Part 12

"Let him come fetch thee the cherries, Who is dearer than I to thee," Then Jesus, hearing St. Joseph, Thus spake to the stately tree.

"Bend low in her gracious presence, Stoop down to herself, O tree, That My mother herself may pluck thee, And take thy burden from thee."

Then the great tree lowered her branches At hearing the high command, And she plucked the fruit that it offered, Herself with her gentle hand.

Loud shouted the good St. Joseph, He cast himself on the ground, "Go home and forgive me, Mary, To Jerusalem I am bound; I must go to the holy city, And confess my sin profound."

Then out spake the gentle Mary, She spake with a gentle voice, "I shall not go home, O Joseph, But I bid thee at heart rejoice, For the King of Heaven shall pardon The sin that was not of choice."

THE STUDENT WHO LEFT COLLEGE.

PREFACE.

The following curious story has parallels in many countries. It is probably founded upon the verse in II. Peter iii. 8. "Quia unus dies apud Dominum sicut mille anni et mille anni sicut unus dies"--"for a thousand years are with the Lord as one day, and one day as a thousand years." It need not, however, be founded upon any Christian conception, for the purely Pagan story of Oisín or Ossian in the "Land of the Ever-Young" was known all over Ireland. Oisín thought he had spent only a short time in the Happy Other-World, but when he returned to Ireland he found he had been away for 300 years, and every one he knew had died.

The reciter had forgotten what the name of the monastery was, but I believe it to have been the ancient abbey and school at Killarney, now in ruins. I have heard that the things told in this story, or one similar to it, were supposed to have happened there.

The river with water as red as blood reminds us of Thomas of Ercildoune's experience when rapt away into faërie by the queen.

O, they rode on, and farther on And they waded through rivers above the knee, And they saw neither sun or moon But they heard the roaring of the sea.

It was mirk, mirk night, there was nae stern light And they waded through red blude to the knee, For a' the blude that's shed on earth Runs through the springs of that country.

Hence it was small wonder that the student thought that the musicians belonged to the Fairy-Host.

The fact that while in the other world he ate nothing, is pure Pagan tradition, for as is well known from many stories, classical and other, whoso eats or drinks of other-world food is precluded from returning to this life. Proserpine would not eat in Pluto's realm or she must have remained there. The six pomegranate seeds she swallowed cost her six months' stay there.

For the text of this story, see "Religious Songs of Connacht," vol. II., p. 122.

THE STORY.

There came a number of young people from the County of Galway, to a great college, to learn and gain instruction, so as to become priests. I often heard the name of this college from my mother, but I do not remember it. It was not Maynooth. There was a man of these of the name of Patrick O'Flynn. He was the son of a rich farmer. His father and his mother desired to make a priest of him. He was a nice, gentle lad. He used not to go dancing with the other boys in the evening, but it was his habit to go out with the grey-light of day, and he used to be walking by himself up and down under the shadow of the great trees that were round about the college, and he used to remain there thinking and meditating by himself, until some person would come to bring him into his room.

One evening, in the month of May, he went out, as was his custom, and he was taking his walk under the trees when he heard a melodious music. There came a darkness or a sort of blindness over his eyes, and when he found his sight again he beheld a great high wall on every side of him, and out in front of him a shining road. The musicians were on the road, and they playing melodiously, and he heard a voice saying, "_Come with us to the land of delight and rest_." He looked back and beheld a great high wall behind him and on each side of him, and he was not able to return back again across the wall, although he desired to return. He went forward then after the music. He did not know how long he walked, but the great high wall kept ever on each side of him and behind him.

He was going and ever-going, until they came to a great river, and water in it as red as blood. Wonder came upon him then, and great fear. But the musicians walked across the river without wetting their feet, and Patrick O'Flynn followed them without wetting his own. He thought at first that the musicians belonged to the Fairy-Host, and next he thought that he had died and that it was a group of angels that were in it, taking him to heaven.

The walls fell away from them then, on each side, and they came to a great wide plain. They were going then, and ever-going, until they came to a fine castle that was in the midst of the plain. The musicians went in, but Patrick O'Flynn remained outside. It was not long until the chief of the musicians came out to him and brought him into a handsome chamber. He spoke not a word, and Patrick O'Flynn never heard one word spoken so long as he remained there.

There was no night in that place, but the light of day throughout. He never ate and he never drank a single thing there, and he never saw anyone eating or drinking, and the music never ceased. Every half-hour, as he thought, he used to hear a bell, as it were a church-bell, being rung, but he never beheld the bell, and he was unable to see it in any place.

When the musicians used to go out upon the plain before the castle, there used to come a tribe of every sort of bird in the heavens, playing the most melodious music that ear ever heard. It was often Patrick O'Flynn said to himself, "It is certain that I am in heaven, but is it not curious that I have no remembrance of sickness, nor of death, nor of judgment, and that I have not seen God nor His Blessed Mother, as is promised to us?"

Patrick O'Flynn did not know how long he was in that delightful place. He thought that he had been in it only for a short little time, but he was in it for a hundred years and one.

One day the musicians were out in the field and he was listening to them, when the chief came to him. He brought him out and put him behind the musicians. They departed on their way, and they made neither stop nor stay until they came to the river that was as red as blood. They went across that, without wetting their foot-soles, and went forward until they came to the field near the college where they found him at the first. Then they departed out of his sight like a mist.

He looked round him, and recognised the college, but he thought that the trees were higher and that there was some change in the college itself. He went in, then, but he did not recognise a single person whom he met, and not a person recognised him.

The principal of the college came to him, and said to him, "Where are you from, son, or what is your name?"

"I am Patrick O'Flynn from the County of Galway," said he.

"How long are you here?" said the principal.

"I am here since the first day of March," said he.

"I think that you are out of your senses," said the principal, "there is no person of your name in the college, and there has not been for twenty years, for I am more than twenty years here."

"Though you were in it since you were born, yet I am here since last March, and I can show you my room and my books."

With that he went up the stairs, and the principal after him. He went into his room and looked round him, and said, "This is my room, but that is not my furniture, and those are not my books that are in it." He saw an old bible upon the table and he opened it, and said: "This is my bible, my mother gave it to me when I was coming here; and, see, my name is written in it."

The principal looked at the bible, and there, as sure as God is in heaven, was the name of Patrick O'Flynn written in it, and the day of the month that he left home.

Now there was great trouble of mind on the principal, and he did not know what he should do. He sent for the masters and the professors and told them the story.

"By my word," said an old priest that was in it, "I heard talk when I was young, of a student who went away out of this college, and there was no account of him since, whether living or dead. The people searched the river and the bog holes, but there was no account to be had of him, and they never got the body."

The principal called to them then and bade them bring him a great book in which the name of every person was written who had come to that college since it was founded. He looked through the book, and see! Patrick O'Flynn's name was in it, and the day of the month that he came, and this [note] was written opposite to his name, that the same Patrick O'Flynn had departed on such a day, and that nobody knew what had become of him. Now it was exactly one hundred and one years from the day he went until the day he came back in that fashion.

"This is a wonderful, and a very wonderful story," said the principal, "but, do you wait here quietly my son," said he, "and I shall write to the bishop." He did that, and he got an account from the bishop to keep the man until he should come himself.

At the end of a week after that the bishop came and sent for Patrick O'Flynn. There was nobody present except the two. "Now, son," said the bishop, "go on your knees and make a confession." Then he made an act of contrition, and the bishop gave him absolution. Immediately there came a fainting and a heavy sleep over him, and he was, as it were, for three days and three nights a dead person. When he came to himself the bishop and priests were round about him. He rose up, shook himself, and told them his story, as I have it told, and he put excessive wonder upon every man of them. "Now," said he, "here I am alive and safe, and do as ye please."

The bishop and the priests took counsel together. "It is a saintly man you are," said the bishop then, "and we shall give you holy orders on the spot."

They made a priest of him then, and no sooner were holy orders given him than he fell dead upon the altar, and they all heard at the same time the most melodious music that ear ever listened to, above them in the sky, and they all said that it was the angels who were in it, carrying the soul of Father O'Flynn up to heaven with them.

THE HELP OF GOD IN THE ROAD.

PREFACE.

This story was written down by my friend, C. M. Hodgson, from the mouth of one of his brother tenants, James Mac Donough, near Oughterard, in Connemara. Mac Donough called it "Conal, King of the Cats." In a Kerry version of this story it is a poor scholar and a thief who make the bet as to whether honesty or roguery is the best for a man to follow. The people they meet give it in favour of the thief. The poor scholar loses everything, eventually his two eyes. His going under the tombstone is properly motivated by saying that he meant to die there and would then be buried and have a tombstone. The rest of the story is pretty much the same as ours. My friend, the late Patrick O'Leary, found a story called the "Three Crows," something like this, where the crows talk as the cats do in our story, and where they end by picking out the two bad men's eyes, but there is no bet made, the man is simply robbed and blinded for no particular reason.

THE STORY

There were two merchants travelling along the road. One of them said to the other that the help of God was in the road. The other said it was not.

"How shall we find that out?"

"We'll leave it to the judgment of the first man we will meet."

It was short they went till they met a man. They asked him was the help of God in the road. He told them that it was not. Whatever the bet was that they had made about it, he [_i.e._, the man who said that the help of God was in the road] had to pay.

Well, they walked along for another while, and this man said that he would not give it up [or admit], that the help of God was not in the road.

"What bet will you make now?" says the other man.

"I've nothing left now except my eye, but I'll bet it with you," says he.

"Well, leave the decision to the first man who shall meet us."

The next man they met said the same as the first man, that the help of God was not in the road.

The other man did nothing but put his finger into the eye and pluck it out.

[Yet the man said] "I'll bet the other eye with you that the help of God is in the road, and let it be left to the judgment of the next man who shall meet us."

It was short they went [had gone] when a man met them. They asked him was the help of God in the road. The man said that it was not.

He plucked the other eye out of him then.

"Now," said he [the blind man], "take me with you and leave me in the church."

He took him with him and left him in under a flagstone in the church.

At that time the cats used to be collecting in gatherings. [They collected in that same church that night]. When they were all gathered together, Conall, the king of the cats, said that himself would tell a story if it were not that he was afraid that some one would be listening.

"Let us get up and search," said some of the cats. They searched through the churchyard and they found no one.

"It is a year from to-night that I went in to the king's daughter. I rubbed my tale to her mouth, and her father is perished looking for a cure [for her]. There are twelve cats in her stomach."

"Is there anything at all to cure her?" says one of the cats.

"There is," said Conall; "if she were to get a drop of the water that is in the well here, it would cure her. If one of those [twelve cats inside her] were to get away they could kill all the kingdom."

"Is there anything else of cure in the well?"

"There is," said Conall; "if any one were blind, and he to put a drop of that water on his eyes he would get his sight."

When they had gone away then in the morning, and were departed, the man that was listening to them rose up from [under] the flag. There was a herd or shepherd going by. He came to this man who was blind and spoke to him.

"Well, now," says the blind man, "is there any well here?"

"There is," says the herd.

"Leave me at the brink of the well."

He left him there.

He just put down his hand and splashed a drop of the water in on his two eyes; and he had his sight then as well as ever he had.

"Well now," says he to the herd, "would you be so kind as to give me a bottle?"

"I will," says the herd.

He filled the bottle with the water of the well and off he went. He was travelling until he came to the king's house. He asked to let him in.

The man who was on guard said that he would not let him in, that the king's daughter was sick and ill.

He sent for the king. He told him [by the messenger] that there was a man at the gate who would cure his daughter.

The king came out, and told the gate keeper to let in the man.

When he came in the king took him back into the chamber where his daughter was. When he looked at her [he saw that] she was as big as a horse.

"Now," said he to the king, "send for your men at arms, bring them in here."

When the men at arms were inside, he closed the door outside. He told them, anything that she should throw out, they must cut the head off it.

He gave her a drop of the water that was in the bottle to drink. The moment she drank it she threw from her a live cat out of her stomach. The head was cut off it before it reached the ground. They did the same with the twelve cats that she threw out of her stomach. She rose up then as sound and as well as ever she was.

The merchant was about to go away then, but the king would not allow him to depart. He said that he must marry his daughter.

[They were married and happy.]

They were one day going in their coach, and they saw the merchant who had made the bet that the help of God was not in the road. He spoke to him, and the merchant asked him where did he get all his riches.

"I got it in the place where you left me, in the church."

He [the other merchant] went away then at night, and he went in under the same flag, and it happened to the cats that they came together that night. When they were all assembled together. "Tell a story, O Conall, king of the cats," said one of them.

"I would tell a story," said he, "but I told one this very night last year, and a man was listening to me, and he cured the king's daughter with a bottle of the water that was in the well."

"We'll rise up [and look]" said the cat; "there won't be anyone listening to you to-night."

They rose up and they searched until they came to the place where the man was under the flag. They pulled him out and tore him asunder.

That is how it happened to him on account of the bet he had made that the help of God was not in the road.

THE MINISTER'S SON.

PREFACE.

Perhaps no people ever gave such free rein to the imagination with regard to the infernal regions as did the Irish. It began with St. Fursa, whose story was known to Christendom through Bede, and Adamnan's Vision [he died about 704] is known over Europe. The last to let himself go in this way was Keating. See the amazing alliterative description in his "Three Shafts of Death," Leabhar III. alt 10.

It is curious to find a Mayo peasant reproducing a little of this racial characteristic in the present poem. I often heard of this piece and made many attempts to get it, interviewing several people who I was told had got it, but I failed to get more than a few lines. My friend, John Mac Neill, wrote down for me the present version word for word from the recitation of Michael Mac Ruaidhri, but it is obviously only fragmentary. It is full (in the original, both prose and verse) of curious words and forms, and the periphrasis the "Virgin's Garb" for the scapular is curious.

For the original, see "Religious Songs of Connacht," vol. II., p. 134.

THE STORY.

There was a Roman Catholic girl at service in a minister's house, and she was wearing the Virgin Mary's garb (_i.e._, a scapular). She once was getting ready to go to Mass, and when she was washing herself she took the garb off her, and laid it on one side. The minister's son came in, and he began rummaging (?) backwards and forwards through the room, and he met the garb. He caught it up in his hand and observed it closely. He put it round his neck, and when the girl turned about she saw the garb on the minister's son, and she got very furious. She gave a step forward and she tore the garb off his neck. She began railing at him and abusing him. She told him that it was not right nor fitting for a man of his religion to lay hold of that garb in his hand, seeing that he had a hatred and a loathing of the glorious Virgin, "and," says she to him, "since it has happened that you have laid hold of the blessed garb, unless you fast next Friday in eric for your sin, one sight of the country of the heavens you shall never see."

Grief and great unhappiness came over the minister's son at the abuse the girl gave him, and he told her that he would fast the Friday.

It was well, and it was not ill. When the minister's son went to sleep that night he got a fit of sickness, and he was very bad in the morning, and he told his mother that he would not let anyone next nor near him except the servant girl, and that he hoped that he would not be long in the fit of sickness.

There was nobody attending him but the girl, because he had a full determination to fast through the Friday. He knew very well that if his mother were coming into the room he would have to eat some food from her, and that is the reason he would not let his mother in.

When the Friday came he never tasted bit nor sup throughout the day.

On the morning of Saturday his mother asked the girl how he was getting on. The girl said that he was going on nicely [literally, "coming to land"]. But when the girl went in at the hour of twelve o'clock in the day he was a corpse, and there came a great dispiritedness [literally, "much-drowning"] over the girl, and she began crying. She went out and told his mother that he was dead.

The story went from mouth to mouth, and one person said to another that it was the girl who had killed him; and they did not know what awful death they would give her.

There was a heap of turf over against the kitchen, and they tied the girl with a chain, fastened in an iron staple that was at the gable of the house, and as soon as ever they would have the body buried they were to put oil and grease on the turf, and give it fire, to burn and to roast the girl.

On Monday morning when they went into the room to put the corpse into the coffin, the minister's son was there alive and alert, in his bed; and he told them the vision that he had seen.

He saw, he said, the fires of Purgatory, the mastiffs of Hell, and the great Devil, Judas, and he told them that it was the glorious Virgin who saved him, and who got him his pardon. She asked it of a request of her One-Son to put him into the world again to teach the people, and she got that request for him; and if it had not been that he had worn the garb of the Virgin [though] only for a moment, when he was on earth, he would not have seen one sight of the country of the heavens for ever; but it was that which saved him from the lowest depths of hell.

He spent [after that] seven years in the world teaching people, and telling them the right religion, and all his family turned Catholics, and it was the minister's son who composed the dán or poem.

THE DÁN OF THE MINISTER'S SON.

The body, it lies in the sleep of the dead, And the candles above it are burning red; The old women sit, all silent and dreaming, But the young woman's cheeks with tears are streaming.

Oh, listen, listen, and hear the story Of what are the sins that shut out from glory. Promises, lies, penurious hoarding, How troubled, how cursed, how damned the story!

But it was there that I saw the wonder! Three great piles of fire, And the least fire it rose in a spire Like fifteen tons of turf on fire, Or a burning mountain, higher and higher.

It was not long until I saw The three great mastiffs, Their gullets opened, And their a-burning Like great wax candles In a mountain hollow, Waiting for my poor soul To tear and to swallow, To bring down to hell's foulness In anguish to wallow.

I was taken to the gates of hell, And the hair was burnt off my forehead, And a sieve of holes was put through my middle; It was then it stood to me, that night I fasted, And wore the garb of the Blessed Virgin, Or my flesh and my blood had been burned to a puff of ashes.

It was then the jury of the twelve sat on me, Their evil will than their good will was stronger, And all that I did since my days of childhood Was writ upon paper in black and white there; One paper in my hand, on the ground another, To conceal a crime I had no power.

On turning round of me towards the right-hand side, I beheld the noble, blessed Justice Beneath his bright mantle, And he asked of me, with soft, blessed words, "Where was I living when I was on the earth, And whether I were not the poor soul who had to go to the bar."

On turning round of me, towards the left-hand side, I beheld the Great Devil that got the bribe, Going to fall upon me from above [_literally, "on the top of my branches or limbs_,"] And it was then that the thirst grew upon my poor soul! And, oh! God! oh! it was no wonder!