“Now, boys, ye’re striving to puzzle me; and I’ll engage none of ye can answer something that I’ll ask ye, now.”
“What is it, Corney? Let’s hear it!”
“How many grains of oatenmale are contained in one given square foot of stirabout?”
This is, in its turn, a poser; but probably the number of schemes, tricks, and contrivances, in an Irish cranium, might be found as hard to be enumerated as the grains of meal in the aforesaid foot of stirabout!
Thus, while around the blazing turf fire, on a winter’s evening, the story, the pipe, and the joke, take their rounds by turn, you will invariably discover that that tale always gains a double share of applause which may contain a relation of some clever successful scheme or trick, or the “sayings and doings” of some remarkably clever fellow, albeit perhaps a great rogue; in fact, such stories as these are suited to the conceptions and tastes of a shrewd and ready-witted people.
But without tiring my reader with any more “shanachus,” for so we term “palaver” in Clare, let me endeavour to present him with one of these very stories, which, if it boasteth not of much interest, may perhaps amuse him by its originality. Honour to that man, whomsoever he may be, who first rescued these curious legends from oblivion, and found in our Irish Penny Journal an excellent repository for their safer preservation!
The reader must not be surprised if my story contains a slight dash of the marvellous, probably bordering on the hyperbolical; but this, which I verily believe is but a kind of ornament, something superadded by the genius of the narrators, as it has descended, must be taken as it is meant, and will in most instances be found capable of translation, as it were, into language easily and naturally to be explained.
A very long time ago, then, somewhere in the western part of the province of Munster, lived, in a small and wretched cabin, a poor widow, named Moireen Mera. She had three sons, two of whom were fine young men; but the third—and of him we shall soon hear a good deal—though strong and active, was of a lazy disposition, which resulted, as his mother at least always thought, not so much from any fault of his own, as from his natural foolishness of character; in fact, she really considered him as of that class called in Ireland “naturals.” But before we say anything of the third son, let us trace the histories of his two elder brothers.
Now, the first, whose name was Mihal More, or Michael Big Fellow, either that he considered the small spot of land which his mother held quite unable to support the family, or was actuated by some desire to improve his condition away from home, never let his mother rest one moment until she had consented to his starting, in order that he might, as he said, should he fall in with a good master, return, and perhaps make her comfortable for the remainder of her days.
To this plan, after much hesitation, Moireen Mera at length agreed, and the day was fixed by Mihal for starting. “And, mother,” said he, “though you have but little left, and it is wrong to deprive you of it, if you would but bake me a fine cake of wheaten bread, and if you could but spare me one of the hens—ah! that would be too much to ask!—against the long road; could you, mother?”