Irish Folk Tales

by Henry Glassie

  So he took and he counted out the forty pound.

  So they said nothing; turned away.

  So. The next morning at daybreak the two boys was seen leaving the locality with two bundles on their backs. They’d killed the two bullocks and skinned them and started away.

  Landed at this skin store where Donald peddled his skin. All they could get was ten bob.

  Aw, they tramped here and they tramped there, and there was nobody wanting anything of the kind, only these ones that was running the skin store. So they had to do with the ten bob apiece.

  So, they started for home in terrible vengeance, vowing for to take Donald’s life that night.

  So anyway, they were coming on near home and they met some person and the news that they had for them: Donald O’Leary’s mother had died sudden during the day.

  So they intended that when he’d go to bed, for to go in through the side wall and take him out, and kill him. But then, when the mother was dead, the game was up for that night, for they knew that there would be people there during the night and that they couldn’t do it.

  So. The next day followed, and on the second day Donald started away for to get the mother buried. He got her rolled up very nicely and got her on his back and started away to a cemetery—aw, it was a good many mile from where he lived.

  So. It was a nice day, a nice sunshiny day, and he got dry, and he was coming forward to a well that was on the roadside. And there was a paling around this well for to keep cattle from going into it, and to keep youngsters from being drownded or playing about it.

  And he took the parcel down off his back.

  And he left her standing up, leaned against the paling.

  And he went in and he took a drink.

  So, he came back out on the road, and he looked in both ways, and meeting him he seen a figure. He didn’t know what it was, whether it was man or woman. The stretch of the road was that long.

  So, he stood and he watched it for a long time, and he seen that it was a woman.

  So he started on, meeting her.

  And he met her. He bid her, oh, a very nice time of the day. He started to chat with her about the locality, and all to this. He was a terrible nice-talking fellow, and she took a wonderful interest in him, just at once, you know.

  He was in no hurry parting with her, but in the long run, he started moving one foot and then moving another, do you see, as people does when they be parting with people that they’re talking to.

  So anyway, before he got properly into a walking mood, he says, “Miss, when you go the length of that well,” he says, “will you stop for to have a drink. Me mother’s there. And she leaned against the paling, and I suppose maybe she’s fell asleep. And when you go the length of her, would you tell her that I’m in a hurry and for her to come on? And she’s very deaf, and you’ll have to give her a shake or she’ll not hear you.”

  Oh, the girl was only too glad.

  On she went anyway, and on Donald went, and he still kept peeping, looking behind him. So finally she landed at the well. She says in a loud voice, “Your son told you for to follow him: he’s in a hurry.”

  No answer.

  She said it again. There was no answer, so she went forward, she gave the woman a shake that way that the woman went over her head and went down into the well.

  Aw. She started to scream. Donald cut round on the road, you know, in a terrible unease to discover what the screams was about. So she came running the length of him and she told him what happened, and he took a-crying then, roaring and crying.

  The whole people of the locality all came out. They could hear the cries. They didn’t know what was wrong. There was no time until there was a large number of people on the road, and around the well.

  Ah, it was a sad case. The woman was taken out of the well. She was brought to some house, and there was a wake in there for a while.

  The next day then the whole people of the locality, they got a way of bringing her to the cemetery and she was buried.

  So then, Donald was going about all the time crying.

  So the people of the locality thought a pity of him.

  So some of them suggested that they’d rise a testimonial; that’d be a collection.

  So anyway, it was agreed to. And a collector went out into the whole locality.

  And he kept knocking about that locality, crying betimes and lamenting about the mother being dead, and all to this.

  They gathered him fifty pound.

  So he got the fifty pound anyway and he started back for home.

  Now, Huddon and Duddon had been watching for him from the day before.

  So finally, they came to meet him, made wonderful inquiries how did he get the mother buried.

  “Oh,” he says, “I hadn’t to bury her atall.”

  “Then what’d you do with her?” says some of them.

  “Oh,” he says, “as soon as I went into the town, when it was found out,” he says, “what I had in the bundle, there was a party in the town, had arrived in the town, and they were buying all kinds of bones to make gunpowder.

  “So,” he says, “they started me,” he says, “and they never quit with me till—” pulling out the fifty pound and showing it to them.

  So they parted anyway.

  The next morning the two boys was seen leaving the locality with two parcels on their backs. Two dead women.

  So they trudged on anyway to this town. There was no signs of anyone about the street looking for bones.

  So they came to the conclusion that they’d have to do like the old hawkers, you see: they’d have to call out what they had. So they started on up and down the street:

  “Bones to make gunpowder.

  “Bones to make gunpowder.

  “Bones to make gunpowder.”

  No time till the police came along and examined what they had in the bundles. Took the two away to the police station. And there was a special court on them.

  They got away—there was no other charges against them. They got away—they got off on the condition that they’d bury these two corpses in the nearest burying ground. Had to do it or else they were going to jail.

  So now, it was a hard day on them.

  So anyhow, they got through with it anyway. And they started for home, vowing again and again that Donald O’Leary would never see the light of the next day. They’d kill him that night.

  So anyway, they waited on and waited on till it got late at night. Donald had went to bed. They come the length of his wee hut, and they tore down the side wall and they took him out of bed. They had a big long sack with them. And they put him into the sack.

  And they had to go through fields for to get to the county road. And they had two greyhounds; the greyhounds found them out after they come home, and weren’t they running along with them down the field. And just as they arrived at the roadside, didn’t the greyhounds rise a hare. And it was breaking day at the time.

  So they were terrible fond of a slip, these two, Huddon and Duddon, so didn’t they drop the bag and away after the hounds.

  So Donald was lying in the sack on the roadside.

  In the distance, he heard a man shouting.

  And he knew the voice.

  He was a cattle drover; he was more of a cattle dealer than a cattle drover.

  And Donald knew that he knew him, do you see.

  So anyway, he started the song.

  And he was singing at a terrible rate.

  And this man came along with his cattle, and you know the way cattle will scare at a thing that’s on the road, shying and jumping.

  Finally he got them by anyway, and when he came the length of the bag, Donald was singing away.

  So. He says, “In the name of God, Donald O’Leary, is this you?”

  “It is indeed,” says Donald.

  “And what has ye here,” he says, “at this hour of the morning, tied up in a sack, and you singing?”

  “Well,” he says, “if you were in m
y position,” he says, “you would be singing too.”

  “Why?” says this fellow.

  “Well,” he says, “I’m going away to Heaven. And that’s what has me singing.”

  “Going away to Heaven?” says the fellow.

  “Aye, indeed.”

  “I wish,” he says, “it was there I was going instead of after these cattle.”

  “Well,” says Donald, “if you like, open the mouth of that sack and I’ll get out and let you get in. I wouldn’t do it for everyone. But I know you,” he says, “for a long time.”

  So anyway, the lad opened the sack. And Donald got out. And he got in.

  And Donald tied up the sack.

  He away after the cattle, and he got them all rounded up, and he turned them away on a road that he knew that Huddon and Duddon wouldn’t be on.

  And he started away the leaving the whole day. Aw, he drove to different places. He got plenty of money that day with them. He could get what he wanted.

  So finally, coming on to night, he gathered the cattle up again and he started back for his own locality.

  So he waited till everybody would be in bed before he just come close to where Huddon and Duddon lived.

  So anyway, he started shouting at an awful rate, using the language, you know, that you use for cattle, calling cattle.

  So now, didn’t they hear him, and them in bed.

  And they knew it was Donald’s voice.

  So they jumped out. Their two houses was beside other.

  So they both was sure it was Donald’s voice. Donald kept shouting away, down at the road. So they made for the road anyway.

  So anyway they come the length of Donald and the whole big drove of cattle.

  So they questioned him. How did he come along with the cattle? Was he not threw in the river?

  He said, “I was,” he says. “But where yez threw me in,” he says, “I just landed in the middle of a stock farm. The greatest-looking cattle,” he says, “that ever I beamed an eye on.

  “So,” he says, “I seen that a lock of them would be useful to us all,” he says, “and I picked as many of the best of them as I could round up,” he says, “got them out,” he says, “and I got them here.”

  So, Huddon says to him, “Would you show us where them cattle is in the river?”

  “Oh, indeed I would,” says he. “You’re welcome. You’re as well entitled to them as I am.”

  Huddon says, “Will you come, Duddon?”

  “Oh aye, surely,” says he. “I want a lock of beasts as well as you.”

  “All right,” says Donald. “Come on.”

  Three of them marched down to the river anyway, and Donald says, “Just let some one of yez lep in there.”

  So, aw, Huddon took a race and he leapt in.

  No time till the water joined to go down his throat, and he joined to balder and roar.

  “Go on to him quick,” says Donald. “Go on to him quick now, Duddon,” he says, “because he’ll get in trouble with the cattle. Ye’d want to be there.”

  Duddon took a jump and he leapt in too.

  And that was the last of Huddon and Duddon.

  Donald O’Leary lived a happy man from that till the day he died.

  THE THREE WISHES

  TYRONE

  WILLIAM CARLETON 1846

  In ancient times there lived a man called Billy Duffy, and he was known to be a great rogue. They say he was descended from the family of the Duffys, which was the reason, I suppose, of his carrying their name upon him.

  Billy, in his youthful days, was the best hand at doing nothing in all Europe. Devil a mortal could come next or near him at idleness; and, in consequence of his great practice that way, you may be sure that if any man could make a fortune by it, he would have done it.

  Billy was the only son of his father, barring two daughters. But they have nothing to do with the story I’m telling you. Indeed it was kind father and grandfather for Billy to be handy at the knavery as well as at the idleness, for it was well known that not one of their blood ever did an honest act, except with a roguish intention. In short, they were altogether a decent connection, and a credit to the name. As for Billy, all the villainy of the family, both plain and ornamental, came down to him by way of legacy, for it so happened that the father, in spite of all his cleverness, had nothing but his roguery to leave him.

  Billy, to do him justice, improved the fortune he got. Every day advanced him farther into dishonesty and poverty, until, at the long run, he was acknowledged on all hands to be the completest swindler and the poorest vagabond in the whole parish.

  Billy’s father, in his young days, had often been forced to acknowledge the inconvenience of not having a trade, in consequence of some nice point in law, called the Vagrant Act, that sometimes troubled him. On this account he made up his mind to give Bill an occupation, and he accordingly bound him to a blacksmith. But whether Bill was to live or die by forgery was a puzzle to his father, though the neighbors said that both was most likely. At all events, he was put apprentice to a smith for seven years, and a hard card his master had to play in managing him. He took the proper method, however, for Bill was so lazy and roguish that it would vex a saint to keep him in order.

  “Bill,” says his master to him one day that he had been sunning himself about the ditches, instead of minding his business, “Bill, my boy, I’m vexed to the heart to see you in such a bad state of health. You’re very ill with that complaint called an all-overness. However,” says he, “I think I can cure you. Nothing will bring you about but three or four sound doses, every day, of a medicine called ’the oil of the hazel.’ Take the first dose now,” says he. And he immediately banged him with a hazel cudgel until Bill’s bones ached for a week afterwards.

  “If you were my son,” said his master, “I tell you that, as long as I could get a piece of advice growing convenient in the hedges, I’d have you a different youth from what you are. If working was a sin, Bill, devil an innocenter boy ever broke bread than you would be. Good people’s scarce you think, but however that may be, I throw it out as a hint, that you must take your medicine till you’re cured, whenever you happen to get unwell in the same way.”

  From this out he kept Bill’s nose to the grinding-stone, and whenever his complaint returned, he never failed to give him a hearty dose for his improvement.

  In the course of time, however, Bill was his own man and his own master, but it would puzzle a saint to know whether the master or the man was the more precious youth in the eyes of the world.

  He immediately married a wife, and devil a doubt of it, but if he kept her in whiskey and sugar, she kept him in hot water. Bill drank and she drank. Bill fought and she fought. Bill was idle and she was idle. Bill whacked her and she whacked Bill. If Bill gave her one black eye, she gave him another, just to keep herself in countenance. Never was there a blessed pair so well met, and a beautiful sight it was to see them both at breakfast time blinking at each other across the potato basket, Bill with his right eye black, and she with her left.

  In short, they were the talk of the whole town; and to see Bill of a morning staggering home drunk, his shirt-sleeves rolled upon his smutted arms, his breast open, and an old tattered leather apron, with one corner tucked up under his belt, singing one minute, and fighting with his wife the next—she reeling beside him, with a discolored eye, as aforesaid, a dirty ragged cap on one side of her head, a pair of Bill’s old slippers on her feet, a squalling brat on her arm—now cuffiing and dragging Bill, and again kissing and hugging him! Yes, it was a pleasant picture to see this loving pair in such a state.

  This might do for a while, but it could not last. They were idle, drunken, and ill-conducted. And it was not to be supposed that they would get a farthing candle on their words. They were of course driven to great straits; and faith, they soon found that their fighting, and drinking, and idleness made them the laughing-sport of the neighbors, but neither brought food to their children, put a coat upon the
ir backs, nor satisfied their landlord when he came to look for his own. Still the never a one of Bill but was a funny fellow with strangers, though, as we said, the greatest rogue unhanged.

  One day he was standing against his own anvil, completely in a brown study, being brought to his wit’s end how to make out a breakfast for the family. The wife was scolding and cursing in the house, and the naked creatures of children squalling about her knees for food. Bill was fairly at an amplush, and knew not where or how to turn himself, when a poor withered old beggar came into the forge, tottering on his staff. A long white beard fell from his chin, and he looked so thin and hungry that you might blow him, one would think, over the house. Bill at this moment had been brought to his senses by distress, and his heart had a touch of pity towards the old man; for, on looking at him a second time, he clearly saw starvation and sorrow in his face.

  “God save you, honest man!” said Bill.

  The old man gave a sigh, and raising himself, with great pain, on his staff, he looked at Bill in a very beseeching way.

  “Musha, God save you kindly,” says he, “maybe you could give a poor, hungry, helpless old man a mouthful of something to eat? You see yourself I’m not able to work; if I was, I’d scorn to be beholding to any one.”

  “Faith, honest man,” said Bill, “if you knew who you’re speaking to, you’d as soon ask a monkey for a churn-staff as me for either meat or money. There’s not a blackguard in the three kingdoms so fairly on the shaughran as I am for both the one and the other. The wife within is sending the curses thick and heavy on me, and the childer’s playing the cat’s melody to keep her in comfort. Take my word of it, poor man, if I had either meat or money, I’d help you, for I know particularly well what it is to want them at the present speaking. An empty sack won’t stand, neighbor.”

  So far Bill told him truth. The good thought was in his heart, because he found himself on a footing with the beggar, and nothing brings down pride, or softens the heart, like feeling what it is to want.

  “Why, you are in a worse state than I am,” said the old man. “You have a family to provide for, and I have only myself to support.”