Irish Folk Tales (46 page)

J
ACK AND THE CLURICAUNE

A man by the name of Jack Cassidy was the only one I ever knew, who, out and out, had a hold of a Cluricaune. And this was the way of it:

Jack was a frolicsome, gay sort of fellow, full of spirit and fun and diversion of all kinds, a gay boy entirely, and one that had no more care for the world than the world for him. And Jack had been making fierce love to a very pretty slip of a girl, with a good penny of money, but Peggy’s father wouldn’t listen to any reason that wasn’t set to the tune of “guinea gold.” And this almost drove Jack beside himself.

And he had often heard tell of a Cluricaune that used to be below the battered farmhouse of Eddyconner. And, bedad, Jack let his uncle’s plowing and sowing take care of itself, and set to watch the little old chap day and
night, hearing him, sometimes in one corner, and sometimes in another, until after creeping, creeping along the hedge, he fixes his eye on him, and he sitting as sly as murder, hammering away at the old brogue.

Well, in course he knew that as long as ever he kept his eye on the little rogue he couldn’t stir. And the cute nagur turns round, and says, “Good morrow, Jack.”

“Good evening to you, kindly,” answers Jack.

“Evening and morning is the same to a lazy man,” says the Cluricaune.

“Who said you was lazy?” answers Jack. And he catches up the little brogue-mender in his fist. “Take it easy,” says the chap, “and give me my hammer.”

“Do ye see any dust in my eye?” says Jack, who knew every trick the likes of them are up to, to get off with themselves.

“The dickens a grain,” says the Cluricaune, “and no wonder the pretty Peggy’s so taken with them fine eyes of yours. It’s a pity her father doesn’t see their beauty as well as the daughter.”

“Never fear, my jewel,” replies Jack, “he’ll discern a wonderful improvement in my features when you find me the crock of gold.”

“Well, you’re a fine sporting fellow,” answers the Cluricaune, “and if you’ll carry me fair and easy, without pinching my toes off as if I was a bird, into the middle of the nine-acre field, I’ll show you something worth looking for.”

Well, to get at the nine-acre at all, Jack had to cross as deep and as dirty a bit of bog as was on the countryside, and he had on his Sunday clothes, so that he had no fancy at all for tramping through a slob. But this was not all. He had just got into the very middle of it, when a sudden blast of wind whirled off his brand-new hat. Still he was up to the tricks of his prisoner, for he kept his eyes steady upon old Devilskin.

“I’m sorry for your loss, Jack,” grins the lying imp, as fair and smooth as if it was the truth he told.

“Thank ye for nothing,” says the poor fellow, “but ye’ll not get off for either sorrow or sympathy. I’m quite up to your tricks. Sure if I’d gone the way over the bog
you
told me, it’s drowned I’d be in it long ago.”

“Look ye, Jack Cassidy,” croaks out the little scamp, though it was the truth he told then anyhow, “if you kept your thoughts as steadily fixed on your work as you have kept your eyes on me, you’d have money enough without hunting for Cluricaunes. But keep on to that bouchlawn there, in the very middle of the nine-acre. Bedad, you put me in mind of the girl who set one eye to watch her father and the other to watch her sweetheart, for you see everything without looking.”

“Ah!” laughs Jack, “I’d go blindfold through the country.”

“A bad sign,” observed the old fellow, shaking his daushy head. “A
roving blade gathers no more gold than a rolling stone does moss.” And Jack had the sense to think to himself that, even if he got no money out of the Cluricaune, he got good advice.

“Now let me go, Jack,” shouts the little fellow. “Dig up that bouchlawn, and you’ll find a pot of gold.” “Dig it for me yourself this instant,” shouts Jack, shaking him almost into smithereens.

“Sorra a spade I have,” answers the other, “or I would with all the veins.”

“If you don’t, I’ll strangle you,” exclaimed Jack again.

“Oh, Jack! save me, save me!” cries Peggy’s voice at his elbow.

Poor Jack turned. There was no Peggy, and the Cluricaune was gone, with a laugh and a shout that made the bog shake again.

Well, Jack took off his garter, and tied it three times round the bouchlawn, and cut a slip of witch-hazel off a tree that grew convenient, and making a ring of it, dropped on his knees, saying an
Ave
over it, and then let it fall over the bouchlawn, so that he might preserve it from harm, and then went home. And by break of day he was back again at the nine-acre, and as true as that you are standing there, there were above nine hundred bouchlawns sprung up in the night, with nine hundred garters tied to them, and in the midst of as many hazel rings!

His heart was splitting into halves, and he sat down in the beams of the rising sun, and cried just like a babby that had lost its mother. And all of a sudden the words of the Cluricaune came into his head—“If you kept your thoughts as steadily fixed on your work as you have kept your eyes on me, you’d have money enough without hunting for Cluricaunes.” From that day out Jack was a new man. He took the little brogue-maker’s hint, and in five years told down two guineas for Peggy’s one, all through the fortune. And maybe they haven’t thirteen to the dozen of children this blessed day.

B
RIDGET AND THE LURIKEEN

A young girl that lived in sight of Castle Carberry, near Edenderry, was going for a pitcher of water to the neighboring well one summer morning, when who should she see sitting in a sheltery nook under an old thorn, but the Lurikeen, working like vengeance at a little old brogue only fit for the foot of a fairy like himself.

There he was, boring his holes, and jerking his waxed ends, with his little three-cornered hat with gold lace, his knee breeches, his jug of beer by his side, and his pipe in his mouth. He was so busy at his work, and so taken up with an old ballad he was singing in Irish, that he did not mind Breedheen till she had him by the scruff of the neck, as if he was in a vise.

“Ah, what are you doing?” says he, turning his head round as well as he could. “Dear, dear! to think of such a pretty colleen catching a body, as if he was after robbing a hen roost. What did I do to be treated in such a undecent manner? The very vulgarest young ruffin in the townland could do no worse. Come, come, Miss Bridget, take your hands off, sit down, and let us have a chat, like two respectable people.”

“Ah, Mr. Lurikeen, I don’t care a wisp of borrach for your politeness. It’s your money I want, and I won’t take hand or eye from you till you put me in possession of a fine lob of it.”

“Money, indeed! Ah! where would a poor cobbler like me get it? Anyhow there’s no money hereabouts, and if you’ll only let go my arms, I’ll turn my pockets inside out, and open the drawer of my seat, and give you leave to keep every halfpenny you’ll find.”

“That won’t do. My eyes’ll keep going through you like darning needles till I have the gold. Begonies, if you don’t make haste, I’ll carry you, head and pluck, into the village, and there you’ll have thirty pair of eyes on you instead of one.”

“Well, well, was ever a poor cobbler so circumvented. And if it was an ignorant, ugly bosthoon that done it, I would not wonder. But a decent, comely girl, that can read her ‘Poor Man’s Manual’ at the chapel, and—”

“You may throw your compliments on the stream there. They won’t do for me, I tell you. The gold, the gold, the gold! Don’t take up my time with your blarney.”

“Well, if there’s any to be got, it’s under the old castle it is. We must have a walk for it. Just put me down, and we’ll get on.”

“Put you down indeed! I know a trick worth two of that. I’ll carry you.”

“Well, how suspicious we are! Do you see the castle from this?” Bridget was about turning her eyes from the little man to where she knew the castle stood, but she bethought herself in time.

They went up a little hillside, and the Lurikeen was quite reconciled, and laughed and joked. But just as they got to the brow, he looked up over the ditch, gave a great screech, and shouted just as if a bugle horn was blew at her ears: “Oh, murder! Castle Carberry is afire.” Poor Biddy gave a great start, and looked up towards the castle. The same moment she missed the weight of the Lurikeen, and when her eyes fell where he was a moment before, there was no more sign of him than if everything that passed was a dream.

F
AIRY TALES

Well, I think all the fairy tales has been rehearsed over and over again. I don’t think there’s any sacred fairy tales at the moment. I’d have that belief.

I heard that many fairy tales from me father and from other people, and I got a kind of disgusted with them.

The fairy tales were a matter of entertainment. And I think again it was really to scare young people. Naturally enough, a young person would like to get out. The same as your daughter—and she was living here, she’d like to get out at night, you know. Nature takes its course. That’s the way it is.