Irish Folk Tales (33 page)

T
HE HORSE’S LAST DRUNK

Do you know that the jennet is the most willing animal in the world? Man alive, a jennet never knows when he is done. Years ago, I saw a jennet drawing a load up Patrick’s Hill in Cork, and that’s like the side of a mountain. The load was too much for it, and for all its trying the jennet could go no farther.

But do you know what happened? With the height of willingness and the power of pulling, its eyes came out of its head before it, for they were the only part of it free and not tackled to the cart. That was willingness for you!

The man who owned that jennet was carrying from Cork to Kenmare. It was in the days before there were any motorcars and before their like had been thought about at all.

He was coming one day with the divil of a load of wheat, maybe it could be about a ton weight, and he saw that his horse was failing. He wondered if he had overfed her or what could ail her. He wanted to get into the town of Macroom that night at least.

Well, he had a bottle of poteen with him, and he put it back into the horse, and she was as lively as could be for another piece of the road. But just when he was to the east of Macroom, didn’t the horse lie down on the road, under the load, and the divil a stir from her.

They thought that she was dead. There wasn’t a move out of her, no matter what they did. One of the men with him said that they had as well make the best of it, and if they skinned her they would be able to sell the skin in Macroom.

So they set to, and they skinned her, and when they had that done she moved. She wasn’t dead at all, but only dead drunk with the poteen she had taken, and the cold had put a stir into her when the skin was off.

They were in the devil of a fix, for the skin was after stiffening. One of them had an idea. There were sheep grazing in a field near by, and he hopped over the wall, and killed four of the sheep and skinnd them, and they sewed the warm skins on to the horse, and she got up after her debauch, and pulled away as good as ever.

Ever after that he used to shear her twice a year—and you should have seen the grand fleece she had on her. She lived for fourteen years after that with two shearings a year.

H
ARE AND HOUND

John McLoughlin that lived out the Point Road had this hound. There never was the beating of her. She pupped in a teapot.

One time she was carrying the pups, and a hare riz and she made after it and ripped the belly out of herself on this ditch, on wire or something; and the pups, the greyhound pups, spilled out of her. And one of them up like hell, and after the hare and stuck till her till he caught and killed her.

And when the greyhound died, John McLoughlin had her skinned and he put a back in a waistcoat with her skin. And one day he was out over the water hunting and this hare started up; and begod, he said, the back of the waistcoat on him barked!

S
LEEPY PENDOODLE

Ah, this Hughie McGiveney, he was a great character.

He used to keep a couple of cats.

And he used to have funny names on them. There was one cat he called Yibbity Gay, Yibbity
Gay
. And there was another cat he called Willy the Wisp. Aye.

Well then, he used to tell a great yarn; he used to tell about—he had a wee Irish terrier bitch, a wee bitch, you know.

And she used to have pups every year. This wee Granny—he called the wee bitch Granny—she used to have pups every year. Supplied the whole—there wasn’t a wee lad in the country wasn’t running after one of her pups.

And Granny was going to have pups this time, and didn’t she die.

So he was in terrible grief about her.

And he buried her with honors of war. “I buried her,” says he, “with honors of war.”

And he put down a stick at the grave.

And he used to go every day and stand at the grave.

And this day, he used to tell the yarn, he was standing at the grave, and he heard a squealing, you know, a mumbling down in the grave.

And he got a spade and he opened the grave.

And there was two pups shut up in the grave. Two pups.

There was one pup dead. The other was living. So he brought it home.

And he got a supping bottle; you know, that’s what young childer used to be fed on longgo, a supping bottle. See, a big long tube down into the bottle, and a wee dummy, a wee tit in their mouth.

Well, he got one of them, and he reared the pup. Sat up at night with it, and reared it anyway.

It grew up to be a great big fat lump of a thing.

And it was a month old, and its eyes never opened. Its eyes still kept
closed
.

And there he was, and he was in a terrible way about the pup, that his eyes wouldn’t open.

So. He was in town this day, in Enniskillen. And he went into a public house the name of Herbert’s for to get a pint of porter, and he was on his way home.

And there was a big swank of a fellow in it, and he had a big red dog with him.

So Hughie and him joined to chat about the
dog
, do you see. He was explaining to Hughie McGiveney the qualities of the dog and the breeding of him and everything, and didn’t Hughie start to tell him about his
pup
, about his
pup
, and that his eyes didn’t open.

So he had listened to him for a while. “Well now,” he says, “I’m glad you mentioned
that
, because,” he says, “I can be of great
help
to ye.”

“Ah,” he says, “are you in a hurry?” he says.

“Aw, not atall,” says Hughie.

“Well, wait a minute now,” he says, “here.”

And he went away anyway. He says to the barman, “Give him a pint there,” he says, “till I come back.”

The barman put up the pint for him, and Hughie was drinking the pint, and the lad came back anyway, and he had a wee piece of white paper in his hand.

And he says to McGiveney, “Now,” he says, “have you good memory?”

“I have,” says Hugh, “the best.”

“Well, you’ll have to be able to mind this, that I’m going to tell ye. Because,” he says, “if I write it down on a piece of paper, it’ll be no good; it’ll take the charm away. You’ll have to be fit for to mind it in your head.”

So now anyway, he says, “When you go home,” he says, “get the pup on your knee and sleek it down the head,” he says. “There’s a wee powder in that paper, and don’t tell anybody this till you go home, or don’t show the paper to anybody, or tell no one about it. There’s a powder in that paper,”
he says, “and when you go home, get the pup up on your knee, and with your right hand sleek it down the back, and say, three times after the other:

And the pup will be all right.”

So McGiveney drunk his pint, and he out, up the streets of Enniskillen shouting:

“Pendoodle, Pendoodle, Pendoodle, Pendoodle, Pendoodle.”

And on he came running—he run the whole road home, and the paper in his hand, the wee piece of paper in his hand.

And damn it anyway, there was a man lived on the roadside beside that old school; the house is nearly down now. He was a man named Keenan, Frank Keenan, Francis Keenan, and he seen Hughie coming.

And he was standing on the road.

And Hughie came on running.

And he says, “Anything wrong, Hughie?”

“Oh, not a damned haet wrong,” he says, “not a damned haet wrong. Pendoodle, Pendoodle, Pendoodle, Pendoodle,” he says.

“My God,” says Francis, “he’s gone mad. He’s gone straight for a madman.”

So anyway, he went on anyway, and he was going by another house.

That house was Nolan’s. Hugh Nolan’s father was living at the time, and he was in the road.

“Well, Hughie,” says he, “any news in town the day?”

“Ah, news be damned,” he says. “Pendoodle, Pendoodle, Pendoodle, Pendoodle, Pendoodle.”