‘I’m very pleased to meet you,’ said Michael. ‘PHHHPARRRRRRRRPPPPPPT.’
‘Well, well,’ she said. ‘You really are a ghost. A farting ghost in the chimney of my new cottage! I never thought I would be saying those words! You’ll sit down there at my table now, Michael Kelly, ghost or no ghost, and tell me all about why you are up my chimney.’
‘I’ll tell you my story,’ he sniffed, ‘but I can never sit at that table again.’
He began to sniffle again, sniff, sniff, while still farting away. ‘PHAAARRRRRRPPPPP.’
And so Michael began telling his story ...
He told of how, a few hundred years ago, he’d been very friendly with the family who once lived in the cottage. The son had just come back from travelling and the family threw a big party to celebrate. They’d invited friends and neighbours over for a big dinner, and Michael was one of those people.
Now, also invited was a young woman called Mary. Michael really thought Mary was lovely and he was very excited that he would be able to talk to her a bit at this party.
Well, he arrived, and he was dressed in his good clothes, his shoes all shined, his tweed waistcoat, and his hair combed. He wanted to look his most handsome for Mary!
The guests were all seated at the table. Michael saw where his seat was to be and wasn’t he delighted! His seat was set right next to Mary!
The night started off well; himself and Mary were chatting away, and the food, oh the food!
The table was covered with lots of delicious things, many of which the son of the house had brought back from his travels abroad. There were rich meat pies, sauces made with beans, beans covered in sauces, and vegetables that Michael had never even heard of, let alone tasted.
Everyone wanted to taste it all, and Michael was no exception. About a half an hour after the dinner had started, didn’t Michael begin to feel a strange rumbling. At first, he thought he was hearing the rumble of a horse and cart passing by the window outside, vibrating the stone floor. The Strawberry Beds was a very popular place to visit from the town, and there were passenger carts that passed by all day long.
But then it slowly dawned on him. The sound was coming from his own tummy! He had been so busy talking to Mary, he hadn’t realised how much he’d eaten. He’d been excited to try all the new foods, and serve some to Mary on her plate – ‘Here, try this,’ he’d say – that he had eaten way more food than he normally would.
Not only that, but some of the food on the table was food that he had never eaten a bite of before, and it was starting to do strange things in his tummy. The mixture of all the meats, and sweets and beans was brewing up a storm in there!
‘Oh no,’ he thought, ‘I think there’s a huge fart about to escape, what will I do?’
He was just about to get up from the table and go outside, when didn’t the father of the house stand up to make a speech at the table. The ‘Fear an Tí’ clinked his fork on a glass and everyone fell silent.
‘Dear guests,’ he said, ‘I beg your full attention for a little while, for what I have to say may be the most important words of my life ...’
Oh no. There was no way Michael could get up and leave the room in the middle of the speech. Important words. Everyone was listening. It would be so rude! What would Mary think of him? But, what of the alternative?
Rummmmmble rummmmmble. He could feel the gassy storm in his tummy grow bigger and bigger. There is no way he could let out that stormy fart in front of Mary! She was right beside him! And it would be so loud, it would interrupt the speech of the ‘Fear an Tí’. He would try to hold it in, that’s what he’d do. Maybe it would go away all by itself?
But no. The rummmmmmmble ruuuuummmble got louder and louder. Michael began to feel very unwell, and sweat began to pour from his head.
‘Wait, hold on a minute!’ said Mrs O’Flaherty, interrupting the story. ‘You began to feel unwell? Surely then you got up from the table?’
‘No, I didn’t,’ said Michael. ‘But it got even worse. My tummy kept rumbling and rumbling and rumbling, and then the pain started.’
‘Well, what happened?’ said Mrs O’, gripped by the story.
‘I got sweatier and sweatier,’ said Michael. ‘In fact it was drip dripping off my head. The rumbling got louder and louder. I began to get dizzy. Rummmmmbbble rummmmble, drip drip it all went, rummmmble rummmble drip, drip. Ouch. Even Mary was starting to notice. Rummmble, drip drip ... She asked me if I was all right, but I couldn’t answer. The pain was so bad now I had to close my eyes tightly like this.’ Michael squeezed his eyes closed to show Mrs O’.
‘Oh no! What happened next?’ said Mrs O’.
Michael opened his eyes from squinting. He looked at Mrs O’Flaherty with his big sad ghost eyes and a tear trickled down his ghost cheek.
‘I exploded!’ said Michael. ‘I exploded all over that table!’
And he gave out a big ‘booo hooooo’ and a ‘PHAAAAAAARRRRRP!’ at the same time.
‘Oh dear. Oh you poor, poor thing, Michael,’ said Mrs O’ Flaherty. ‘You exploded?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘And I won’t describe that for you any more. You can use your imagination. It was much worse than any fart could be. Poor Mary sitting beside me!’
He went on to tell Mrs O’ how after his explosion, his ghost had then become trapped up the chimney, just like the big fart had been trapped in his tummy. He had been trapped up that chimney ever since that day. Most people could never hear him, but they could smell him. That’s why people didn’t stay very long in the cottage, even though it was otherwise lovely.
Mrs O’Flaherty went to give Michael a hug. Well of course, her arms went right through him, as he was a ghost, but he was happy that she had tried to anyway.
‘Right,’ she said. ‘We are going to fix this. It’s high time you got out and got some fresh air, and I can’t be having farts coming down my new chimney all day.’
‘But I’m trapped here,’ said Michael. ‘I can’t go anywhere.’
‘Yes you can,’ said Mrs O’. ‘Now, Michael, I want you to be brave. I want you to take a deep breath, and let out the biggest fart that you can. Right here. Sitting at the table.’
‘Oh no!’ said Michael. ‘I really can’t. It would be SO rude.’
‘Just trust me,’ said Mrs O’.
Well, Michael sat down at the table. He took a deep breath and out it came. ‘PHAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA ...’
The curtains began to blow in the wind.
‘... AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA ...’
Small boxes began to fall over.
‘... AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA ...’
The hair on Mrs O’Flaherty’s head was blown back as if she was in a storm!
‘... AAAAAAAAAAAAA ...’
She held on to the edge of the table with one hand, and held the clothes peg tighter with the other.
‘... AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-AA-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-AAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRPPPPPPPPPPPPPP!’
Mrs O’Flaherty tried to get to the window. But there was more!
‘PHHAAAAARRRP. PHAAAAAAA-AAAARP!’
Trouble peeped out to see if the coast was clear but –
‘... PHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAARRRRRRRRP.PPPPP. PPP.’
Finally, after what seemed like ages, it was finished! The noise stopped, but the room was very smelly!
‘Now, Michael,’ Mrs O’ said, ‘I want you to repeat these words after me: “Excuse me.”’
Slowly, Michael said the words. ‘Excuuuuse me?’
There was a rush of air and Trouble began to peer his head out from behind the packing boxes.
‘Now. How do you feel?’ said Mrs O’.
‘I ... I feel great!’ said Michael. ‘I feel like I just let go of a big worry.’
‘That’s because you did,’ said Mrs O’. ‘We all get gassy from time to time. Even me.’ She giggled. ‘But there’s no point in holding it in
if it’s no good for you. You’ve been holding that worry in for the longest time, and now you’ve let it go. All it took was a little “excuse me” and it made it better. That’s the great thing about good manners.’
She pulled back the old lace curtain, unlocked the window, and pushed it open. When she did, a warm gentle breeze blew in. This caused Michael to wobble a little bit, because remember, he was a ghost, and as thin as a wisp of smoke.
‘Off you go,’ she said to Michael.
‘Really?’ he said to her.
‘Yes, really,’ she said. ‘You are long overdue some fresh air, and I have cleaning to do. Now off you go!’
‘Goodbye, Mrs O’Flaherty,’ said Michael. ‘I can’t thank you enough, so I can’t.’
‘Well now, Michael,’ she replied, ‘sure you just did thank me. Goodbye to you.’
With that, the ghost of Michael Kelly floated over the table and chairs, out the little window, and up into the blue skies until he could be seen no more. He did leave a smell behind him, but it wasn’t the smell of stinky cabbagey-socky-cheesy-eggy farts.
Instead, it was the smell of all the wonderful foods and spices he had eaten that night before he exploded, all those years ago. The night he had sat beside Mary. The night she had held his hand and smiled at him. The night that had, for a while at least, been the happiest in his whole life.
The tall trees in the distance swayed in the breeze, and Mrs O’ closed the window and sat down at her kitchen table.
She looked around at the cottage, her new home, and she was very happy. She was happy that during her first hours there, she had been able to help someone, which is something of course she still loved to do.
‘What a pleasant ghost that was, eh Trouble? Are you hiding?’
Trouble peered his head out from inside an open box, and sniffed the air.
‘No sign of Mr Stinkies any more,’ he thought, and he climbed out of his box.
Mr Stinkies is the nickname he had decided on for Michael.
‘I think you deserve a nice bowl of cream as a special treat,’ said Mrs O’.
Now Trouble liked the sound of that!
Mrs O’ picked out a blue saucer from one of the packing boxes, and a carton of cream from the shopping bag, and poured Trouble a bit of cream in the saucer beside the chimney.
Trouble didn’t get cream very often, but it was one of his favourites, and he darted over to the saucer and began lapping it down at top speed.
‘Go easy, Trouble!’ said Mrs O’. ‘If you drink it too fast you’ll give yourself –’
But just as she was about to finish her words, out it came from Trouble: ‘PHHHPARRRRRRRRPPPPPPT!’
He looked up at Mrs O’ with an ‘oops’ face.
‘I was about to say slow down, it will give you gas!’ she laughed. ‘Oh Trouble! Well, what do you say?’
Trouble looked up at Mrs O’ and licked his lips. ‘Mewww mewwww,’ he said to her.
Which of course, in cat language is ... ‘excuse me’.
7
Dalkey Danny
Dublin Bay is a bay shaped just like a big letter ‘C’. It stretches all the way around from Howth Head on one side, over to Dalkey Point on the other. Dotted along between those two points are many beaches and towns, and of course, in the middle is the entrance to the Port of Dublin City.
Over on the south side is Dalkey. There you will find Coilemore Harbour. In the olden days (and perhaps even today), if you went down to Coliemore Harbour, you would find the most interesting characters. Coliemore translates to calach mór in the Irish language. That means ‘big harbour’, which it is!
This place would often be full of people taking the sea air (very healthy!), walking their dogs, children playing, and, of course, the place would be full of fishermen at their boats.
One such fisherman was Danny. He was a big man with twinkling blue eyes, a face that had seen the sun a lot and a big scraggly dark beard. That could have described a number of the fishermen down at the harbour, however, you could usually tell Danny from the other lads with no problem at all.
The reason is that Danny was the only one walking around with a flower stuck in his hat! Now people would wear a flower in their jackets for a wedding or a special day sometimes, but a flower in the hat was quite unusual for a fisherman, particularly if you wore one every day.
Now, many people thought Danny was just being a little silly – maybe he was just an eccentric character – but if you took the time (which most people didn’t!) to go over to Danny and talk to him, you would find out just why he wore a flower in his hat every day. In fact, you would, if you were interested enough, find out a lot of very interesting things from Danny.
His favourite thing to talk about above all was the weather. He knew loads of interesting stuff about the sea and the air, and if you asked him, he was happy enough to share his knowledge.
‘Ah,’ said he. ‘A fisherman always needs to know the wind. Where it’s coming from, where it’s going, and most of all, where it might take me.’
Sometimes Danny would use the sand to explain the weather. He would take a stick and draw a circle within another circle.
‘See that?’ said Danny. ‘Now, if you look out your window at night and you see the moon, with a big circle around it, well, you know that it’s bound to be a wet and stormy day when you wake up in the mornin’!’
If a bird landed down beside him he would sing a little rhyme to it, ‘Seagull, seagull, sittin’ on the sand, sure ’tis never good weather when you stay on land.’
‘Ah, all of the animals know more than we do about the weather,’ Danny would tell you.
If you had a cat, he would tell you to watch her near the fire place.
‘If she sits with her back to the fire, or if she even tries to go in to the empty grate, well then you might very well have some bad weather on your doorstep soon.’
If you had a dog, he would tell you to listen out for the way it speaks.
‘Now a dog …’ said Danny, ‘a dog loves telling you things. All you have to do is listen. If your dog makes a certain type of howl or odd noises, he could be telling you that a storm is coming … or if you have a pig even better!’
He’d say, ‘If you see a pig walking through Dalkey collecting sticks, then you know for sure there’s a bad winter coming.’
You might pause for a moment and think: ‘How in the world would a pig pick up sticks with its trotters?’ (I know I had that thought!)
When Danny was asked that question, he would say nothing but simply chomp his teeth together in a biting motion: ‘CHOMP CHOMP’. Aha. Just like a dog would carry a stick. In its mouth (but maybe you guessed that already!).
Now we’ve had a fair few bad winters since then, but I have yet to see a pig walking through Dalkey gathering sticks. But maybe they did it when I was asleep, because Danny seemed right about most of the other things.
When he was off fishing, there was no talking to him. He was a man on a mission. A mission for fish!
He liked to fish on his own, ‘To have a bit of time to meself,’ he’d say. When he landed his catch he would tell you a bit more about the fishing, how it was.
He’d tell you of the different types of fish to be caught: pollock (‘them fellas love hiding in the rocks’), mackerel (‘sure on a good day, they do be hopping out of the water at ya!’), plaice (‘with spots like a leopard!’) and wrasse (‘stocky lads. They’re fond of a crab for breakfast’).
He would tell you great stories of big and strange fish caught over the years in Dalkey. His voice got particularly quiet when he would tell you the story of a certain Willie Flanagan’s catch …
‘It started plain enough. Willie, Ned, Pat and Mick set off for the normal fishin’. They had mixed luck with the catch, although Ned was having the worst night of them, poor fella. First he caught a big pile of nothin’, next didn’t his net get snagged and tangle and then finally, when he thought he had a bite, didn’t he catch a poor seagull and had t
o release it with great squawking (mostly Ned’s)!
‘It was coming on for nightfall, when didn’t the lads feel a great tug on the net. They looked overboard and there it was – face like a demon – a huge conger eel!’
Danny’s eyes got wider! ‘Though, you know what, it might as well have been a sea monster, the size of it!
‘Well, that eel knew it was in trouble, and took off in a flash, so it did. Diving and squirming and twisting – and so began the tug of war between the men and the monster!’
Danny was standing up now, using his hands and arms to tell the story. One arm was the boat, the other the sea monster. It was like a strange dance, twisting and turning like a stormy sea.
‘The boat was being pulled this way and that by the huge thing, and every so often you’d hear a cheer from the crowd who had gathered on the beach to watch them!
‘Finally, didn’t Ned grab tongs from the floor of the boat, and SNATCH the eel out of the water! PLOP! It went on the floor of the boat – well most of it, some of it was still in the water! As it squirmed and tossed, the men stood well back – sure the boat was tossing to and fro!’
Danny was in full dance now, arms waving, legs hopping from one to the other.
‘Up went the boat, down went the boat, and in the middle of all this sure didn’t they lose one of the oars. Luckily, Ned had his wits about him, and he used the tongs and his hands to row one side back to shore.’
Back on shore of course, there was great celebration and a huge crowd gathered around the men.
‘When the eel was landed, the measuring tape was sent for. It was a great sight, the four lads standing beside it. And wait ’til I tell ya, wasn’t it NINETEEN AND A HALF FOOT LONG! Well, even Ned could say that was a good night for fishing after all!’
Now, while Dalkey Danny always went fishing on his own, if the day was fine and he met some tourists that he thought were nice people, he would take them out for a spin in the boat. He wasn’t a tour guide himself, but sure he may as well have been. If there was an interesting fact to be told, Danny was the one to tell it.
Dublin Folk Tales for Children Page 5