TEIG O'KANE (TADHG O CÁTHÁIN) AND THE CORPSE.
PREFACE.
This story of Teig (in the ballad "Tomaus" O'Cahan or O'Kane) and the corpse, was told to me nearly thirty years ago by an old man from near Fenagh in the County Leitrim, whom I met paying his rent to a relative of mine in the town of Mohill. He must have been one of the last Irish speakers in that district. There does not appear to be a trace of Irish left there now. I did not write down the story from his lips, but wrote it out afterwards from memory. I took down the ballad, however, from his recitation so far as he had it; and I afterwards came across a written version of it in the handwriting of Nicholas O'Kearney, of the County Louth. The ballad as written by him coincides pretty closely with my version, but breaks off apparently in the middle, as though O'Kearney had not time to finish the rest of it. The first twenty-three verses are from O'Kearney's version, the rest are from mine. O'Kearney remarks in English at the top of the page: "The following fragment is one of our wild fairy adventures versified ... the fragment is preserved on account of the singular wildness of the air."
The only other Irish poem nearly in the same metre which I know of is a poem by Cormac Dall, or Cormac Common, which my friend Dr. Maguire, of Claremorris, took down the other day from the recitation of an old man.
It is on Halloweve night that one is especially liable to adventures like those of Tomaus O'Cahan, but it is well known that all gamblers coming home at night are exposed to such perils.
THE STORY.
There was once a grown-up lad in the County Leitrim, and he was strong and lively, and the son of a rich farmer. His father had plenty of money, and he did not spare it on the son. Accordingly, when the boy grew up he liked sport better than work, and, as his father had no other children, he loved this one so much that he allowed him to do in everything just as it pleased himself. He was very extravagant, and he used to scatter the gold money as another person would scatter the white. He was seldom to be found at home, but if there was a fair, or a race, or a gathering within ten miles of him, you were dead certain to find him there. And he seldom spent a night in his father's house, but he used to be always out rambling, and, like Shawn Bwee long ago, there was
"grádh gach cailín i mbrollach a léine,"
"the love of every girl in the breast of his shirt," and it's many's the kiss he got and he gave, for he was very handsome, and there wasn't a girl in the country but would fall in love with him, only for him to fasten his two eyes on her, and it was for that someone made this rann on him—