Irish Folk Tales

by Henry Glassie

  Saint Finbar came to the district and the people begged him to do something for them. They had no great faith in the saint for the parish priest had spent his time trying to banish the serpent. That was good and it wasn’t bad.

  One night when the great world was asleep, and the serpent along with them, Saint Finbar went out with two of his friars. He never halted until he reached the lake. He walked around it three times, praying. When he reached the mouth of the lake the third time, he stopped, took out a small bottle of holy water that he had, and sprinkled it three times on the serpent. The serpent shook herself and let out a roar that shook the hills round about. Then she moved from where she was and tore and devoured the land until she came to where Lough Loo is today. She made a bed there for herself. Next morning she moved on again and never stopped till she reached Cork Harbor. There she entered the sea.

  Water has filled the track she left behind her, and that’s the River Lee today. The people of the place were so grateful to Saint Finbar that they drew stones and earth and made a small island in the middle of the lake. There he built a monastery.

  JAMES MURRAY AND SAINT MARTIN

  TIMOTHY SHEAHY KERRY

  JEREMIAH CURTIN 1892

  There was a small farmer named James Murray, who lived between this and Slieve Mish. He had the grass of seven cows, but though he had the land, he hadn’t stock to put on it; he had but the one cow. Being a poor man, he went to Cork with four firkins of butter for a neighbor. He never thought what day of the month it was until he had the butter sold in the city, and it was Saint Martin’s Eve at the time. Himself and his father before him and his grandfather had always killed something to honor Saint Martin, and when he was in Cork on Saint Martin’s Eve he felt heartsore and could not eat. He walked around and muttered to himself: “I wish to the Almighty God I was at home. My house will be disgraced forever.”

  The words weren’t out of his mouth when a fine-looking gentleman stood before him and asked: “What trouble is on you, good man?”

  James Murray told the gentleman.

  “Well, my poor man, you would like to be at home tonight?”

  “Indeed, then, I would, and but for I forgot the day of the month, it isn’t here I’d be now, poor as I am.”

  “Where do you live?”

  “Near the foot of Slieve Mish, in Kerry.”

  “Bring out your horse and creels, and you will be at home.”

  “What is the use in talking? ’Tis too far for such a journey.”

  “Never mind. Bring out your horse.”

  James Murray led out the horse, mounted, and rode away. He thought he wasn’t two hours on the road when he was going in at his own door. Sure, his wife was astonished and didn’t believe that he could be home from Cork in that time. It was only when he showed the money they paid him for the other man’s butter that she believed.

  “Well, this is Saint Martin’s Eve!”

  “It is,” said she. “What are we to do? I don’t know, for we have nothing to kill.”

  Out went James and drove in the cow.

  “What are you going to do?” asked the wife.

  “To kill the cow in honor of Saint Martin.”

  “Indeed, then, you will not.”

  “I will, indeed,” and he killed her. He skinned the cow and cooked some of her flesh, but the woman was down in the room at the other end of the house lamenting.

  “Come up now and eat your supper,” said the husband.

  But she would not eat, and was only complaining and crying. After supper the whole family went to bed. Murray rose at daybreak next morning, went to the door, and saw seven gray cows, and they feeding in the field.

  “Whose cows are those eating my grass?” cried he, and ran out to drive them away. Then he saw that they were not like other cattle in the district, and they were fat and bursting with milk.

  “I’ll have the milk at least, to pay for the grass they’ve eaten,” said James Murray. So his wife milked the gray cows and he drove them back to the field. The cows were contented in themselves and didn’t wish to go away. Next day he published the cows, but no one ever came to claim them.

  “It was the Almighty God and Saint Martin who sent these cows,” said he, and he kept them. In the summer all the cows had heifer calves, and every year for seven years they had heifer calves, and the calves were all gray, like the cows. James Murray got very rich, and his crops were the best in the county. He bought new land and had a deal of money put away. But it happened on the eighth year one of the cows had a bull calf. What did Murray do but kill the calf. That minute the seven old cows began to bellow and run away, and the calves bellowed and followed them, all ran and never stopped till they went into the sea and disappeared under the waves. They were never seen after that, but, as Murray used to give away a heifer calf sometimes during the seven years, there are cows of that breed around Slieve Mish and Dingle to this day, and every one is as good as two cows.

  THE BEST ROAD TO HEAVEN

  MARY GLYN GALWAY

  LADY GREGORY 1903

  There was a woman I knew was very charitable to the poor; and she’d give them the full of her apron of bread, or of potatoes or anything she had. And she was only lately married. And one day, a poor woman came to the door with her children and she brought them to the fire, and warmed them, and gave them a drink of milk; and she sent out to the barn for a bag of potatoes for them.

  And the husband came in, and he said: “Kitty, if you go on this way, you won’t leave much for ourselves.”

  And she said: “He that gave us what we have, can give us more.”

  And the next day when they went out to the barn, it was full of potatoes—more than were ever in it before.

  And when she was dying, and her children about her, the priest said to her: “Mrs. Gallagher, it’s in Heaven you’ll be at twelve o’clock tomorrow.

  THE MAN FROM KILMACOLIVER

  MICK MCCARTHY TIPPERARY

  ROSE SPRINGFIELD 1955

  Now the Cross at Ahenny is in the graveyard, and a man from Kilmacoliver was passing by one day (and he was so mean that his soul was as narrow as a knitting needle, and if you had a cold in the head he would grudge it to you)—well, when he saw the cross he said to himself: “That would make a grand hone for my scythe, if I sawed off an arm of it.”

  He went home and got his saw, and he began to saw it off, and he looked up and saw his house on the opposite hill at Kilmacoliver was on fire, and he dropped his saw and ran to save his house, and when he got there it was no fire, only the setting sun shining on the windows.

  Still and all, he would not be warned, and he called his son, who was a young lad, to go back with him. And the young lad was to carry back the arm of the Cross when it was sawed off. And they went back, and he picked up the saw, and began to saw again in the same notch, and as he sawed, drops of blood fell from the notch he had made and fell on him, and he gave one mighty skirl that was heard as far as Mullinahone, and the echo of it as far as Grangemockler and Toor, and even to Kilcash, and he fell down with the falling sickness, and the young lad ran off for help. And when the people came, he was wriggling like an eel, but no matter how he twisted, the blood drops still fell on him, and each place they dropped on was burned through to the bone, and in the latter end he died. And it was as well.

  THE PIOUS MAN

  KATE AHERN LIMERICK

  KEVIN DANAHER 1967

  There was a man there long ago, and he had a great name of being very holy. He was the first up the chapel on Sunday, and there was never a pattern or a mission that he wasn’t at, praying all around him. And he was being held up as a good example to the sinners as a very holy man that never missed his duty.

  Well, he said to himself that it would be a good thing for him to count all the times he was at Mass, so he got a big timber box and he made a hole in the cover of it, and he locked the box so that no one could interfere with it in any way, and he hid the key where no one could possibly find it.
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  And every time he went to Mass he picked up a small pebble of a stone on his way home and dropped it in through the hole in the cover of the box.

  And he was not satisfied with going to Mass on Sunday, and he started to go every single weekday as well, and sometimes he’d be at second Mass as well as at first Mass on the Sunday, and all the time he was putting the stone into the box every time he came home from Mass.

  Well, the years were going on and, like all the rest of us, he was getting old, and he was saying to himself that there must be a great heap of stones inside in the box, and that maybe he would have to get a new box, that the old one must be nearly full.

  He called in the servant boy. “Pull out that box for me, boy, until I open it. And mind yourself, because it must be very heavy.”

  The boy handled it. “It is not a bit heavy, sir, but as light as you like,” says the boy.

  He opened it and there were only five stones inside in it. He couldn’t understand it, and off with him to the parish priest with his complaint—after all his Masses was he only going to get credit for five of them, or was it how someone was bad enough to steal the stones out of his box, but how could they do that, and it locked and the key hidden, and no sign that it was ever meddled with?

  Well, this parish priest had great wisdom. “It is like this, my good man,” says he. “It was not about the Mass you were thinking, and it was not for your neighbors that you were praying all the times that you were at Mass, but all the time thinking how pious you were and how everyone should have great respect for you. And that is a sign to you from Heaven that you heard only five of the Masses properly, and that is the only five you will get credit for. And remember that, now, the next time you go to the church.”

  I tell you that it is not the one that is first to the chapel that is the highest in the sight of God.

  AN ACTUAL SAINT

  SEÁN MURPHY KERRY

  LAWRENCE MILLMAN 1975

  I used to always go to an old person for to get a few histories. ’Twas an old man that in nineteen twenty-eight told me this: he said that there was a wonderful man living just beyond here, a sheepherder for a Protestant landlord years ago, and this man had no knowledge of anything but his sheep and his lands. He was away up in the mountain beyond minding sheep, and he never seen a chapel, he was miles away from a chapel.

  There was a priest crossing one time, and the priest began to talk to this man, and he says, “Do you go to Mass?” “What is that?” says he. The priest asked him his age, and he told him, a man well gone in years, a white bawneen he was wearing. “Next Sunday,” says the priest, “you’ll see the people going to Mass, and follow them. Follow them down the mountain.” “All right,” says he.

  Sure enough, the next Sunday he followed them down the mountain and into the chapel. The day was very warm, and after walking, and when he was coming inside, he started to pour sweat. There was a sunbeam coming in from the window, and he thought it was a rope, and he took off his white bawneen and threw it up upon it, and faith, believe it or believe it not, the coat caught up on the sunbeam and the sunbeam kept the coat. Then the priest, seeing the coat hanging there, said to the congregation, “Thanks be to God, there’s a saint at Mass today.”

  After Mass, the priest came up to the old man and told him he needn’t come any more. Why? Because he was a true Christian, a living saint, Because if he continued coming to that chapel, could happen next Sunday, he could fall into sin and the sunbeam wouldn’t hold up the coat. He might look at a handsome lassie, that’s all the marks you need ever pass, that’s a sin for you. So he stayed away for the rest of his life.

  You see, that man was an actual saint. He was in the mountains all his life, out there on his own, and there was more religion in him than there could ever be if he went looking for it, at the chapel. I don’t think the sunbeam would have held up that priest’s coat.

  That happened for a fact. But they’re very few saints left in it today, of that you can be even more sure. No, not many saints at all and altogether too many priests, at least that’s what I think.

  OLD THORNS AND OLD PRIESTS

  ARMAGH

  MICHAEL J. MURPHY 1975

  Old thorns and old priests should be left alone: there’s power in the pair of them if they want to use it. You may not believe it, but there was a time in Ireland when everyone believed it and maybe right they were. It’s better be sure than sorry.

  Anyhow, there was this fellow one time and he was very fond of the drink. Worse still he had a wife and a family, and the way he was drinking himself out of house and habitation they were living on the clippings of tin, licking the stones. She was sick, sore, and tired scolding him and asking him to have sense, so in the latter end she went to the old parish priest about him.

  The parish priest listened to her story and said he would see what he could do. So this day there was a market or something in the village and the priest knew your man would be there and wouldn’t leave the public house till he lowered every cent in his pocket down the red lane, and maybe rise more on the slate if his name was good.

  So the priest was in the village and he seen your man heading for the public house. He called him over.

  “I forbid you to go in there this day,” says he.

  “Only one drink, Father,” says he, “and then I’m going home to my wife and childer.”

  “One drink,” says the priest, “will lead to another drink and another and another till you go home with the two legs plaiting under you. Now listen here,” says the priest, “I don’t want to use my power, but if you go inside that public house today or let drink wet your lips, I’ll turn you into a mouse by twelve o’clock tonight.”

  At that the priest turned and walked away home, and your man turned and walked home too. He didn’t want to draw the anger of the priest on him and he believed he had the power when he wanted.

  He wasn’t far outside the village on his way home and who does he meet but an old pal who’d been years in England or America and was just home. Well, you know how it is. Handshakes and great talk and what not. And before your man knew where he was, he was back with this pal in the pub in the village and didn’t leave it till he couldn’t see a hole in a ladder.

  It was dark, down night when he got as far as his own house and his wife, Mary, was sitting lamenting to herself at the fire. He staggered in and looked at the mantelpiece and he could see the clock all right but he was that cross-eyed with drink he couldn’t tell what time it was.

  “Mary,” says he, “what time is it?”

  “What time do you think?” says she. “It’s a few minutes off midnight.”

  “Mary,” says he, “if you see me getting wee and hairy … put out that bloody cat.”

  PRIESTS AND FARMING MEN

  PETER FLANAGAN FERMANAGH

  HENRY GLASSIE 1972

  There was a man out here, he was the name of Tom Nabby.

  And the priest engaged him this day to clean up the cemetery.

  So, he started to work and was working a considerable length of time.

  He was fond of a drink, like meself, and he was expecting one too. And the priest came into the graveyard where he was working. And he had a half-pint in his hand.

  “Now,” he says, “Tom,” he says, “I’m going to treat you.”

  “I’m very thankful to ye, Father,” he says, “surely.”

  “I’m sure you’d like it.”

  “Oh indeed I would,” he says, “like it surely. I was always used to a half-one.”

  So the priest handed him the half-one, or the glass, whatever it contained.

  “And now,” says the priest to him, he says, “do you know Tom, I’m not against you drinking,” he says, “but every one of them that you drink,” he says, “is a nail in your coffin.”

  So Tom took and he put it on his head and he drunk it down.

  “Well,” he says, “please, Father, while you’re at it,” he says, “just drive another nail into me c
offin.”

  Aye.

  There was another man like meself: he was a fiddler, and he lived up at Derrylin.

  And of course, I think the fiddlers longgo, they hadn’t too much money, and any drink they got, they drunk it.

  This man, well, whether he had drink in him or not, he appeared to be drunk nearly every day. He was drunk in the priest’s eye every day.

  He lived near the parochial house, and every time the priest went out, he met him nearly, and this day, “Och, Tom,” he says:

  “Drunk the day again,” says he to Tom.

  “Aye,” and says Tom back to him:

  “So am I.”

  SAVED BY THE PRIEST

  ANNIE O’HAGAN TYRONE

  SÉAMAS Ó CATHÁIN 1980

  I remember hearing Brian telling this story—somebody told it to him. It was some church anyway, but there was a funeral. And there was this wee man—a Catholic man—and he went to the wake. And at that time, away years ago, the morning of the funeral, the man of the house, he’d have two or three men go round with a bottle of whiskey and a glass to treat every man that went to the funeral.

  So this wee man got enough, he got a wee drop too much anyway and he went to the church and when the service was over, didn’t he fall asleep with the drink from the night before and all. Nobody in the church seen him—he was in the seat but he fell down and he was sleeping.

  It was very late on that night when he wakened and come till himself and realized where he was.