Part 18

[Our story belongs to the group—the calumniated and exposed daughter or daughter-in-law. But in a German tale, belonging to the forbidden chamber series (Grimm’s, No. 3, Marienkind), the Virgin Mary becomes godmother to a child, whom she takes with her into heaven, forbidding her merely to open one particular door. The child does this, but denies it thrice. To punish her the Virgin banishes her from heaven into a thorny wood. Once, as she is sitting, clothed in her long hair solely, a king passes, sees her, loves and weds her, in spite of her being dumb. When she bears her first child, the Virgin appears, and promises to give her back her speech if she will confess her fault; she refuses, whereupon the Virgin carries off the child. This happens thrice, and the queen, accused of devouring her children, is condemned to be burnt. She repents, the flames are extinguished, and the Virgin appears with the three children, whom she restores to the mother. Can there have been any similar form of the forbidden chamber current in Ireland, and can there have been substitution of Grainne, Finn’s wife, for the Virgin Mary, or, _vice versa_, can the latter have taken the place of an older heathen goddess?—A.N.]

Page 169. See Campbell’s “Tales of the Western Highlands,” vol. III., page 120, for a fable almost identical with this of the two crows.

NOTES ON THE IRISH TEXT.

Page 2, line 5, abalta air a ḋeunaṁ = able to do it, a word borrowed from English. There is a great diversity of words used in the various provinces for “able to,” as abalta air (Mid Connacht); inneaṁuil ċum (Waterford); ionánn or i ndán, with infinitive (West Galway); ’niniḃ with infinitive (Donegal).

Page 4, line 18, ni leigeann siad dam = they don’t allow me. Dam is pronounced in Mid Connacht _dumm_, but daṁ-sa is pronounced _doo-sa_. Dr. Atkinson has clearly shown, in his fine edition of Keating’s “Three Shafts of Death,” that the “enclitic” form of the present tense, ending in (e)ann, should only be used in the singular. This was stringently observed a couple of hundred years ago, but now the rule seems to be no longer in force. One reason why the form of the present tense, which ends in (e)ann, has been substituted for the old present tense, in other words, why people say buaileann sé, “he strikes,” instead of the correct buailiḋ sé, is, I think, though Dr. Atkinson has not mentioned it, obvious to an Irish speaker. The change probably began at the same time that the f in the future of regular verbs became quiescent, as it is now, I may say, all over Ireland. Anyone who uses the form buailiḋ sé would now be understood to say, “he will strike,” not “he strikes,” for buailfiḋ sé, “he will strike,” is now pronounced, in Connacht, at least, and I think elsewhere, buailiḋ sé. Some plain differentiation between the forms of the tenses was wanted, and this is probably the reason why the enclitic form in (e)ann has usurped the place of the old independent present, and is now used as an independent present itself. Line 30, madra or madaḋ alla = a wolf. Cuir forán air = salute him—a word common in Connacht and the Scotch Highlands, but not understood in the South. Line 34. Ḃeiḋeaḋ sé = he would be, is pronounced in Connacht as a monosyllable, like ḃeiṫ (_veh_ or _vugh_).

Page 6, line 8, earball, is pronounced _rubbal_ not _arball_, in Connacht. Ni and níor are both used before ṫáinig at the present day.

Page 8, line 18. Go marḃfaḋ sé = that he would kill; another and commoner form is, go maróċaḋ sé, from marḃuiġ, the ḃ being quiescent in conversation. Line 31, aḃruiṫ = broth, pronounced anṫruiṫ (_anhree_), the ḃ having the sound of an _h_ only.

Page 12, line 27. An ċuma iraiḃsó is more used, and is better. Sin é an ċuma a ḃí sé = “That’s the way he was.” It will be observed that this a before the past tense of a verb is only, as Dr. Atkinson remarks, a corruption of do, which is the sign of the past tense. The do is hardly ever used now, except as contracted into d’ before a vowel, and this is a misfortune, because there is nothing more feeble or more tending to disintegrate the language than the constant use of this colourless vowel a. In these folk stories, however, I have kept the language as I found it. This a has already made much havoc in Scotch Gaelic, inserting itself into places where it means nothing. Thus, they say _tha’s again air a sin: Dinner a b fhearr na sin, etc._ Even the preposition de has with some people degenerated into this a, thus ta sé a ḋiṫ orm, “I want it,” for de ḋiṫ.

Page 14, line 9. For air read uirri. Line 12. seilg means hunting, but the reciter said, seilg, sin fiaḋ, “Shellig, that’s a deer,” and thought that Bran’s back was the same colour as a deer’s. Uaine, which usually means green, he explained by turning to a mangy-looking cur of a dull nondescript colour, and saying ta an madaḋ sin uaine.

Page 16, line 30. Bearna and teanga, and some other substantives of the same kind are losing, or have lost, their inflections throughout Connacht. Line 31. tiġeaċt is used just as frequently and in the same breath as teaċt, without any difference of meaning. It is also spelt tuiḋeaċt, but in Mid-Connacht the t is slender, that is tiġeaċt has the sound of _t’yee-ught_, not _tee-ught_.

Dr. Atkinson has shown that it is incorrect to decline teanga as an _-n_ stem: correct genitive is teangaḋ. Rearta: see rasta in O’Reilly. Used in Arran thus: Ní’l sé in rasta duit = you cannot venture to.

Page 18, line 15. Gual means a coal; it must be here a corruption of some other word. Muid is frequently used for sinn, “we,” both in Nom. and Acc. all over Connacht, but especially in the West.

Page 20, line 3. Deimuġ (d’yemmo͡o). This word puzzled me for a long time until I met this verse in a song of Carolan’s

Níor ṫuill sé diomuġaḋ aon duine.

another MS. of which reads díombuaiḋ, _i.e._, defeat, from di privitive, and buaiḋ “victory.” Deimuġ or diomuġ must be a slightly corrupt pronunciation of díombuaiḋ, and the meaning is, that the king’s son put himself under a wish that he might suffer defeat during the year, if he ate more than two meals at one table, etc. Line 15. reasta = a “writ,” a word not in the dictionaries—perhaps, from the English, “arrest.” Cúig ṗúnta. The numerals tri ceiṫre cúig and sé seem in Connacht to aspirate as often as not, and _always_ when the noun which follows them is in the singular, which it very often is. Mr. Charles Bushe, B.L., tells me he has tested this rule over and over again in West Mayo, and has found it invariable.

Page 22, line 2. cá = where, pronounced always cé (_kay_) in Central Connacht. Line 17. má ḃfáġ’ mé = If I get. In Mid-Connacht, má eclipses fáġ, as ni eclipses fuair.

Page 26, line 18. I dteaċ an ḟaṫaiġ = In the giant’s house. Tiġ, the proper Dative of teaċ, is not much used now. Line 20. cuaille cóṁraic = the pole of battle.

Page 28, line 9. Trian dí le Fiannuiġeaċt = one-third of it telling stories about the Fenians. Line 10. This phrase soirm sáiṁ suain occurs in a poem I heard from a man in the island of Achill—

“’Sí is binne meura ag seinm air teudaiḃ, Do ċuirfeaḋ na ceudta ’nna g-codlaḋ, Le soirm sáiṁ suain, a’s naċ mór é an t-éuċt, Gan aon ḟear i n-Eirinn do ḋul i n-eug Le gráḋ d’á gruaḋ.”

I have never met this word soirm elsewhere, but it may be another form of soirḃe, “gentleness.” Line 18. Colḃa, a couch, pronounced colua (_cullooa_): here it means the head of the bed. Air colḃa means, on the outside of the bed, when two sleep in it. Leabuiḋ, or leabaiḋ, “a bed,” is uninflected; but leaba, gen. leapṫan, is another common form.

Page 30, line 30. Daḃaċ, “a great vessel or vat;” used also, like soiṫeaċ, for ship. The correct genitive is dáiḃċe, but my reciter seemed not to inflect it at all.

Page 32, line 14. Haiġ-óiḃir—this is only the English word, “Hie-over.” Line 21. Copóg = a docking, a kind of a weed.

Page 36, line 2. Cloiḋeaṁ na trí faoḃar, “the sword of three edges.” In the last century both tri and the faoḃar would have been eclipsed. Cf. the song, “Go réiḋ, a ḃean na dtrí mbo.”

Page 40, line 33. Íocṡláinte = balsam. Line 25. Ḃuitse, the English word “witch.” The Scotch Gaels have also the word bhuitseachas = witchery. Gaelic organs of speech find it hard to pronounce the English _tch_, and make two syllables of it—_it-sha_.

Page 42, line 21. Srannfartaiġ = snoring.

Page 44, line 3, for srón read ṡróin. Line 16. Cruaiḋe = steel, as opposed to iron.

Page 46, line 21. Crap = to put hay together, or gather up crops.

Page 48, line 1. Greim = a stitch, sudden pain.

Page 52, line 15. “Súf!” a common expression of disgust in central Connacht, both in Irish and in English. Line 18. Uile ḋuine. This word uile is pronounced _hulla_ in central Connacht, and it probably gets this _h_ sound from the final ċ of gaċ, which used to be always put before it. Father Eugene O’Growney tells me that the guttural sound of this ċ is still heard before uile in the Western islands, and would prefer to write the word ’ċ uile. When uile follows the noun, as na daoine uile, “all the people,” it has the sound of _ellik_ or _ellig_, probably from the original phrase being uile go léir, contracted into uileg, or even, as in West Galway, into ’lig.

Page 54, line 9. Goile = “appetite,” properly “stomach.” Line 30. An ṫrioblóid = the trouble, but better written an trioblóid, since feminine nouns, whose first letter is d or t, are seldom aspirated after the article. There is even a tendency to omit the aspiration from adjectives beginning with the letters d and t. Compare the celebrated song of Bean duḃ an ġleanna, not Bean ḋuḃ.

Page 56, line 4. Aicíd = a disease. Line 24. D’ḟeiceál and d’innseaċt are usual Connacht infinitives of feic and innis. Line 21. Caise = a stream. Line 26. Strácailt = dragging along. Line 32. Luiḃearnaċ, often pronounced like _leffernugh_ = weeds.

Page 60, line 8. Tá beiseac or biseaċ orm = “I am better;” tá sé fáġail beisiġ, more rightly, bisiġ = He’s getting better. Line 22. Maiseaḋ, pronounced _musha_, not _mosha_, as spelt, or often even _mush_ in Central Connacht. Line 28. Marṫain, infinitive of mair, to live. Cuiḃlint = striving, running a race with.

Page 64, line 4. Tig liom = “it comes with me,” “I can.” This is a phrase in constant use in Connacht, but scarcely even known in parts of Munster. Line 15. Oiread agus toirt uiḃe = as much as the size of an egg. Line 23. As an nuaḋ = de novo, over again.

Page 66, line 2. Ag baint leis an uisge = touching the water.

Page 66, line 15. Moṫuiġ = “to feel.” It is pronounced in central Connacht like maoiṫiġ (mweehee), and is often used for “to hear;” ṁaoiṫiġ mé sin roiṁe seo = I heard that before. Line 20. Sgannruiġ is either active or passive; it means colloquially either to frighten or to become frightened.

Page 68, line 12. Fan mar a ḃfuil tu = wait _where_ you are, fan mar tá tu = remain _as_ you are. Line 17. Ċor air biṫ, short for air ċor air biṫ, means “at all.” In Munster they say air aon ċor.

Page 70, line 3. cad ċuige = “why;” this is the usual word in Connacht, often contracted to tuige.

Page 72, line 13. Cáṫair-na-mart = Westport.

Page 74, line 7. Lubarnuiġ, a word not in the dictionaries; it means, I think, “gambolling.” Line 20. Ceapaḋ = seize, control. Line 22. Múlaċ = black mud.

Page 76, line 2. Anaċain = “damage,” “harm.” There are a great many synonyms for this word still in use in Connacht, such as damáiste, dolaiḋ, urċóid, doċar, etc. Line 16. Breóiḋte = “destroyed.”

Page 78, line 3. Coir, a crime; is pronounced like _quirrh_. Láiḋe = a loy, or narrow spade.

Page 80, line 5. Ar ḃ leis an teaċ mór = “who owned the big house.” A raiḃ an teaċ mór aige = who had in his possession the big house. Line 21. Truscán tiġe = house furniture. Line 26. ’Niḋ Dia ḋuit, short for go mbeannuiġ Dia ḋuit. Line 27. Go mbuḋ h-éḋuit = “the same to you,” literally, “that it may be to you,” the constant response to a salutation in Connacht.

Page 84, line 22. A gan ḟios dí = “without her knowing it,” pronounced like _a gunyis dee_. I do not see what the force of this a is, but it is always used, and I have met it in MSS. of some antiquity.

Page 86, line 33. Dá’r ḋéug, pronounced dá réug, short for dá ḟear déag, “twelve men.” Stangaire = a mean fellow.

Page 92, line 10. Bóṫairín cártaċ = a cart road.

Page 94, line 22. Táir = tá tu, an uncommon form in Connacht now-a-days.

Page 66, line 13. Go dtagaiḋ another and very common form of go dtigiḋ.

Page 98, line 22. Níor ḟan an sagart aċt ċuaiḋ a ḃaile, _i.e._, ċuaiḋ sé aḃaile; the pronoun sé is, as the reader must have noticed, constantly left out in these stories, where it would be used in colloquial conversation.

Page 100, line 27. Seilḃ and seilg; are the ordinary forms of sealḃ and sealg in Connacht.

FOOTNOTES

[1] Had Lady Wilde known Irish she might have quoted from a popular ballad composed on Patrick Sarsfield, and not yet forgotten:—

A Pádruig Sáirséul is duine le Dia thu ’S beannuighthe an talamh ar siúdhail tu riamh air, Go mbeannuigh an ghealach gheal ’s an ghrian duit, O thug tu an lá as láimh Righ’liaim leat. Och ochón.

—_i.e._,

Patrick Sarsfield, a man with God you are, Blessed the country that you walk upon, Blessing of sun and shining moon on you, Since from William you took the day with you. Och, och hone.

This would have made her point just as well. Unfortunately, Lady Wilde is always equally extraordinary or unhappy in her informants where Irish is concerned. Thus, she informs us that _bo-banna_ (meant for _bo-bainne_, a milch cow) is a “white cow”; that tobar-na-bo (the cow’s well) is “the well of the white cow”; that Banshee comes from _van_ “the woman”—(_bean_ means “a woman”); that Leith Brogan—_i.e._, leprechaun—is “the artificer of the brogue,” while it really means the half or one-shoe, or, according to Stokes, is merely a corruption of locharpan; that tobar-na-dara (probably the “oak-well”) is the “well of tears,” etc. Unfortunately, in Ireland it is no disgrace, but really seems rather a recommendation, to be ignorant of Irish, even when writing on Ireland.

[2] Thus he over and over again speaks of a slumber-pin as _bar an suan_, evidently mistaking the _an_ of _bioran_, “a pin,” for _an_ the definite article. So he has _slat an draoiachta_ for _slaitin_, or _statán draoigheachta_. He says _innis caol_ (narrow island) means “light island,” and that _gil an og_ means “water of youth!” &c.; but, strangest of all, he talks in one of his stories of killing and boiling a stork, though his social researches on Irish soil might have taught him that that bird was not a Hibernian fowl. He evidently mistakes the very common word _sturc_, a bullock, or large animal, or, possibly, _torc_, “a wild boar,” for the bird stork. His interpreter probably led him astray in the best good faith, for _sturck_ is just as common a word with English-speaking people as with Gaelic speakers, though it is not to be found in our wretched dictionaries.

[3] Thus: “Kill Arthur went and killed Ri Fohin and all his people and beasts—didn’t leave one alive;” or, “But that instant it disappeared—went away of itself;” or, “It won all the time—wasn’t playing fair,” etc., etc.

[4] Campbell’s “Popular Tales of the West Highlands.” Vol. iv. p. 327.

[5] Father O’Growney has suggested to me that this may be a diminutive of the Irish word _fathach_, “a giant.” In Scotch Gaelic a giant is always called “famhair,” which must be the same word as the _fomhor_ or sea-pirate of mythical Irish history.

[6] The manuscript in which I first read this story is a typical one of a class very numerous all over the country, until O’Connell and the Parliamentarians, with the aid of the Catholic prelates, gained the ear and the leadership of the nation, and by their more than indifference to things Gaelic put an end to all that was really Irish, and taught the people to speak English, to look to London, and to read newspapers. This particular MS. was written by one Seorsa MacEineircineadh, whoever he was, and it is black with dirt, reeking with turf smoke, and worn away at the corners by repeated reading. Besides this story it contains a number of others, such as “The Rearing of Cuchulain,” “The Death of Conlaoch,” “The King of Spain’s Son,” etc., with many Ossianic and elegiac poems. The people used to gather in at night to hear these read, and, I am sure, nobody who understands the contents of these MSS., and the beautiful alliterative language of the poems, will be likely to agree with the opinion freely expressed by most of our representative men, that it is better for the people to read newspapers than study anything so useless.

[7] Campbell has mistranslated this. I think it means “from the bottom of the well of the deluge.”

[8] Campbell misunderstood this also, as he sometimes does when the word is Irish. _Siogiadh_ means “fairy.”

[9] In a third MS., however, which I have, made by a modern Clare scribe, Domhnall Mac Consaidin, I find “the Emperor Constantine,” not the “Emperor of Constantinople,” written. O’Curry in his “Manuscript Materials,” p. 319, ascribes “Conall Gulban,” with some other stories, to a date prior to the year 1000; but the fighting with the Turks (which motivates the whole story, and which cannot be the addition of an ignorant Irish scribe, since it is also found in the Highland traditional version), shows that its date, in its present form, at least, is much later. There is no mention of Constantinople in the Scotch Gaelic version, and hence it is possible—though, I think, hardly probable—that the story had its origin in the Crusades.

[10] I find the date, 1749, attributed to it in a voluminous MS. of some 600 closely written pages, bound in sheepskin, made by Laurence Foran of Waterford, in 1812, given me by Mr. W. Doherty, C.E.

[11] An buaċaill do bí a ḃfad air a ṁáṫair.

[12] Prof. Rhys identifies Cuchulain with Hercules; and makes them both sun-gods. There is nothing in our story however, which points to Cuchulain, and still less to the Celtic Hercules described by Lucian.

[13] An t-éun ceól-ḃinn.

[14] Wratislaw’s Folk-Tales from Slavonic Sources.

[15] It appears, unfortunately, that all classes of our Irish politicians alike agree in their treatment of the language in which all the past of their race—until a hundred years ago—is enshrined. The inaction of the Parliamentarians, though perhaps dimly intelligible, appears, to me at least, both short-sighted and contradictory, for they are attempting to create a nationality with one hand and with the other destroying, or allowing to be destroyed, the very thing that would best differentiate and define that nationality. It is a making of bricks without straw. But the non-Parliamentarian Nationalists, in Ireland at least, appear to be thoroughly in harmony with them on this point. It is strange to find the man who most commands the respect and admiration of that party advising the young men of Gaelic Cork, in a printed and widely-circulated lecture entitled: “What Irishmen should know,” to this effect:—“I begin by a sort of negative advice. You all know that much has been written in the Irish language. This is of great importance, especially in connection with our early history, hence must ever form an important study for scholars. But you are, most of you, not destined to be scholars, and so I should simply advise you—especially such of you as do not already know Irish—to leave all this alone, or rather to be content with what you can easily find in a translated shape in the columns of Hardiman, Miss Brooke, Mangan, and Sigerson.” So that the man whose most earnest aspiration in life is Ireland a nation, begins by advising the youth of Ireland _not_ to study the language of their fathers, and to read the gorgeous Gaelic poetry in such pitiful translations as Hardiman and Miss Brooke have given of a few pieces. The result of this teaching is as might be expected. A well-known second-hand book-seller in Dublin assured me recently that as many as 200 Irish MSS. had passed through his hand within the last few years. Dealers had purchased them throughout the country in Cavan, Monaghan, and many other counties for a few pence, and sold them to him, and he had dispersed them again to the four winds of heaven, especially to America, Australia, and New Zealand. Many of these must have contained matter not to be found elsewhere. All are now practically lost, and nobody in Ireland either knows or cares. In America, however, of all countries in the world, they appreciate the situation better, and the fifth resolution passed at the last great Chicago Congress was one about the Irish language.

[16] Flash, in Irish, _lochán_, _i.e._, little lake, or pool of water. Most story-tellers say, not, “I got the _lochán_,” but the “_clochán_,” or stepping-stones.

[17] Tint, means a drop, or small portion of liquid, amongst English speaking persons in Connacht and most other parts of Ireland.

[18] Gual.

[19] This is an idiom in constant use in Gaelic and Irish; but to translate it every time it occurs would be tedious. In Gaelic we say, my share of money, land, etc., for my money, my land.

[20] In Irish, _geasa_—mystic obligations.

[21] Geasa, pronounced _gassa_, means “enchantment” in this place.

[22] Or “the King of N’yiv.”

[23] An ordinary Connacht expression, like the Scotch “the noo.”

[24] “Oh, Mary,” or “by Mary,” an expression like the French “dame!”

[25] To “let on” is universally used in Connacht, and most parts of Ireland for to “pretend.” It is a translation of the Irish idiom.

[26] _i.e._, this quarter of a year.

[27] forenent, or forenenst = over against.

[28] Narrow spade used all over Connacht.

[29] Untranslatable onomatopæic words expressive of noises.

[30] These names are not exactly pronounced as written. To pronounce them properly say _yart_ first, and then _yart_ with an _n_ and a _c_ before it, _n’yart_ and _c’yart_.

[31] That means “It was well for yourself it was so.” This old Elizabethan idiom is of frequent occurrence in Connacht English, having with many other Elizabethanisms, either filtered its way across the island from the Pale, or else been picked up by the people from the English peasantry with whom they have to associate when they go over to England to reap the harvest.

[32] Rath or fort or circular moat.

INDEX OF INCIDENTS.

[I use the word “incident” as equivalent to the German _sagzug_, _i.e._, as connoting not only the separate parts of an action, but also its pictorial features.—A.N.]

Ball, guiding, of silver, 132.

Belore of the Evil Eye, 144.

Besom riding, 85.

Blast of wind from giant’s nostrils, 146.

Blind wise man, 129.

Blood drops incident, 19.

Boat out of thimble, 137.

Bones gathered up and revivified, 152.

Bran, colour and swiftness of, 15. death of, 17.

Bran’s daughter, 17; catches wild geese, 17-19; killed, 19.

Broth-swallowing match, 11.

Brother, of welcoming hags, 132. helps hero across stream, 133; restored to youth by hero, 135.

Cap of darkness, 29.

Cat, white, 130. (= old hag?)

Coach, enchanted, with two fawns, 139.

Cross-roads, separation at, 129.

Curse of the 24 men, 154.

Damsel, encouraging, in red silk, 131. gives hero thimble as boat, 137.

Daughter prevents father re-marrying after first wife’s death, by cutting grass on mother’s grave, 167.

Dead man haunting house, 158.

Destruction of king’s court by night, 3.

Doctoring instrument, 148.

Dog, black, catches bullets in mouth, 162; strikes exorcising priest dumb, 163; father of hags, 163.

Dog, big black, son of weasel hag, 79.

Dumbness caused by fairy blow, 116.

Eagle guarding stream, 133. slain by hero, 134.

Elder brothers fail, 140.

Enchanter helps mortal, 93. passes him off as dead, 95.