But an Aran man has told me: 'No, this is a very serious song; it was meant to praise the girl, and to tell what a loss she had in the comb.'
I am told that the song that makes most mirth in Aran is 'The Carrageen'; the day-dream of an old woman, too old to carry out her purpose, of all she will buy when she has gathered a harvest of the Carrageen moss, used by invalids:—
'If I had two oars and a little boat of my own, I would go pulling the Carrageen; I would dry it up in the sun; I would bring a load of it to Galway; it would go away in the train, to pay the rent to Robinson, and what is over would be my own.
'It is long I am hearing talk of the Carrageen, and I never knew what it was. If I spent the last spring-tide at it, and I to take care of myself, I would buy a gown and a long cloak and a wide little shawl; that, and a dress cap, with frills on every side like feathers.'
'(This is what the Calleac said, that was over a hundred years old:—)
'"I lost the last spring-tide with it, and I went into sharp danger. I did not know what the Carrageen was, or anything at all like it; but I will have tobacco from this out, if I lose the half of my fingers!"'
This is a little song addressed by a fisherman to his little boat, his curragh-cin:—
'There goes my curragh-cin, it is she will get the prize; she will he to-night in America, and back again with the tide....
'I put pins of oak in her, and oars of red pine; and I made her ready for sailing; for she is the six-oared curragh-cin that never gave heed to the storm; and it is she will be coming to land, when the sailing boats will be lost.