Kildare Folk Tales

by Lally, Steve;

  Five more show they’re good ones, in bottom and speed;

  But that tall, strange, black gentleman still keeps the lead!

  Ha! Reynard, you’re done for, my boy! At your back

  Old Jowler and Clinker come, leading the pack;

  Ay, close at your brush, they are making a rush;

  Come face ’em old fellow, and die like a thrush!

  Well snapped, but won’t do, my poor ‘modereen rue!’

  That squeeze in the gullet has finished your breath;

  And that very black horseman is in at the death!

  The very black horseman dismounts from his steed

  And takes off Reynard’s brush with all sportsman-like heed;

  Then patting the nag, with air of a wag,

  Says, ‘This is cool work, my old fellow, to-day!’

  At which the black steed gives a very loud neigh;

  And it is odd indeed, neither rider nor steed

  Seems one whit the worse of their very great speed;

  Though the next four or five, who this moment arrive,

  Their horses all foaming, themselves all bemired,

  Look beyond any doubt all heartily tired,

  As they think, ‘Who the deuce can be this chap in black,

  Who has ridden all day at the tail of the pack?’

  The group has come up with the stranger the while,

  Who takes off his hat to the squire, with a smile,

  And hands him the brush, with an air most polite,

  Expressing his joy at transferring the right,

  Which only the speed of the hunter had won

  To him who had shown them so noble a run

  And whose name, he would add, he had heard from a lad,

  As a toast through all Ireland for humour and fun.

  ‘Gad, sir,’ says the squire,

  ‘Whether most to admire, your politeness or daring I’m puzzled to say;

  But though I’ve seen hunting enough in my day,

  All I’ve met with must yield, to your feats in the field.

  I trust I at least can induce you to dine,

  And your horsemanship pledge in a bumper of wine;

  And if longer you’ll honour my house as a dweller.

  All I promise you is you’ll find more in the cellar.’

  ‘Thanks Tom! I beg pardon, I make so d___d free,

  When a man of your thorough good nature I see!

  But excuse it’.

  ‘Excuse it my excellent friend!

  ’Tis the thing of all others I wish you’d not mend;

  None but good fellow had ever the trick.

  But your name by the way?’

  ‘Mine? Oh, pray call me Nick.’

  ‘Very good, there’s a spice of the devil about it!’

  ‘A spice of the devil! Ay, faith, who can doubt it?

  I’m dressed by the way in his livery sainted;

  But they say the old boy’s not as black as he’s painted;

  And this clerical suit ___’

  ‘You’re no parson sure come?’

  ‘Ah, no pumping on that, my friend, Conolly ___mum!

  This clerical suit, faith, though sombre and sad,

  Is no bad thing at all, with the women, my lad!’

  ‘Well done, Nick, on my life, I’ll look after my wife,

  If you came in way.’

  ‘Gad,’ says Nick with a laugh.

  ‘To look after yourself, would be better by half’.

  ‘Look after myself!’ says the squire

  ‘Lord! Why so? You’ve no partnership, sure, your namesake below?’

  ‘No,’ says Nick with a squint, ‘I mean only to hint;

  But I’ll do it more plainly, for fear of mistake,

  If we play at blind-hookey, be d____d wide awake’.

  Then with laughter and jest, Honest Tom and his guest

  Ride along, while their humour is shared by the rest,

  Who vow, one and all, Master Nick to install,

  As the prince of good fellows; and just at nightfall

  They reach most good-humour’dly Castletown Hall.

  ’Tis a glorious thing when the wintry sun,

  Ashamed of himself, has cut and run;

  When the drizzling rain falls thick and fast,

  And the shivering poplars stand aghast;

  No sight abroad, but landscape bleak,

  No sound, save whistle, and howl, and creak;

  ’Tis a glorious thing, in the dismal hour,

  To be snugly housed from the tempest’s power,

  With a blazing fire, and a smoking board,

  With all the best things of the season stored!

  Not costly, mind, but good plain dinner,

  To suit the wants of an erring sinner.

  But enough, to their dinner the hunting folk sit!

  With silence displaying more wisdom than wit.

  But with dessert, wit begins to assert

  His claims to attention; and near to its close

  Takes the field while old wisdom goes off in a doze.

  Then after a couple of bumpers of wine,

  Ye gods, how the urchin commences to shine!

  While, as for the stranger, his feats in the field

  To his feats at the table unspeakably yield;

  In drinking, in laughter, in frolic and jest,

  He seems but the sun who gives light to the rest;

  And after a while, when the squire begs a song from him,

  He sings for them this, which grave folk will think wrong of him:

  A fig for philosophy’s rules!

  Our stay is too brief upon earth,

  To spare any time in the schools,

  Save those of Love, Music and Mirth:

  Yes! Theirs is exquisite lore

  We can learn in life’s summer by heart;

  While the winter of gloomy four score

  Leaves fools in philosophy’s art.

  Oh! Surely, if life’s but a day,

  ’Tis vain o’er dull volumes to pine;

  Let the sage choose what studies he may,

  But Mirth, Love and Music be mine!

  What a fool was Chaldea’s old seer

  Who studied the planters afar!

  While the bright eye of woman is near;

  My book be that beautiful star!

  The lore of the planets who seeks

  Is years in acquiring the art;

  While the language dear woman’s eye speaks

  Is learned in a minute by her!

  Then surely if life’s but a day,

  ’Tis vain o’er dull volumes to pine;

  Let the stars be his book as they may,

  But the bright eye of woman be mine.

  The chymist may learnedly tell

  Of the treasures his art can unmask;

  But the grape-juice has in it a spell

  Which, is all of his lore that I ask.

  In gazing on Woman’s bright eyes

  I feel all the star-student’s bliss;

  And chemistry’s happiest prize

  I find in a goblet like this!

  Then fill up, if life’s but a day,

  What fool o’er dull volumes would pine?

  Love and Mirth we can learn on the way,

  And to praise them in music be mine!

  ‘Hip, hip, hurrah!’

  How they’re cheering away.

  ‘Hip, hip’ They’re growing uncommonly gay,

  ‘Hip ’tis a way we’ve got in the’ ‘Hic-hiccup’

  Lord! What a deuce of a shindy they kick up!

  But at length they have done,

  And drop off, one by one,

  From their chairs, overcome by the claret and fun:

  And at a quarter to four

  All lie stretched out on the floor,

  Enjoying in chorus a mighty fine snore;

  While still to the claret, like gay fellows, stick

  The warm-hearted squire and
his jolly friend Nick!

  There’s a cooper of wine by Tom Conolly’s chair

  And he stoops for a bottle

  At what does he stare?

  My fine lad, you’re found out!

  There’s the cloven foot plainly as the eye can behold.

  ‘Cut your stick master Nick, if I may make so bold!

  ’Pon my life, what a jest, to have you as a guest.

  You toping by dozens Lafitte’s very best!

  Be off sir, you’ve drunk of my wine to satiety.’

  ‘No thank you,’ says Nick; ‘Tom I like your society,

  I like your good humour. I relish your wit,

  And I’m d____d but I very much like your Lafitte.

  You may guess that your wine, has more bouquet than mine

  And I’ll stay, my old boy, in your mansion a dweller,

  While a drop of such claret remains in your cellar!

  I’ve my reasons for this, but ’twere needless to state ’em,

  For this, my dear fellow, is my ultimatum!’

  Tom rings for the flunkies: They enter, ‘What now?’

  He looks at Old Nick, with a very dark brow

  And says, while the latter complacently bears

  His glance ‘Kick that insolent rascal downstairs!’

  At their master’s behest, they approach to the guest,

  Though to kick him downstairs seems no joke at the best;

  But when they draw near, with humours leer

  Nick cries ‘My good friends, you had better be civil.

  ’Tis not pleasant, believe me, to deal with the Devil!

  I’m that much-abused person so do keep aloof,

  And, lest you should doubt me, pray look at my hoof’.

  Then lifting his leg in the air most polite,

  He places the cloven hoof full in their sight,

  When at once, with a roar, they all rush to the door;

  And stumbling o’er wine-coopers, sleepers and chairs,

  Never stop till they’ve got to the foot of the stairs.

  The parson is sent for, he comes, ’tis no go,

  Nick plainly defies him to send him below:

  With a comical phiz, says he’ll stay where he is,

  And bids him be gone, for an arrant old quiz!

  Asks how is his mother, and treats him indeed

  With impertinence nothing on earth could exceed.

  A pleasant finale, in truth, to a feast,

  There’s but one hope remaining, to send for a priest;

  Though the parson on hearing it, says ’tis all fudge,

  And vows that he never induce Nick to budge.

  Still, as ’tis the sole hope of getting a severance

  From Nick. The squire sends off at once for his reverence,

  And would send for the Pope, if he saw any hope

  That his power could induce the old boy to elope.

  Father Malachy, sure that for Nick he’s a match,

  Doesn’t ask better sport than to come to the scratch;

  And arrives at the hall, in the midst of them all

  While the frightened domestics’ scarce venture to crawl:

  And learning the state of affairs from the squire,

  Says he’ll soon make his guest from the parlour retire,

  If he’ll only agree, to give him rent free

  A plot for a chapel; but if he refuses,

  Master Nick may stay with him as long as he chooses.

  ‘A plot for a chapel!’ Tom Conolly cries

  ‘Faith, I’ll build one myself that will gladden your eyes,

  If Old Nick cuts his stick.’

  ‘That he shall double quick, if you undertake to stand mortar and brick.’

  ‘Agreed!’ says the Squire; so the priest takes his book,

  Giving Nick at the same time a terrible look

  Then th’ Exorcism begins, but Old Nick only grins,

  And asks him to read out the ‘Table of Sins’;

  ‘For between you and me, Holy Father’ says he

  ‘That’s light and agreeable reading, you see,

  And if you look it carefully over, I bet,

  Your reverence will find you’re a bit in my debt!’

  At an insult so dire, Father Malachy’s ire

  Was aroused in an instant; so, closing the book,

  He gives the arch-rascal one desperate look,

  Then, with blessed precision, the volume lets fly,

  And hits the arch-enemy fair in the eye!

  There’s a terrible yell that might startle all hell!

  A flash, and a very strong brimstony smell!

  And, save a great cleft, from his exit so deft

  Not a trace of the gentleman’s visit is left;

  But the book, which was flung, in his visage was clung

  To the wainscot, and sticks so tenaciously to it,

  You’d fancy some means supernatural glue it;

  And his reverence in fact finds it fixed to the mortar,

  To the wonder of all, a full inch and a quarter!

  Where the mark of it still to this day may be seen,

  Or if not, they can show you where once it has been;

  And if after that any doubts on it seize you,

  All I can say is ’tis not easy to please you.

  The delight of the Squire I, of course, can’t express.

  That ’tis boundless indeed you might easily guess

  The very next day, he gives orders to lay,

  The chapel’s foundation; and early in May,

  If in his excursions Nick happened to pass there;

  And it stands to this day, slate, stone, mortar and brick

  By Tom Conolly built, to get rid of Old Nick.

  Since the period that Nick got this touch in the eye,

  Of displaying his hoof he has grown very shy;

  You can scarce find him out by his ill-shapen stump,

  For he sticks to the rule: ‘Keep your toe in your Pump!’

  7

  THE KILDARE LURIKEEN

  This is a lovely little story, taken from Patrick Kennedy’s book Fictions of the Celts, published in 1866.

  A young girl who lived in sight of Castle Carbury, near Edenderry, was going to the well for a pitcher of water one summer morning, when who should she see sitting in a sheltered nook under an old thorn bush, but a Lurikeen, working like vengeance at a little old brogue only fit for the foot of a fairy like himself. There he was, boring his holes and jerking his waxed ends, with his little three-cornered hat with gold lace, his knee-breeches, his jug of beer by his side, and his pipe in his mouth. He was so busy at his work, and so taken up with an old ballad he was singing in Irish, that he did not mind Breedheen till she had him by the scruff o’ the neck.

  ‘Ah, what are you doing?’ says he, turning his head round as well as he could. ‘Dear, dear! To think of such a purty colleen ketchin’ a body, as if he was after robbin’ a hen roost! What did I do to be treated in such an un-decent manner? The very vulgarest young ruffian in the townland could do no worse. Come, come, Miss Bridget, take your hands off, sit down, and let us have a chat, like two respectable people.’

  ‘Ah, Mr Lurikeen, I don’t care a wisp of borrach for your politeness. It’s your money I want, and I won’t take hand or eye from you till you put me in possession of a fine lob of it.’

  ‘Money, indeed! Ah! Where would a poor cobbler like me get it? There’s no money hereabouts, and if you’ll only let go my arms, I’ll turn my pockets inside out, and open the drawer of my seat, and give you leave to keep every halfpenny you’ll find.’

  ‘That won’t do. My eyes will keep going through you like darning needles till I have the gold,’ she said. ‘Begonies, if you don’t make haste, I’ll carry you, head and pluck, into the village, and there you’ll have thirty pair of eyes on you instead of one.’

  ‘Well, well! Was ever a poor cobbler so circumvented! And if it was an ignorant, ugly bosthoon that done it, I woul
d not wonder; but a decent, comely girl, that can read her Poor Man’s Manual at the chapel, and …’

  ‘You may throw your compliments on the stream there’ they won’t do for me, I tell you,’ said Breedheen. ‘The gold, the gold, the gold! Don’t take up my time with your blarney.’

  ‘Well, if there’s any to be got, its undher the auld castle it is; we must have a walk for it. Just put me down, and we’ll get on,’ he said.

  ‘Put you down indeed! I know a trick worth two of that; I’ll carry you.’

  ‘Well, how suspicious we are! Do you see the castle from this?’ Bridget was about turning her eyes from the little man to where she know the castle stood, but she bethought herself in time.

  They went up a little hillside, and the Lurikeen was quite reconciled, and laughed and joked; but just as they got to the brow, he looked up over the ditch, gave a great screech, and shouted just as if a bugle horn was blew at her ears. ‘Oh, murdher! Castle Carbury is afire.’ Poor Biddy gave a great start, and looked up towards the castle. The same moment she missed the weight of the Lurikeen, and she let go of him and when her eyes fell where he was a moment before, there was no more sign of him than if everything that passed was a dream.

  Not long after that in Kildare a boy caught himself a leprechaun and demanded that it told him where money was hidden. The leprechaun stuck a stick in the ground and told the boy to get a spade and dig in that exact spot, there, he said was where the money would be found. However, when the boy returned with a spade he found hundreds of sticks stuck all over the field. He had been tricked. For it is a well-known fact that you must never turn your back on a wee leprechaun when you are lucky enough to catch one, for they are notorious tricksters and rogues.

  8

  THE GUBBAWN SEER

  There are many stories collected about this character and his adventures. Some were collected by Patrick Kennedy in 1866 and by Ella Young in 1927. They span the length and breadth of Ireland. I came across this one by Ms Greene of Milbrook, which is specifically based in Kildare. The Gubbawn Seer was a highly skilled smith, architect and carpenter who lived during the seventh century. But he was most famous for his wit and sharp senses and how that rubbed off on others, depending on if their hearts were in the right place. Gubbawn Seer means Gubbawn the Builder. He was also known as the Wondersmith.