Irish Folk Tales (31 page)

Bobby went to the grave and looked round and he says:

It turned to mortifying, you see: gangrened the flesh. It’s a very dangerous disease.

And there was another one. Aye. He was a wee small man, and he was cranky with Bobby one day.

Well, Bobby went in for a drink. And he says to Bobby, “I’m as good a poet as you.”

“Go on ahead,” says Bobby.

So, I don’t know now really the verse that he made. But then Bobby in revenge took a notion he’d make little of him. Andrew Horn was his name. So he started off:

“Then,” says he, “Andrew, would you beat me?” says he.

The Devil made swine and he turned the swine into a man called Andrew Horn.

I think he was convinced he couldn’t make anything better than Bobby anyway.

Well, I could listen to yarns like that. I could sit for a whole night.

T
ERRY THE GRUNTER

There was, at one time, an old tramp called Terry the Grunter who used to wander round these parts often times. He lived principally on his wits and he composed satires about people who did not please him. He happened to be in Sligo when a certain solicitor died and he asked some of this man’s brother solicitors for help. They refused him. When the funeral was starting, four solicitors carried the coffin part of the way to the cemetery. Terry the Grunter gave the following description of the affair:

When the Protestant church at Riverstown was being built, the bishop of Elphin came to consecrate it. He met our hero who, as usual, was on the lookout for money. The bishop refused him and the tramp wrote the following:

T
HOMAS MOORE AND THE TRAMP

Thomas Moore was lying looking, him and this other, his companion, looking at the Meeting of the Waters and bragging: it was such beautiful scenery,
gorgeous
, never saw anything like it.

And this poor tramp came up.

And badly dressed, in rags, and bad boots on him with his toes sticking out through his shoes.

And he asked help of Thomas Moore.

And Thomas didn’t recognize him atall; he ignored him asking for help. And he stood for a few minutes and he started his wee poem as follows:

This Moore told him, “Repeat that,” he says, “again.”

So the tramp repeated it again.

And he put his hand in his pocket, and he gave him half a sovereign. He says, “That’s as good as I ever heard,” he says, “I couldn’t do it better meself.”

That was that.

It was a great piece of composition. It was me father told me that one; it was him that I heard at it. Surely.

J
OHN BRODISON AND THE POLICEMAN

There was a famous character in our country. He lived at Bellanaleck, he was the name of John Brodison.

He was a famous liar.

Aye, he was a famous liar. I knew him. I was often talking to him. He was a kind of a smart old boy, you know: quick-witted.

He was coming out of Enniskillen one night with the ass and cart. And the law was: ye had to have a light after a certain time on a cart, do you see, when it was dark. Ye had to have a light.

So the policeman was standing at Bellanaleck Cross, and Brodison knew that the police would be
there
at the time.

So he got out of the cart.

And he took the donkey out of the cart, and he tied it
behind
.

And he got into the shafts, and he started to pull the cart, and the donkey walking behind him anyway.

And when he came to the Cross, the policeman says, “Brodison,” he says, “Ye have no light.”

A
BIG POTATO

John Brodison tells this story that one season, some years ago, he had a field of potatoes convenient to the Sligo and Leitrim Railway Line.

And it was a very steep hill that he had the potatoes planted in.

And they done remarkably well, and when it came to the time for to dig them, they turned out a powerful fine crop of potatoes.

And he was digging, he tells us, one day, and he came to a spot on the ridge and he found out that there was a potato from one broo to the other.

So, he got behind, as he thought, this potato for to roll it out.

But he found out that it had grew across the furrow in through a ridge on both sides of the ridge that it was planted on.