Irish Folk Tales (25 page)

I remember hearing Brian telling this story—somebody told it to him. It was some church anyway, but there was a funeral. And there was this wee man—a Catholic man—and he went to the wake. And at that time, away years ago, the morning of the funeral, the man of the house, he’d have two or three men go round with a bottle of whiskey and a glass to treat every man that went to the funeral.

So this wee man got enough, he got a wee drop too much anyway and he went to the church and when the service was over, didn’t he fall asleep with the drink from the night before and all. Nobody in the church seen him—he was in the seat but he fell down and he was sleeping.

It was very late on that night when he wakened and come till himself and realized where he was.

So he couldn’t get out—it seems they locked up and he had no way of getting out.

So the only thing he could think of was to ring the bell. So he started to ring the bell in the Protestant church the same night as the night of the funeral. And, of course, the neighbors heard it and the minister heard it and they come and they took fear and they wouldn’t go in. The minister wouldn’t venture in, do you see, for the bell had been tingling and ringing, and neither would the men.

So it gathered up before all was over that there was a right crowd of people gathered to know what had happened. So they decided anyway that they would go for the parish priest.

The parish priest landed anyway, got up out of his bed and landed, and he had a—now, whether he had a car, now, or a side-car—but he had a big rug with him and whether he put it around his shoulders or what, they were that excited they never noticed.

So the priest opened the church door and he went in. He walked in and seen his man and knowed him so well and he had a wee chat with him inside. The man told him the whole story: “I was at the wake,” says he, “last night and I got a lot of drink. I got more this morning,” he says, “and when I went into the church I fell asleep.”

“Well,” says the priest, “just keep quiet and we’ll make a good thing out of this.”

So he got this big hairy rug. “Now,” says the priest, “I want you to walk bent over like this and I’m putting this rug over your head, right over your head. Now, you do what I bid you and walk in the front and I’ll go behind you. And I’ll go out now and I’ll tell the boys that he’s here all right!” That was the Devil—but it was only a Catholic man.

He went out and he says to the minister, “I’ll tell you what you’ll do. Go on every side, make a path in the middle, you men, now. Keep on each side,” he says, “I’m taking him out now—I’m putting him out.”

In he goes and he warned him to be sure and bend down and walk very low, just bend and crawl along and the rug was right out over his head. And he got behind him and your man walked out of the church door and up the path.

Well, he said that they fainted in all directions. Some of them fainted and some of them run. They run in all directions when they seen what was coming out of the church. They thought it was the Devil and instead of that it was a Catholic man the worse of drink!

T
HE DOOM

There was a young man of Innismore, named James Lynan, noted through all the island for his beauty and strength. Never a one could beat him at hunting or wrestling, and he was, besides, the best dancer in the whole townland. But he was bold and reckless, and ever foremost in all the wild wicked doings of the young fellows of the place.

One day he happened to be in chapel after one of these mad freaks, and the priest denounced him by name from the altar.

“James Lynan,” he said, “remember my words. You will come to an ill end. The vengeance of God will fall on you for your wicked life. And by the power that is in me I denounce you as an evil liver and a limb of Satan, and accursed of all good men.”

The young man turned pale, and fell on his knees before all the people, crying out bitterly, “Have mercy, have mercy; I repent, I repent,” and he wept like a woman.

“Go now in peace,” said the priest, “and strive to lead a new life, and I’ll pray to God to save your soul.”

From that day forth James Lynan changed his ways. He gave up drinking, and never a drop of spirits crossed his lips. And he began to attend to his farm and his business, in place of being at all the mad revels and dances and fairs and wakes in the island. Soon after he married a nice girl, a rich farmer’s daughter, from the mainland, and they had four fine children, and all things prospered with him.

But the priest’s words never left his mind, and he would suddenly turn pale and a shivering would come over him when the memory of the curse came upon him. Still he prospered, and his life was a model of sobriety and order.

One day he and his wife and their children were asked to the wedding of a friend about four miles off. And James Lynan rode to the place, the family going on their own car. At the wedding he was the life of the party as he always was. But never a drop of drink touched his lips. When evening came on, the family set out for the return home just as they had set out; the wife and children on the car, James Lynan riding his own horse. But when the wife arrived at home, she found her husband’s horse standing at the gate riderless and quite still. They thought he might have fallen in a faint, and went back to search, when he was found down in a hollow not five perches from his own gate, lying quite insensible and his features distorted frightfully, as if seized while looking on some horrible vision.

They carried him in, but he never spoke. A doctor was sent for, who opened a vein, but no blood came. There he lay like a log, speechless as one dead. Amongst the crowd that gathered round was an old woman accounted very wise by the people.

“Send for the fairy doctor,” she said. “He is struck.”

So they sent off a boy on the fastest horse for the fairy man. He could not come himself, but he filled a bottle with a potion. Then he said:

“Ride for your life. Give him some of this to drink and sprinkle his face and hands also with it. But take care as you pass the lone bush on the round hill near the hollow, for the fairies are there and will hinder you if they can, and strive to break the bottle.”

Then the fairy man blew into the mouth and the eyes and the nostrils of the horse, and turned him round three times on the road and rubbed the dust off his hoofs.

“Now go,” he said to the boy. “Go and never look behind you, no matter what you hear.”

So the boy went like the wind, having placed the bottle safely in his pocket. And when he came to the lone bush the horse started and gave such a jump that the bottle nearly fell, but the boy caught it in time and held it safe and rode on. Then he heard a cluttering of feet behind him, as of men in pursuit. But he never turned or looked, for he knew it was the fairies who were after him. And shrill voices cried to him, “Ride fast, ride fast, for the spell is cast!” Still he never turned round, but rode on, and never let go his hold of the fairy draught till he stopped at his master’s door, and handed the potion to the poor sorrowing wife. And she gave of it to the sick man to drink, and sprinkled his face and hands, after which he fell into a deep sleep. But when he woke up, though he knew everyone around him, the power of speech was gone from him. And from that time to his death, which happened soon after, he never uttered word more.

So the doom of the priest was fulfilled—evil was his youth and evil was his fate, and sorrow and death found him at last, for the doom of the priest is as the word of God.

T
HE RIGHT CURE

But let me tell you this: there is many a cure that comes from God. Sorra the saint that was ever in the country but left his cure behind him in a well. That was to put you in mind of the goodness and of the power of his Master. Look at Lacken Well! It has cured thousands. It is for the rheumatism, particularly when it catches the hip. You say the Rosary at the well and drink the water. Bring the water home, then, and drink it again and rub the hip. If there is a cure for you, you will be cured.

Tobar Moling cures dry retching and stomach troubles. It cured me forever. And Saint Ann’s Well, here, on Killenarden, nigh to Martin’s cottage, they say is as good as Moling’s Well.

Aye, and there is Our Lady’s Well at the De Selby quarry. It cures wounds. Lady de Selby built a shrine there. Troth, she did. It was in thanks to the Holy Mother for curing workmen hurted in the quarry. I will bring you there some time. The day the well is visited is the fifteenth of August.

The worst of it is that there are fools who think they can buy a miraculous cure like they would a twist of tobacco. That’s not the way of it at all. A man must earn his cure. He must try everything that’s to his hand first. What is a man in the world for but to work? Bread and salvation, them are
the masters for which a man must labor. But when he has done his best and failed, then the saints will step in and, by the mercy of God, play the good neighbor. That’s fair play; is it not?

I remember the chief knuckle of my hand getting a touch from a reaping-hook. Cut to the bone it was. It festered fast, and my arm swelled to the girth of my thigh. The pain near drove me frantic. I went down to Tallaght to the doctor that used be in it. He told me I would have to go to the hospital. But I told him how could I and I with oats down and the rain coming. But he just kept saying I would have to go. The man had no sense at all. The next day I went over to Blessington, and the man there told me the same thing. As if a man could turn his back on his crop and the rain coming!

That night I was sitting here twisting in mortal agony, when a neighbor man came in to find out what way was I. When he seen how it was, he told me the cure was frog-spawn.

“Well,” says I, “I may as well try it, for this pain will douse me anyway.” So I did it. That night I slept. The next day I was well enough to stook. But, boys, oh boys, by night it was worse than ever. Till the crack of day it never stopped bealing and throbbing till I thought it must burst. “I’m fairly knackered this time,” I thought. I did not know what way to turn or what to do, when I suddenly thought of Father Larkin, the Dominican, beyond in Tallaght. If ever there was a saint on this earth, that man was him. God be good to him forever! Amen, I say, and amen again.