PRAYER AFTER TOBACCO.

PREFACE.

There is at times a certain connection between the use of tobacco and the solemn presence of the dead. Both snuff and tobacco for smoking are handed round at wakes. Pipes and tobacco are, in fact, the principal portion of the equipment of the corp-house. To the present moment when one accepts a pinch of snuff it is customary to say in Irish, "the blessing of God be with the souls of your dead." I have heard this a hundred times. But I never heard the tobacco prayer except once or twice from very old people; and, in spite of this story, I don't believe that it was ever in any way usual to say a prayer over tobacco except perhaps in some isolated parts of the country. All I can say is that I have never heard it said spontaneously. This story was written down word for word for me by my friend Mr. John Mac Neill from the recitation of Michael Mac Rury or Rogers, from Ballycastle, in the County Mayo. The tobacco prayer[78] translated, runs as follows:—

Eighteen fulls of the churchyard of Patrick, of the mantle[79] of Brigit, of the tomb of Christ, of the palace of Rome, of the church of God, be with thy soul (and with the soul of him above whose head was this tobacco),[80] and with the souls of the dead in Purgatory all together.

May not more numerous be
The grains of sand by the sea,
Or the blades of grass on the lea,
Or the drops of dew on the tree,
Than the blessings upon thy soul
And the souls of the dead with thee,
And my soul when the life shall flee.

It is for God to give shelter, light, and the glory of the heavens to the souls of the dead of Purgatory.

The story was evidently invented with the didactic intention of encouraging the use of prayer, and of inculcating the truth that just as we ought to be thankful to God for our meals, so ought we to be thankful to Him for our tobacco, and for all the good things of life.

THE STORY.

There was a woman in it long ago, and she had an only son. When he came to age she sent him to college, and made a priest of him. After his coming from the college he was a short little while at home; and he was one day walking out in the garden when there came a saint [in the air] over his head, and spoke down to him, and told the priest that he himself and all who belonged to him were damned on account of his mother.

The priest asked him what was the crime his mother had committed, and the saint told him that she was smoking tobacco for twelve years and had never said the tobacco prayer all that time.