THE HORSE’S LAST DRUNK
MR. BUCKLEY, THE TAILOR CORK
ERIC CROSS 1942
Do you know that the jennet is the most willing animal in the world? Man alive, a jennet never knows when he is done. Years ago, I saw a jennet drawing a load up Patrick’s Hill in Cork, and that’s like the side of a mountain. The load was too much for it, and for all its trying the jennet could go no farther.
But do you know what happened? With the height of willingness and the power of pulling, its eyes came out of its head before it, for they were the only part of it free and not tackled to the cart. That was willingness for you!
The man who owned that jennet was carrying from Cork to Kenmare. It was in the days before there were any motorcars and before their like had been thought about at all.
He was coming one day with the divil of a load of wheat, maybe it could be about a ton weight, and he saw that his horse was failing. He wondered if he had overfed her or what could ail her. He wanted to get into the town of Macroom that night at least.
Well, he had a bottle of poteen with him, and he put it back into the horse, and she was as lively as could be for another piece of the road. But just when he was to the east of Macroom, didn’t the horse lie down on the road, under the load, and the divil a stir from her.
They thought that she was dead. There wasn’t a move out of her, no matter what they did. One of the men with him said that they had as well make the best of it, and if they skinned her they would be able to sell the skin in Macroom.
So they set to, and they skinned her, and when they had that done she moved. She wasn’t dead at all, but only dead drunk with the poteen she had taken, and the cold had put a stir into her when the skin was off.
They were in the devil of a fix, for the skin was after stiffening. One of them had an idea. There were sheep grazing in a field near by, and he hopped over the wall, and killed four of the sheep and skinnd them, and they sewed the warm skins on to the horse, and she got up after her debauch, and pulled away as good as ever.
Ever after that he used to shear her twice a year—and you should have seen the grand fleece she had on her. She lived for fourteen years after that with two shearings a year.
HARE AND HOUND
DAN ROONEY DOWN
MICHAEL J. MURPHY 1960
John McLoughlin that lived out the Point Road had this hound. There never was the beating of her. She pupped in a teapot.
One time she was carrying the pups, and a hare riz and she made after it and ripped the belly out of herself on this ditch, on wire or something; and the pups, the greyhound pups, spilled out of her. And one of them up like hell, and after the hare and stuck till her till he caught and killed her.
And when the greyhound died, John McLoughlin had her skinned and he put a back in a waistcoat with her skin. And one day he was out over the water hunting and this hare started up; and begod, he said, the back of the waistcoat on him barked!
SLEEPY PENDOODLE
MICHAEL BOYLE FERMANAGH
HENRY GLASSIE 1972
Ah, this Hughie McGiveney, he was a great character.
He used to keep a couple of cats.
And he used to have funny names on them. There was one cat he called Yibbity Gay, Yibbity Gay. And there was another cat he called Willy the Wisp. Aye.
Well then, he used to tell a great yarn; he used to tell about—he had a wee Irish terrier bitch, a wee bitch, you know.
And she used to have pups every year. This wee Granny—he called the wee bitch Granny—she used to have pups every year. Supplied the whole—there wasn’t a wee lad in the country wasn’t running after one of her pups.
And Granny was going to have pups this time, and didn’t she die.
So he was in terrible grief about her.
And he buried her with honors of war. “I buried her,” says he, “with honors of war.”
And he put down a stick at the grave.
And he used to go every day and stand at the grave.
And this day, he used to tell the yarn, he was standing at the grave, and he heard a squealing, you know, a mumbling down in the grave.
And he got a spade and he opened the grave.
And there was two pups shut up in the grave. Two pups.
There was one pup dead. The other was living. So he brought it home.
And he got a supping bottle; you know, that’s what young childer used to be fed on longgo, a supping bottle. See, a big long tube down into the bottle, and a wee dummy, a wee tit in their mouth.
Well, he got one of them, and he reared the pup. Sat up at night with it, and reared it anyway.
It grew up to be a great big fat lump of a thing.
And it was a month old, and its eyes never opened. Its eyes still kept closed.
And there he was, and he was in a terrible way about the pup, that his eyes wouldn’t open.
So. He was in town this day, in Enniskillen. And he went into a public house the name of Herbert’s for to get a pint of porter, and he was on his way home.
And there was a big swank of a fellow in it, and he had a big red dog with him.
So Hughie and him joined to chat about the dog, do you see. He was explaining to Hughie McGiveney the qualities of the dog and the breeding of him and everything, and didn’t Hughie start to tell him about his pup, about his pup, and that his eyes didn’t open.
So he had listened to him for a while. “Well now,” he says, “I’m glad you mentioned that, because,” he says, “I can be of great help to ye.”
“Ah,” he says, “are you in a hurry?” he says.
“Aw, not atall,” says Hughie.
“Well, wait a minute now,” he says, “here.”
And he went away anyway. He says to the barman, “Give him a pint there,” he says, “till I come back.”
The barman put up the pint for him, and Hughie was drinking the pint, and the lad came back anyway, and he had a wee piece of white paper in his hand.
And he says to McGiveney, “Now,” he says, “have you good memory?”
“I have,” says Hugh, “the best.”
“Well, you’ll have to be able to mind this, that I’m going to tell ye. Because,” he says, “if I write it down on a piece of paper, it’ll be no good; it’ll take the charm away. You’ll have to be fit for to mind it in your head.”
So now anyway, he says, “When you go home,” he says, “get the pup on your knee and sleek it down the head,” he says. “There’s a wee powder in that paper, and don’t tell anybody this till you go home, or don’t show the paper to anybody, or tell no one about it. There’s a powder in that paper,” he says, “and when you go home, get the pup up on your knee, and with your right hand sleek it down the back, and say, three times after the other:
“Open your eyes, Sleepy Pendoodle.
Open your eyes, Sleepy Pendoodle.
Open your eyes, Sleepy Pendoodle.
And the pup will be all right.”
So McGiveney drunk his pint, and he out, up the streets of Enniskillen shouting:
“Pendoodle, Pendoodle, Pendoodle, Pendoodle, Pendoodle.”
And on he came running—he run the whole road home, and the paper in his hand, the wee piece of paper in his hand.
And damn it anyway, there was a man lived on the roadside beside that old school; the house is nearly down now. He was a man named Keenan, Frank Keenan, Francis Keenan, and he seen Hughie coming.
And he was standing on the road.
And Hughie came on running.
And he says, “Anything wrong, Hughie?”
“Oh, not a damned haet wrong,” he says, “not a damned haet wrong. Pendoodle, Pendoodle, Pendoodle, Pendoodle,” he says.
“My God,” says Francis, “he’s gone mad. He’s gone straight for a madman.”
So anyway, he went on anyway, and he was going by another house.
That house was Nolan’s. Hugh Nolan’s father was living at the time, and he was in the road.
“Well, Hughie,” says he, “any news in town the day?”
“Ah, news be damned,” he says. “Pendoodle, Pendoodle, Pendoodle, Pendoodle, Pendoodle.”
So when he went home, the old wife was sitting in the corner, and she joined to grumble: “What the devil kept you so long, and, troth, you may go to the Bottom for the cows”—a hundred and fifty orders in the one—an old grumbling creature.
“Ah, cows be hanged,” he says. “Where’s the pup?”
“PUP! Well, bad manners to the pup. And, troth, if I’d’ve been able to walk to the lough, the pup would’ve been in the lough.”
“He’ll not be in the lough,” he says.
Well, damn it, he got the pup on his knee, and got the powder out anyway, stroked it three times down the head:
“Open your eyes, Sleepy Pendoodle.
Open your eyes, Sleepy Pendoodle.
Open your eyes, Sleepy Pendoodle.”
And the third time, the pup opened his eyes, and looked up into his face, and wagged his tail.
So he christened the pup Pendoodle.
Aye, and Pendoodle grew up to be a big strong red dog.
Pendoodle he called the pup.
He used to tell that yarn.
He made it all up. He made it all up, surely. He was a terrible clever man.
Ah, I mind Hughie well.
A MEDICAL EXPERT FROM LISNASKEA
NED NOBLE FERMANAGH
PADDY TUNNEY 1979
I mind the time I was over in the cancer hospital in Manchester getting the spot cut off my lip. In them times they were not that well up in science and indeed it’s many’s the consultation they held with myself when their experts were clean beat.
This day, anyway, weren’t they operating on a man and they had his stomach out on the table scraping it when the bell rang for dinnertime. Away my bully surgeons went and forgot to close and lock the operating theater door.
There was this big buck-cat that kept us awake half the night chasing and catterwailing with she-cats. He was very fond of titbits and didn’t he steal into the theater and eat the poor man’s stomach. When the doctors came back at two o’clock and they found the stomach gone, they were in a bit of a quandary. They sent for me. “What would you suggest, Paddy?”—they always called me Paddy.
“Well now, boys,” I told them, “I’m no surgeon but the sensible thing to do would be to go round to the slaughterhouse and get the stomach of a young heifer or bullock and stick it into him. If you do so, it’s my candid opinion the old worn-out one you spent all morning scraping at will never be missed.” Away goes the head surgeon and picks a nice tender young stomach, comes back and grafts it into the patient.
All went well until he was able to take food again. They put him on milk foods first and eventually he got beef and broth and whatever was going. No matter how much food he ate the pangs of hunger never left him.
It’s a holy sight surely, with all their learning and the number of men and women they had knifed, that they had to come again to Ned for a solution. “Well now,” I told them, “but I could be wrong, I don’t think you are giving him the right diet.” There was a boyo out in the grounds with a lawn-mower, cutting away for all he was worth.
“Now,” says I, “wouldn’t it be a good thing if some of you men went out and brought him in an armful of grass to see if he’d be satisfied.” Arrah man! the armful of grass was not at his head until he was munching away with great relish and he didn’t leave a cuinneog of the grass!
When I left the hospital he was lying there in the bed chewing his cud contentedly. Can you beat that?
GEORGE ARMSTRONG’S RETURN
HUGH NOLAN FERMANAGH
HENRY GLASSIE 1977
George Armstrong used to tell about: when he was a young man, he took a notion of traveling.
And he went to Australia.
And he was doing rightly in it. But the cholera broke out in it.
And the most of the whole continent was ailing from it, and a good deal of the people died. But he took it anyway, and he failed terribly.
Finally he mended. But he knew be the way he felt that he might go back to Ireland, for he would never be able for to do anything to earn a living in Australia, wouldn’t be able to work. He was too far gone.
So anyway, he started for home.
And he landed at Enniskillen. There was a railroad station in them days at Enniskillen. It’s way above where the present mart is. So he got out of the train and he went over and he sat down.
And he rested himself.
And he took a notion that he’d try and make his way home.
So anyway, he started.
He had no money to get any refreshment in the town. He started out walking, hoping that he’d reach Bellanaleck some time or another.
So there was a railroad crossing on this Derrylin Road in them days that was below Lisgoole. And when he came that length, the gates was closed, the train was coming.
So he took a notion he’d count his money.
And he had thruppence.
That’s all he had back out of Australia.
And he had weighed on the journey somewhere.
And he was three pound weight.
So anyway, he trudged on, trudged on.
When the train passed, the gates was open, and he trudged on, trudged on.
Finally he landed at Bellanaleck Cross.
Turned up for Arney, and made his way along till he came to the turn that would take you to where the mother lived.
So, he made his way up to the house.
But there was no noise off his step.
He was that light.
So anyway, the mother was doing chores through the house, and she didn’t find him coming atall, till he spoke at the door.
So she knew his voice and she run towards him.
And aye, he was hardly able for to lift his hand to shake hands with her.
So anyway. She got hold of him and she lifted him and she brought him and she left him standing on the hearthstone.
And there was a wee basket that she had from the childer was small.
And it was hanging up on the wall.
And she took down the basket, and she put him into the basket.
And she put a white cover over him and left him at the fireside.
So anyway. The rumor was out that George Armstrong was home out of Australia. So the people used to come for to see him, have a talk with him, and when they’d come in, there’d be no sign of anyone in the house, only the mother, and after some time they’d say:
“Well, I heard George was at home, and I just come over to see him.”
“Oh, here he is, he’s here,” she’d say, and run up to the basket and she’d lift the white cloth.
“There, he’s in there.”
Aye.
It was pants like that that used to keep the community telling, and every day you’d nearly hear a fresh one. And you’d like to come across them, do ye know, when you’d go down in that locality.
Oh now, it was surely one of the trials of this life, mind you, when things turned out that way.
But he made a joke out of it.
THE LAWYER AND THE DEVIL
MICHAEL E. MORRIS TYRONE
MICHAEL J. MURPHY 1950
There was this man in it one time and he had three sons and he wanted to make something of them but hadn’t the money. So he sells himself to the Divil to rise money to school the three boys, and he did. He made one a priest, the other a doctor and the third one was a lawyer. The Divil give him the money to pay for their education.
But anyway, at the end of seven years the Divil showed up to claim the old man and his soul and take him and it down to Hell. He had his three sons there, or one at a time in with him. So when the Divil come the priest began to pray and beg and appeal for sparings for his father, and in the heel of the hunt he got a few years more off the Divil for his father.
When that was up and the Divil come again the doctor was the
re and he appealed for sparings for his father and got them. And when the Divil come a third time to claim the old fellow the lawyer was there. The lawyer says to the Divil:
“You’ve given sparings to my father twice already and I know you can’t be expected to do it again. But,” says he, “as a last request, will you give him sparings while that butt of a candle is there?”
The candle was burning on the table.
The Divil said he would; it was only a butt of a candle and wouldn’t be long in it.
At that the lawyer picks up the butt of a candle and blows it out and puts it in his pocket. And that was that! The Divil had to keep to his bargain and go without the old man, for the lawyer held on to the butt of a candle. Trust the lawyer to beat the Divil.
COALS ON THE DEVIL’S HEARTH
HUGH NOLAN FERMANAGH
HENRY GLASSIE 1979
This man, he was very poor, and he was getting it very tight to live, with a wife and family.
And he sold himself to the Devil.
But the bargain was, that he’d have to go with him at the end of a number of years.
But anyway, he got very rich.
And he got his family reared.
And the way it was: when him and the Devil made the bargain, the Devil gave him a drum, and a pair of drumsticks.
And he told him that every time that he’d want money, for to go out and give a roll on the drum, when he wanted anything done, and he’d do it for him.
So anyway, he went be the orders of the Devil. But in the long run, he joined to get very nervous and got afraid of the journey that he had to go.
So he joined to fret terribly.
And the wife remarked him terribly failed, and in bad form.
He never let on to her how they came to have the money or anything like that. And she knew nothing about this bargain that he had made off the Devil.
So anyway, he wouldn’t tell her what the cause of it was. But she still was at him for to tell her what was troubling him.
Irish Folk Tales Page 14