Irish Folk Tales (27 page)

There was a poor man one time—Jack Murphy his name was; and rent day came, and he hadn’t enough to pay his rent. And he went to the landlord, and asked would he give him time. And the landlord asked when would he pay him; and he said he didn’t know that. And the landlord said: “Well, if you can answer three questions I’ll put to you, I’ll let you off the rent altogether. But if you don’t answer them, you will have to pay it at once, or to leave your farm. And the three questions are these: How much does the moon weigh? How many stars are there in the sky? What is it I am thinking?” And he said he would give him till the next day to think of the answers.

And Jack was walking along, very downhearted; and he met with a friend of his, one Tim Daly; and he asked what was on him. And he told him how he must answer the landlord’s three questions on tomorrow, or to lose his farm. “And I see no use in going to him tomorrow,” says he, “for I’m sure I will not be able to answer his questions right.” “Let me go in your place,” says Tim Daly, “for the landlord will not know one of us from the other, and I’m a good hand at answering questions, and I’ll engage I’ll get you through.”

So he agreed to that. And the next day Tim Daly went in to the landlord, and says he: “I’m come now to answer your three questions.”

Well, the first question the landlord put was: “What does the moon weigh?” And Tim Daly says: “It weighs four quarters.”

Then the landlord asked: “How many stars are in the sky?” “Nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine,” says Tim. “How do you know that?” says the landlord. “Well,” says Tim, “if you don’t believe me, go out yourself tonight and count them.”

Then the landlord asked him the third question: “What am I thinking now?”

“You are thinking it’s to Jack Murphy you’re talking, and it is not, but to Tim Daly.”

So the landlord gave in then. And Jack had the farm free from that out.

H
ALF A BLANKET

This son was married and he had a young son himself in the cradle, and the old grandfather, the son’s father, was knocking about, not much good then for anything only eating and smoking. So the son of the old fellow said the old man would have to go; leave—that was the word: take the broad road for it.

Well, his own son, the child was in the cradle. And the wife was pleading with her husband for to give the old man a chance but he wouldn’t listen. So she pleaded with her husband to give the old fellow a blanket when he was ready to go.

“Give him a whole blanket,” says she.

The son was for giving him half a blanket but he says: “All right. I’ll give a whole blanket.”

“Do no such’n a thing,” says the child in the cradle. “Give him only half a blanket and keep the other half safely by. For I’ll need it when I have to give it to you when it’s my turn to put you out to the world.”

That was from the child that couldn’t talk. So the old fellow was let stay, he wouldn’t get leave then to go at all, when the son heard what his own child had in store for himself.

T
HE SHADOW OF THE GLEN

One day I was traveling on foot from Galway to Dublin, and the darkness came on me and I ten miles from the town I was wanting to pass the night in. Then a hard rain began to fall and I was tired walking, so when I saw a sort of a house with no roof on it up against the road, I got in the way the walls would give me shelter.

As I was looking round I saw a light in some trees two perches off, and thinking any sort of a house would be better than where I was, I got over a wall and went up to the house to look in at the window.

I saw a dead man laid on a table, and candles lighted, and a woman watching him. I was frightened when I saw him, but it was raining hard, and I said to myself, if he was dead he couldn’t hurt me. Then I knocked on the door and the woman came and opened it.

“Good evening, ma’am,” says I.

“Good evening kindly, stranger,” says she. “Come in out of the rain.”

Then she took me in and told me her husband was after dying on her, and she was watching him that night.

“But it’s thirsty you’ll be, stranger,” says she. “Come into the parlor.”

Then she took me into the parlor—and it was a fine clean house—and she put a cup, with a saucer under it, on the table before me with fine sugar and bread.

When I’d had a cup of tea I went back into the kitchen where the dead man was lying, and she gave me a fine new pipe off the table with a drop of spirits.

“Stranger,” says she, “would you be afeard to be alone with himself?”

“Not a bit in the world, ma’am,” says I; “he that’s dead can do no hurt.”

Then she said she wanted to go over and tell the neighbors the way her husband was after dying on her, and she went out and locked the door behind her.

I smoked one pipe, and I leaned out and took another off the table. I was smoking it with my hand on the back of my chair—the way you are yourself this minute, God bless you—and I looking on the dead man, when he opened his eyes as wide as myself and looked at me.

“Don’t be afraid, stranger,” said the dead man; “I’m not dead at all in the world. Come here and help me up and I’ll tell you all about it.”

Well, I went up and took the sheet off of him, and I saw that he had a fine clean shirt on his body, and fine flannel drawers.

He sat up then, and says he—

“I’ve got a bad wife, stranger, and I let on to be dead the way I’d catch her goings on.”

Then he got two fine sticks he had to keep down his wife, and he put them at each side of his body, and he laid himself out again as if he was dead.

In half an hour his wife came back and a young man along with her. Well, she gave him his tea, and she told him he was tired, and he would do right to go and lie down in the bedroom.

The young man went in and the woman sat down to watch by the dead man. A while after she got up and “Stranger,” says she, “I’m going in to get the candle out of the room; I’m thinking the young man will be asleep by this time.” She went into the bedroom, but the divil a bit of her came back.

Then the dead man got up, and he took one stick, and he gave the other to myself. We went in and saw them lying together with her head on his arm.

The dead man hit him a blow with the stick so that the blood out of him leapt up and hit the gallery.

That is my story.

A
HUNGRY HIRED BOY

This old man, he was getting very old, and he had a young wife; and she used to say to him every day:

“John,” she would say, “you should get some man to help you to do a spot of work, because you’re getting old.”

And they had no family.

“I might, I might; some day I might go into the village of a fair day and hire a boy if I could get a man.”

So he went into the fair anyway, and he searched through the whole fair, and he could see nobody suitable in the whole fair. So he was just about on his way home and he went in to this public house for a bottle of Guinness. And he seen a likely-looking young fellow standing about a couple of yards down the bar.