“When my minstrelsy here is done, I will go with thee,” saith the head; “but only if Christ, the Son of God, in whose presence I now am, go with me, and if thou takest me to my body again.” “That shall be done, indeed,” saith the messenger, and when it had ceased chanting for the King of Erin he carried away the head.
When the messenger came again amongst the warriors they stopped their feasting and gathered round him. “Hast thou brought anything from the battle-field?” they cried.
“I have brought the head of Donn-bo,” said the man.
“Set it upon a pillar that we may see and hear it,” cried they all; and they said, “It is no luck for thee to be like that, Donn-bo, and thou the most beautiful minstrel and the best in Erin. Make music, for the love of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Amuse the Leinster men to-night as thou didst amuse thy lord a while ago.”
Then Donn-bo turned his face to the wall, that the darkness might be around him, and he raised his melody in the quiet night; and the sound of that minstrelsy was so piteous and sad that the hosts sat weeping at the sound of it. Then was the head taken to his body, and the neck joined itself to the shoulders again, and Donn-bo was at rest.
This is the story of the “Talking Head of Donn-bo.”
Eleanor Hull.
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| I wrote this story carefully down, word for word, from the telling of two men—the first, Shawn Cunningham, of Ballinphuil, and the second, Martin Brennan of Ballinlocha, in the barony of Frenchpark. They each told the same story, but Martin Brennan repeated the end of it at greater length than the other. The first half is written down word for word from the mouth of Cunningham, the second half from that of Brennan. An Chraoibhin Aoibhinn. |