THE PRIEST WHO WENT TO DO PENANCE.
PREFACE.
This story I wrote down most carefully, word for word, from the telling of Mairtin Ruadh O Giollarnath, near Monivea, Co. Galway. He knew no English. I printed it in my "Sgeuluidhe Gaedhealach," published in Rennes. I know no variant of this story.
THE STORY.
There arose some little difference between three sons. A farmer's sons they were. One man of them said that he would leave home and go to an island (i.e., emigrate). Another man of them became a priest, and the eldest brother remained at home.
The young priest never stopped until he went to Athlone to the college there, and he remained there for five years until his term had expired, and he was turned out a professed priest. He got himself ready, then, in the college, and said that he would go home to visit his father and mother.
He bound his books together in his bag, and then he faced for home. There was no mode of conveyance at that time; he had to walk. He walked all through the day until night was coming on. He saw a light at a distance from him. He went to it and found a gentleman's big house. He came into the yard and asked for lodgings until the morning. He got that from the gentleman and welcome, and the gentleman did not know what he would do for him, with the regard he had for him.
The priest was a fine handsome man, and the daughter of the gentleman took, as you would say, a fancy to him, when she was bringing his supper—and a fine supper it was he got. When they went to sleep then the young woman went into the room where the priest was. She began entreating him to give up the church and to marry herself. The gentleman had no daughter but herself, and she was to have the house and place, all of it, and she told that to the priest.
Says the priest, "don't tell me your mind," says he; "it's no good. I am wed already to Mary Mother, and I shall never have any other wife," says he. She gave him up then when she saw that it was no good for her, and she went away. There was a piece of gold plate in the house, and when the young priest fell asleep she came back again into his room, and she put the gold plate unbeknownst to him into his bag, and out she went again.
When he rose then, in the morning, he was getting himself ready to be going off again. It was a Friday, a fast day, that was in it, but she got a piece of meat and put it into his pocket, unbeknownst to him. Now he had both the meat and the gold plate in his bag, and off my poor man went, without any meal in the morning. When he had gone a couple of miles on his road, up she rose and told her father that the man that he had last night with him, "it was a bad man he was, that he stole the gold plate, and that he had meat in his pocket, going away of him, that she herself saw him eating it as he went the road that morning." Then the father got ready a horse and pursued him, and came up with him and got him taken and brought back again to his own house, and sent for the peelers.
"I thought," said he, "that it was an honest man you were, and it's a rogue you are," said he.
He was taken out then and given to the jury to be tried, and he was found guilty. The father took the gold plate out of the bag and showed it to the whole jury. He was sentenced to be hanged then. They said that any man who did a thing of that sort, he deserved nothing but to put his head in the noose[54] and hang him.
He was up on the stage then going to be hanged, when he asked leave to speak in the presence of the people. That was given him. He stood up, then, and he told all the people who he himself was, and where he was going and what he had done; how he was going home to his father and mother, and how he came into the gentleman's house. "I don't know that I did anything bad," said he, "but the daughter that this gentleman had, she came in to me, into the room, where I was asleep, and she asked me to leave the church and to marry herself, and I would not marry her, and no doubt it was she who put the gold plate and the fish into my bag," and he went down on his two knees then, and put up a petition to God to send them all light that it was not himself who was guilty.
"Oh, it was not fish that was in your bag at all but meat," said the daughter.
"It was meat perhaps that you put in it, but it was fish that I found in it," says the priest.
When the people heard that, they desired to bring the bag before them, and they found that it was fish in the place of meat that was in it. They gave judgment then to hang the young woman instead of the priest.
She was put up then in place of him to be hanged, and when she was up on the stage, going to be hanged, "Well, you devil," said she, "I'll have you, in heaven or on earth," and with that she was hanged.
The priest went away after that, drawing on home. When he came home he got, after a while, a chapel and a parish, and he was quiet and satisfied, and everybody in the place had a great respect for him, for he was a fine priest in the parish. He was like this for a good while, until a day came when he went to visit a great gentleman who was in that place; just as yourself might come into this garden,[55] or like that, and they were walking outside in the garden, the gentleman and himself. When he was going up a walk in this garden a lady met him, and when she was passing the priest on the walk, she struck a light little blow of her hand on his cheek. It was that lady who had been hanged who was in it, but the priest did not recognise her, [seemingly] alive, and thought she was some other fine lady who was there.
She went then into a summer house, and the priest went in after her, and had a little conversation with her, and it is likely that she beguiled him with melodious conversation and talk before she went out. When she herself and he himself were ready to depart, and when they were separating from one another, she turned to him and said, "you ought to recognize me," said she, "I am the woman that you hanged; I told you that day that I would have you yet, and I shall. I came to you now to damn you." With that she vanished out of his sight.
He gave himself up then; he said that he was damned for ever. He was getting no rest, either by day or by night, with the fear that was on him at her having met him again. He said that it was not in his power either to go back or forward—that he was to be damned for ever. That thought was preying on him day and night.
He went away then, and he went to the Bishop, and he told him the whole story and made his confession to him, and told him how she met him and tempted him. Then the bishop told him that he was damned for ever, and that there was nothing in the world to save him or able to save him.
"I have no hope at all, so?" said the priest.
The bishop said to him, "you have no hope at all, till you get a small load of cambrick needles,"—the finest needles at all—"and get a ship, and go out to sea, and according as you go every hundred yards on the sea you must throw away a needle from you out of the ship. Be going then," says he, "for ever," says he, "until you have thrown away the last of them. Unless you are able to gather them up out of the sea and to bring them all to me back again here, you will be lost for ever."
"Well that's a thing that I never shall do; it fails me to do that," said the priest.
He got the ship and the needles and went out to sea, according as he used to go a piece he used to throw a needle from him. He was going until he was very far away from land, and until he had thrown out the last needle. By the time he had thrown away the last needle, his own food was used up, and he had not a thing to eat. He spent three days then, on end, without bite or sup or drink, or means to come by them.
Then on the third day he saw dry land over from him at a distance. "I shall go," said he, "to yon dry land over there, and perhaps we may get something there that we can eat." The man was on the road to be lost. He drew towards the place and walked out upon the dry land. He spent from twelve o'clock in the day walking until it was eight o'clock at night. Then when the night had fallen black, he found himself in a great wood, and he saw a light at a distance from him in the wood, and he drew towards it. There were twelve little girls there before him and they had a good fire, and he asked of them a morsel to eat for God's sake. Something to eat was got ready for him. After that he got a good supper, and when he had the supper eaten he began to talk to them, telling them how he had left home and what it was he had done out of the way, and the penance that had been put on him by the bishop, and how he had to go out to sea and throw the needles from him.
"God help you, poor man," said one of the women, "it was a hard penance that was put upon you."
Says he, "I am afraid that I shall never go home. I have no hope of it. Have you any idea at all for me down from heaven as to where I shall get a man who will tell me whether I shall save myself from the sins that I have committed?"
"I don't know," said a little girl of them, "but we have mass in this house every day in the year at twelve o'clock. A priest comes here to read mass for us, and unless that priest is able to tell it to you there is no use in your going back for ever."
The poor man was tired then and he went to sleep. Well now, he was that tired that he never felt to get up, and never heard the priest in the house reading mass until the mass was read and priest gone. He awoke then and asked one of the women had the priest come yet. She told him that he had and that he had read mass and was gone again. He was greatly troubled and sorry then after the priest.
Now with fear lest he might not awake next day, he brought in a harrow and he lay down on the harrow in such a way that he would have no means, as he thought, of getting any repose.
But in spite of all that the sleep preyed on him so much that he never felt to get up until mass was read and the priest gone the second day. Now he had two days lost, and the girls told him that unless he got the priest the third day he would have to go away from themselves. He went out then and brought in a bed of briars on which were thorns to wound his skin, and he lay down on them without his shirt in the corner, and with all sorts of torture that he was putting on himself he kept himself awake throughout the night until the priest came. The priest read mass, and when he had it read and he going away, my poor man went up to him and asked him to remain, that he had a story to tell him, and he told him then the way in which he was, and the penance that was on him, and how he had left home, and how he had thrown the needles behind him into the sea, and all that he had gone through of every kind.
It was a saint who was in the priest who read mass, and when he heard all that the other priest had to tell him, "to-morrow," says the saint to him, "go up to such and such a street that was in the town in that country; there is a woman there," says he, "selling fish, and the first fish you take hold of bring it with you. Fourpence the woman will want from you for the fish, and here is the fourpence to give her. And when you have the fish bought, open it up, and there is never a needle of all you threw into the sea that is not inside in its stomach. Leave the fish there behind you, everything you want is in its stomach; bring the needles with you, but leave the fish." The saint went away from him then.
The priest went to that street where the woman was selling fish, as the saint had ordered, and he brought the first fish he took hold of, and opened it up and took out the thing which was in its stomach, and he found the needles there as the saint had said to him. He brought them with him and he left the fish behind him. He turned back until he came to the house again. He spent the night there until morning. He rose next day, and when he had his meal eaten he left his blessing to the women and faced for his own home.
He was travelling then until he came to his own home. When the bishop who had put the penance on him heard that he had come back he went to visit him.
"You have come home?" said the bishop.
"I have," said he.
"And the needles with you?" said the bishop.
"Yes," says the priest, "here they are."
"Why then, the sins that are on me," said the bishop, "are greater than those on you."
The bishop had no rest then until he went to the Pope, and he told him that he had put this penance on the priest, "and I had no expectation that he would come back for ever until he was drowned," said he.
"That same penance that you put upon the priest you must put it on yourself now," said the Pope, "and you must make the same journey. The man is holy," said he.
The bishop went away, and embarked upon the same journey, and never came back since.