The Ned M'Keown Stories: Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of; William Carleton, Volume ThreeCarleton, William
General
The Ned M'Keown Stories: Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of; William Carleton, Volume Three
Carleton, William
Ireland -- Social life and customs -- Fiction
“Well, at last the day came. The wedding morning, or the bride's part
of it,* as they say, was beautiful. It was then the month of July. The
evening before my father” * and my brother went over to Jemmy Finigan's,
to make the regulations for the wedding. We, that is my party, were to
be at the bride's house about ten o'clock, and we were then to proceed,
all on horseback, to the priest's, to be married. We were then, after
drinking something at Tom Hance's public-house, to come back as far
as the Dumbhill, where we were to start and run for the bottle. That
morning we were all up at the shriek of day. From six o'clock my own
faction, friends and neighbors, began to come, all mounted; and about
eight o'clock there was a whole regiment of them, some on horses, some
on mules, others on raheries** and asses; and, by my word, I believe
little Dick Snudaghan, the tailor's apprentice, that had a hand in
making my wedding-clothes, was mounted upon a buck goat, with a bridle
of salvages tied to his horns. Anything at all to keep their feet from
the ground; for nobody would be allowed to go with the wedding that
hadn't some animal between them and the earth.
* The morning or early part of the day, on which an Irish
couple are married, up until noon, is called the bride's
part, which, if the fortunes of the pair are to be happy, is
expected to be fair--rain or storm being considered
indicative of future calamity.
** A small, shaggy pony, so called from being found in great
numbers on the Island of that name.
“To make a long story short, so large a bridegroom's party was never
seen in that country before, save and except Tim Lannigans, that I
mentioned just now. It would make you split your face laughing to see
the figure they cut; some of them had saddles and bridles--others had
saddles and halthers; some had back-suggawns of straw, with hay Stirrups
to them, but good bridles; others sacks filled up as like saddles as
they could make them, girthed with hay-ropes five or six times tied
round the horse's body. When one or two of the horses wouldn't carry
double, except the hind rider sat stride-ways, the women had to be put
foremost, and the men behind them. Some had dacent pillions enough, but
most of them had none at all, and the women were obliged to sit where
the pillion ought to be--and a hard card they had to play to keep their
seats even when the horses walked asy, so what must it be when they came
to a gallop! but that same was nothing at all to a trot.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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