Irish Wonders: The Ghosts, Giants, Pooka, Demons, Leprechawns, Banshees, Fairies, Witches, Widows, Old Maids, and other Marvels of the Emerald IsleMcAnally, D. R. (David Russell)
General
Irish Wonders: The Ghosts, Giants, Pooka, Demons, Leprechawns, Banshees, Fairies, Witches, Widows, Old Maids, and other Marvels of the Emerald Isle
"Barney looked through the crack at thim a crossin’ himself ivery minnit
wid admiration for the shpeed they had. ’God be good to me,’ says he to
himself, ’’tis not ivery gossoon in Leitrim that’s got haymakers like
thim,’ only he never spake a word out loud, for he knewn very well the
good people ’ud n’t like it. So they brought in all the hay an’ put it in
the house an’ thin let the fires go out an’ made another big fire in front
o’ the dure, an’ begun to dance round it wid the swatest music Barney iver
heard.
"Now be this time he’d got up an’ feelin’ aisey in his mind about the hay,
begun to be very merry. He looked on through the dure at thim dancin’, an’
by an’ by they brought out a jug wid little tumblers and begun to drink
summat that they poured out o’ the jug. If Barney had the sense av a
herrin’, he’d a kept shtill an’ let thim dhrink their fill widout openin’
the big mouth av him, bein’ that he was as full as a goose himself an’
naded no more; but when he seen the jug an’ the tumblers an’ the fairies
drinkin’ away wid all their mights, he got mad an’ bellered out like a
bull, ’Arra-a-a-h now, ye little attomies, is it dhrinkin’ ye are, an’
never givin’ a sup to a thirsty mortial that always thrates yez as well as
he knows how,’ and immejitly the fairies, an’ the fire, an’ the jug all
wint out av his sight, an’ he to bed agin in a timper. While he was layin’
there, he thought he heard talkin’ an’ a cugger-mugger goin’ on, but when
he peeped out agin, sorra a thing did he see but the black night an’ the
rain comin’ down an’ aitch dhrop the full av a wather-noggin. So he wint
to slape, continted that the hay was in, but not plazed that the good
people ’ud be pigs entirely, to be afther dhrinkin’ undher his eyes an’
not offer him a taste, no, not so much as a shmell at the jug.
"In the mornin’ up he gets an’ out for to look at the hay an’ see if the
fairies put it in right, for he says, ’It’s a job they’re not used to.’ So
he looked in the cow-house an’ thought the eyes ’ud lave him when there
wasn’t a shtraw in the house at all. ’Holy Moses,’ says he, ’phat have
they done wid it?’ an’ he couldn’t consave phat had gone wid the hay. So
he looked in the field an’ it was all there; bad luck to the bit av it had
the fairies left in the house at all, but when he shouted at thim, they
got tarin’ mad an’ took all the hay back agin to the bog, puttin’ every
shtraw where Barney laid it, an’ it was as wet as a drownded cat. But it
was a lesson to him he niver forgot, an’ I go bail that the next time the
fairies help him in wid his hay he’ll kape shtill an’ let thim dhrink
thimselves to death if they plaze widout sayin’ a word."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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