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
"But poor Burthey pined wid shame an’ grief at the loss av him, for she
loved him wid all the heart she had, an’ that was purty big. So she fell
aff her weight, till from the size av a hogs’ead she got no bigger round
than a barrel an’ was like to die. But all the time she kept on hopin’
that he’d come to her, but whin she heard for sartain he was goin’ to lave
the counthry she let go an’ jumped aff that clift into the say an’
committed shooicide an’ drownded herself. She wasn’t turned into a pillar
at all, that’s wan o’ thim guides’ lies; she just drownded like annybody
that fell into the wather would, an’ was found afther an’ berrid be the
fishermen, an’ a hard job av it they had, for she weighed a ton. But they
called the place the Lovers’ Lape, bekase she jumped from it, an’ lovin’
Finn the way she did, the lape she tuk made the place be called afther her
an’ that’s razon enough.
"Finn was showbogher enough afore, but afther that he seen it was no use
thryin’ for to live in Ireland at all, so he got the barmaid, that was
aiquel to goin’ wid him, the more that ivery wan was agin him, that’s
beway o’ the conthrariness av wimmin, that are always ready for to do
annything ye don’t want thim to do, an’ wint to Scotland an’ wasn’t heard
av for a long time.
"About twelve years afther, there was a great talk that Finn had got back
from Scotland wid his wife an’ had taken the farm over be the village, the
first on the left as ye go down the mountain. At first there was no end av
the fuss that was, for Burthey’s frinds hadn’t forgotten, but it all come
to talk, so Finn settled down quite enough an’ wint to work. But he was an
althered man. His hair an’ beard were gray as a badger, so they called him
the Gray Man, an’ he’d a look on him like a shape-stalin’ dog. Everybody
wondhered, but they didn’t wondher long, for it was aisely persaived he
had cause enough, for the tongue o’ Missis Finn wint like a stame-ingine,
kapin’ so far ahead av her branes that she’d have to shtop an’ say
’an’-uh, an’-uh,’ to give the latther time for to ketch up. Jagers, but
she was the woman for to talk an’ schold an’ clack away till ye’d want to
die to be rid av her. When she was young she was a purty nice girl, but as
she got owlder her nose got sharp, her lips were as thin as the aidge av a
sickle, an’ her chin was as pinted as the bow av a boat. The way she
managed Finn was beautiful to see, for he was that afeared av her tongue
that he darn’t say his sowl belonged to him when she was by.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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