The Gambler did that. He went in, and has forgotten ever since to come out for them.
That is the way the Gambler of the Branch went to heaven, and that is the reason that when a slow messenger delays in the house he has been sent to with a message, people say, "You forgot to return as the Gambler of the Branch did."
THE BEETLE, THE DHARDHEEL, AND THE PRUMPOLAUN.
PREFACE.
I have often heard versions of the following story. This particular one was written down in Irish by my friend Domhnall O Fotharta of Connemara, who printed it in his "Siamsa an gheimhridh" in 1892.
My friend the O'Cathain tells me that the reason the dardaol (pronounced in Mid-Connacht dhardheel) is burnt, is because if you stamp on it with your foot, or kill it with a stone or a stick, then the next time your foot or the stick or the stone strikes a person or an animal it will give rise to a mortal injury. That is the reason the dardaol is taken up on a shovel and put in the fire, or else destroyed by a hot coal.
The scientific name of the dardaol is "ocypus olens," in English he is sometimes called the "devil's coach-horse." He is really a useful creature and very voracious. He preys on most insects injurious to farm crops. He is very fearless and assumes an attitude of attack when interfered with, opening his jaws and turning his long tail over his back as if to sting. This looks very formidable and intimidating, but the fact is that, in common with the rest of the beetle tribe, he has no sting.
I had the good fortune to twice see a dardaol kill a worm. On each occasion the creature sprang into the air in a manner I could not have conceived possible, and came down on the uphappy worm. It never loosed its hold, but held on for nearly ten minutes, the worm struggling and swelling all the time, until it finally appeared to be dead. One of these dardaols was quite small, not much over three-quarters of an inch, but the other one was very large, an inch and a half or so, and the worm it killed might have been 3¼ or 4 inches long.