“Sludhering Shawn, soothering Shawn,
Traitor, on whom all the girls still doat,
Sal, Peggy, and Sue have reason to rue
The day they beheld your bright eyes of blue,
And your swaggering gait, and the rogue in your coat.”
Translated from the Irish by J. J. Bourke.
AN IRISH STORY-TELLER.
Meehawl Theige Oge (Murphy) was the name of the man of whom I speak. Though small in stature, he himself deemed that there never lived a more powerful man. He was not fond of speaking truth, as may be easily learnt from the following story.
He lived near Miskish, and reclaimed as much land at the base of this hill as afforded pasture to a cow or two. This, he often swore, he made so fertile that it would grow potatoes without sowing them at all. Somebody once asked him how were the new potatoes. “I’ll tell you, then,” says he. “I was setting down yesterday west there near the end of wan of the ridges, and I heard the sweetest music that ever a singer made. Wid the hate (heat) of the sun, ’tis how the knapawns[31] were fighting wid aich other, and they making noise and they saying like this:—
“‘Move out from me and don’t crush me so,