PHELIM AND THE EAGLE
On my getting up in the morning
And I bothered, on a Sunday,
I put my brogues on me,
And I going to Tierny
In the Glen of the Dead People.
It is there the big eagle fell in with me,
He like a black stack of turf sitting up stately.
I called him a lout and a fool,
The son of a female and a fool,
Of the race of the Clan Cleopas, the biggest rogues in the land.
That and my seven curses
And never a good day to be on you,
Who stole my little cock from me that could crow the sweetest.
'Keep your wits right in you
And don't curse me too greatly,
By my strength and my oath
I never took rent of you,
I didn't grudge what you would have to spare
In the house of the burnt pigeons,
It is always useful you were to men of business.
'But get off home
And ask Nora
What name was on the young woman that scalded his head.
The feathers there were on his ribs
Are burnt on the hearth,
And they eat him and they taking and it wasn't much were thankful.'
'You are a liar, you stealer,
They did not eat him, and they're taking
Nor a taste of the sort without being thankful,
You took him yesterday
As Nora told me,
And the harvest quarter will not be spent till I take a tax of you.'
'Before I lost the Fianna
It was a fine boy I was,
It was not about thieving was my knowledge,
But always putting spells,
Playing games and matches with the strength of Gol MacMorna,
And you are making me a rogue
At the end of my life.'
'There is a part of my father's books with me,
Keeping in the bottom of a box,
And when I read them the tears fall down from me.
But I found out in history
That you are a son of the Dearg Mor,
If it is fighting you want and you won't be thankful.'
The Eagle dressed his bravery
With his share of arms and his clothes,
He had the sword that was the sharpest
Could be got anywhere.
I and my scythe with me,
And nothing on but my shirt,
We went at each other early in the day.
We were as two giants
Ploughing in a valley in a glen of the mountains.
We did not know for the while which was the better man.
You could hear the shakes that were on our arms under each other,
From that till the sunset,
Till it was forced on him to give up.