"What will I be able to do for you to save you?"
"Get the axe," says Friar Brian to him, "take the head off me," says he, "and cut me up then as fine as tobacco."[76]
He did that, and Friar Brian repented then, and he was saved.
He suffered himself to be cut as fine as tobacco on account of all he had ever done out of the way. There now, that was the end of Friar Brian.
HOW THE FIRST CAT WAS CREATED.
PREFACE.
I got the following story from my friend Dr. Conor Maguire, of Claremorris. It explains how the first cat and first mouse were created. I heard many such stories explaining the origin of this thing or the other from the Red Indians in Canada, but, of course, none of them had anything to say to Christianity. It is impossible to tell the age of this legend, but it may be taken for granted that such themes were common in Pagan times just as they are amongst the Red Men to-day, and it may well be that this story in its origin is older than Christianity itself, and that a saint may have taken the place of an enchanter when the people became Christians. I think it is pretty certain that this story originally concerned only the flour—the food of man—and the mice—the enemy of the flour—and the cat—the enemy of the mice; and that the mention of the sow and her litter is a late and stupid interpolation.