may be thankful to you, they would never stir out of that only for you coming.’
She gave this young fellow a bag of gold for himself and his two brothers, a fine three men. They never met with the Robineen from that out. The mother’s blessing is better with a small cake than her curse with a big one.
After the three brothers went home, they lived together in the house. And the Robineen had told the youngest brother to go where there was a holly-bush in the garden and to root around it. So they went out and rooted around it, and what they found was a crock of gold, and they brought it away with them. There was a little flag, now, in the top of the crock, and the flag was left aside on the grass. It happened there came after a while a poor scholar walking the road, and he took notice of the little slab, and that there was writing on it. And he was able to read the writing, and it is what it said: ‘The other side is as lucky as this side.’ So he showed that to the brothers, and they went rooting the other side, and what did they find but two more crocks of gold, the way there was one apiece for them. So there were no richer farmers in the country than those three brothers, and they got gold and divided it and scattered it.
And that is a nice story and a wonderful story, and a true thing that fell out. And Lofarey, the man that told it to me, said it was a true story, and that his own father told him he was speaking to the poor scholar that read the flag.
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THE BALL OF THREAD
There was a young lady one time, and a young boy came to her to ask her to marry him. He gave her a pound ball of thread, and bade her to leave it on the ground, and to take the end of the thread in her hand, and when the end of it would be run out, to stamp her foot on the ground and she would come to him.
So she bought a shilling’s worth of bread and a shilling’s worth of apples, and she took the ball of thread as he told her. And when she stamped her foot a door opened in the ground before her, and she went in, and all she saw in the room was a dog and a cat.
So she divided the bread and the apples between them, and she gave them halves, and they were more than proud to eat that much of Ireland’s bread, which they didn’t get the taste of for two hundred years before.
They showed her then a store of a room where there were fifty of her sort that were after being beheaded, and gold rings on their hands. For the man was an enchanted man, and he had brought them away the same as he did herself. The cat and the dog said as she proved so well, they would hide her before she’d be in danger, for she accommodated them so well with everything. They rose up the flag that was in the fireplace, and they hid her there under it, and when the man came in the man asked did such a one come in, and they said, ‘No.’
When he went to rest himself they opened the door and let her out, and he awoke and told the cat to ask who came in at the door. The cat made him an answer, she said: ‘No one but the dog, that struck against it.’
So the young lady went home, and after a while he came to her again the same way, and he said he would bring her away with him. So when he was coming she invited a great quality dinner, and before he came there she told them all that had happened, and asked what should be done to him. Then some said he should be hung. But a big lord that was there said to do nothing at all to him, only to put him into a barrel of pitch and tar and to burn him altogether. But when they thought to do that and to take him they hadn’t but his shadow, and he flew away out through the top of the house, and they hadn’t a trace of him, and he had brought away the young lady along with him.
Her three brothers went looking for her then with the pound ball of thread he had left. And when they stamped their foot the door opened before them, but there was no one in the house but the cat. They told him their sister was gone, and they were in dread she was killed. But he said: ‘She is not killed, and she is here hid where she was before.’ So they took up the flag of the hearth, and there she was safe and well, and having four gold rings on her hands that belonged to four of her first cousins that were beheaded in the room. The cat told them to go home, and they would meet the man easy enough. So after a while he came looking for the young lady again, and he had changed his clothes, but if he had they knew him. But the first time they fired a shot at him it did him no harm, he being but a shadow. But whatever they did, or whatever shot they put in their gun or their revolver, they shot him dead after that, and there was no more about him.
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THE HORSE AND FOAL
There were very haunted people in the old times in Ireland, used to be bewitching one another. A living class of people they were, but it was by magic they did it.
There was a man going to the north from Mayo to sell a horse, and he was riding the horse, and the foal after them. And over beyond the wall he saw a hare running, and two black hounds hunting it. And when they came to him, the hare made a leap into his arms, and he drove away the hounds, and put it down again safe among the rocks. He went on then to the north for to sell the horse, but if he did, in the night it was stole from him.
So he went back to Mayo to see would he find it, and he was walking through the day, and when the night came he met with a house, and he went into it like any countryman might, to ask would he get a clean lodging. And there was in the house a very nice-looking young woman, and he asked could he get a lodging. ‘And why wouldn’t you get it?’ says she. ‘And more than that,’ she says, ‘I’ll call in the husband, and he’ll go find the horse you have lost and the foal. And you don’t know me,’ she says; ‘but I am the woman you saved, and that had been turned into a hare, and for sixteen years I was away in that shape.’
So she did what she promised, and he was deserving of it; for wouldn’t another man have kept the hare when he got it, but something stuck in him that he didn’t. And wasn’t it a terrible thing in those times that women could be turned into hares? And it was only a black hound could come up with them.
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THE WOMAN THAT WAS A GREAT FOOL
There was a woman was a great fool. She had meal to sift one day, and the hens were bothering her, coming in over the door. And it was outside in the field she went sifting it, that it was brought away with a blast of wind that rose, till there wasn’t one grain left on the top of another, but it was brought away with the wind into the fields and over the grass. And when the husband came back in the evening he asked where was it, and it was all spent. ‘Sure you have money in the bag to buy more,’ says she. ‘I have not,’ says he; ‘for what is in the bag I have to keep for the Grey Scrape of the Spring.’
Well, the next day an old beggarman came asking for money, and when the woman looked at him and saw that he was grey: ‘That should be the Grey Scrape of the Spring,’ she said. And she gave him all the money was in the bag.
When the husband heard that, he didn’t say much, for he was a quiet man. But he went and he killed the cow that was all he had left, and he cut it up and put it in a barrel, and salt on it. ‘That will be enough to grease the cabbage anyway,’ says he.
So the next day the wife brought out every bit of the beef, and she put a bit of it on the top of every head of cabbage was in the garden. Well, when the night came and they were in bed, there came a thousand dogs fighting for the meat was in the garden, and barking, and calling, and roaring. And when the husband went out they had it brought away, and all the cabbage destroyed and broken.
So he said then it was as good for them to go wandering, and he went out of the house, and the woman following him. ‘Let you draw the door after you,’ says he—that is, that she should close it. But what she did was to rise it off the hinges, and to draw it after her along the road till they came to a wood. And they went up into the branches of a tree to pass the night, and she bringing the board with her.
It happened there came some robbers under the tree, dividing a great deal of gold and silver they were after robbing from a castle. And when the man and the woman saw that, they dropped the door down on them with a great noise, and the robbers were affrighted and ran away, leaving all they had robbed after them. And the man and the woman got it for themselves, and they were rich from that day.
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THE DANES
I will tell you about the Danes, said the Poet’s son; and it was my father that broke down Raftery in the latter end.
There was a man one time set out from Ireland to go to America or some place; a common man looking for work he was. And something happened to the ship on the way, and they had to put to land to mend it. And in the country where they landed he saw a forth, and he went into it, and there he saw the smallest people he ever saw; and they were the Danes that went out of Ireland, and it is foxes they had for dogs, and weasels were their cats.
Then he went back to get into the ship, but it was gone away, and he left behind. So he went back into the forth, and a young man came to meet him, and he told him what had happened. And the young man said: ‘Come into the room within, where my father is in bed; for he is out of his health, and you might be able to serve him.’ So they went in, and the father was lying in the bed, and when he heard it was a man from Ireland was in it he said: ‘I will give you a great reward if you will go back and bring me a thing I want out of Castle Hacket Hill; for if I had what is there,’ he said, ‘I would be as young as my own son.’ So the man consented to go, and they got a sailing ship ready, and it is what the old man told him, to go back to Ireland. ‘And buy a small pig in Galway,’ he said, ‘and bring it to the mouth of the forth at Castle Hacket and roast it there. And inside the forth there is an enchanted cat that is keeping guard there, and it will come out. And here is a shot-gun and some cross-money,’ he said, ‘that will kill any fairy or any enchanted thing. And within in the forth,’ he said, ‘you will find a bottle and a rack-comb, and bring them here to me,’ he said.
So the man did as he was told, and he bought the pig and roasted it at the mouth of the forth, and out came the enchanted cat, and it having hair seven inches long. And he fired the cross-money out of the shot-gun, and the cat went away and he saw it no more. And he got the bottle and the rack, and brought them back to the old man. And he drank what was in the bottle, and racked his hair with the rack, and he got young again, a young as his own son.
And when there is a marriage among the Danes, they put down the land they have in Ireland with whatever else they have, for they expect to come back and to own the country again some day. But whether they will or not, I don’t know.
The Danes were surely small men, or how could they live in those little rooms and passages in the raths? I’d have to stoop myself down when I’d go into them. They had the whole country once, and they used to make beer out of the tops of the heather the same way the bees draw honey out of it. And it was on St. John’s Night the people lighted wisps and turned them out of Ireland, and that’s the reason the wisps are burned ever since.
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CAILLEAC-NA-CEARC
I think I didn’t tell you the story of Cailleac-na-Cearc, the Woman of the Hens, says the old man with the new wife; and how she committed sin.
It was one day they rose up, herself and her twelve children, and there was not bit or drop in the house, and the height of the door of frost and snow was in it; and she sent the husband out to see could he get firing with a little hatchet he had.
And when he went out he got directions to cut a certain tree. And there came out of the tree to him as much as he could carry of lumber of the best of stuff, and he brought it home to the wife.
Well, after a while she bade him go again to the tree and cut it. And there came from it the same lumber of provisions and gold and money and everything they wanted. And the third time she sent him to cut the tree, and the tree spoke to him that time, and it said: ‘You may take what you can this time, but let you never come near me again.’ And he brought back more than would fill the corners of the house. And he said to the wife, that was enough.
But she made him go the fourth time, for women is awful, and she wanted to get all that she could; and only for her bidding he didn’t like to draw back to the tree. And that time the tree spoke to him again, and it said: ‘You have full and plenty, and you’ll see the way your missus is, and you going back to the house.’ For she was covetous and had no patience, and it was by the Almighty God’s will he made a hen of her, and twelve chickens of her twelve children. And she went scraping in the face of the dunghill, and she never left doing that till the day of judgment, picking for her chickens that stopped small as they were always.
When she had too much she wasn’t pleased till she got more, and so she couldn’t keep it and had nothing at all left her in the heel of the hunt.
I suppose it was God that made the provision within in the tree. For the man was holy. Did he mind seeing his children turned into chickens? He did not. He was a born saint, and it is likely it was a saint talked with him abroad at the tree; and he had full and plenty while he lived; and the day he died the gates of heaven were open, and it was as a white pigeon that he went in through them. That now is a true story, and that is a thing that surely happened.
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THE GOATS
There was a girl had a sweetheart that was called Shawn Shamus. And through the crying of the Banrighean-na-breena he was brought away into a forth. The girl went to the forth looking for him, and outside of it she saw the Banrighean, the Queen, sitting and she combing her hair, and having a blue dress on her like those flowers that grow in the fields. ‘Will you give me back Shawn Shamus?’ says the girl. ‘I will not,’ says the Queen. And she went on talking for a while, the girl asking and the Queen refusing. And at the last the Queen said: ‘I will give him to you if you will bring me a hundred barrels of six-penny money, a hundred fillies all of the one colour, a hundred spotted cows, a hundred ganders and a fleet of geese; a hundred slips and a hundred pigs, a hundred goats that are without damage or roguery.’ So the girl went looking for all those, and she brought every one of them to the Queen of the forth except the goats, for she could not get one that was honest, they are all full of roguery. Everything else but the goats she brought. So the Queen gave up Shawn Shamus, and they married and lived happy.
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THE CURIOUS WOMAN
There will be no eating in the other world, says the red-haired man sitting at the door. ‘But there is a tree in it with twelve sorts of fruit, and what would that be for if we were not to eat it?’ Well, the first man that went eating fruit made a bad hand of it. He bethought of himself and it going down, and it stopped in his throat and gave us that lump in it ever since. Isn’t that a terrible thing for a man to have? But as to the woman, what she ate stopped down, and so it would if she ate another along with it. Women are terrible for eating things. Women are curious, and that is what led her to it. And besides that it was nice-looking, and women like to have nice things. A woman to see a lady, she would want all she would be wearing for herself—red stockings and shoes and dresses, and even to umbrellas.
There was an old couple were past working and they went travelling the roads, and they met a King that had a palace he had no use for, and he said they could have the use of it. So he brought them in and put them into a big room, and there was a big table with every sort of food on it, and he bade them use what they could of what was there. But there was a board of the table he bade them not to touch, and the reason was he had put a mouse under it that would tell him every word they would say.