“We can’t say that, Barney; but, however, we’re at home when you’re here.”
“Well, I’ll tell you. St Keeran was, may be, next to St Patrick himself, one of the greatest saints in Ireland, but any rate we may put him next to St Columkill. Now, you see, when he was building the church of Ballynasaggart, it came to pass that there arose a great famine in the land, an’ the saint found it hard to feed the workmen where there was no vittles. What to do, he knew not, an’ by coorse he was at a sad amplush, no doubt of it. At length says he, ‘Boys, we’re all hard set at present, an’ widout food bedad we can’t work; but if you observe my directions, we’ll contrive to have a bit o’ mate in the mean time, an’, among ourselves, it was seldom more wanted, for, to tell you the thruth, I never thought my back an’ belly would become so well acquainted. For the last three days they haven’t been asunder, an’ I find they are perfectly willing to part as soon as possible, an’ would be glad of any thing that ’ud put betune them.’
Now, the fact was, that, for drawin’ timber an’ stones, an’ all the necessary matayrials for the church, they had but one bullock, an’ him St Keeran resolved to kill in the evening, an’ to give them a fog meal of him. He accordingly slaughtered him with his own hands, ‘but,’ said he to the workmen, ‘mind what I say, boys: if any one of you breaks a single bone, even the smallest, or injures the hide in the laste, you’ll destroy all; an’ my sowl to glory but it’ll be worse for you besides.’
He then took all the flesh off the bones, but not till he had boiled them, of coorse; afther which he sewed them up again in the skin, an’ put them in the shed, wid a good wisp o’ straw before them; an’ glory be to God, what do you think, but the next mornin’ the bullock was alive, an’ in as good condition as ever he was in during his life! Betther fed workmen you couldn’t see, an’, bedad, the saint himself got so fat an’ rosy that you’d scarcely know him to be the same man afther it. Now, this went on for some time: whenever they wanted mate, the bullock was killed, an’ the bones an’ skin kept safe as before. At last it happened that a long-sided fellow among them named M’Mahon, not satisfied wid his allowance of the mate, took a fancy to have a lick at the marrow, an’ accordingly, in spite of all the saint said, he broke one of the legs an’ sucked the marrow out of it. But behold you!—the next day when they went to yoke the bullock, they found that he was useless, for the leg was broken an’ he couldn’t work. This, to be sure, was a sad misfortune to them all, but it couldn’t be helped, an’ they had to wait till betther times came; for the truth is, that afther the marrow is broken, no power of man could make the leg as it was before until the cure is brought about by time. However, the saint was very much vexed, an’ good right he had. ‘Now, M’Mahon,’ says he to the guilty man, ‘I ordher it, an’ prophesy that the church we’re building will never fall till it falls upon the head of some one of your name, if it was to stand a thousand years. Mark my words, for they must come to pass.’
An’ sure enough you know as well as I do that it’s all down long ago wid the exception of a piece of the wall, that’s not standin’ but hangin’, widout any visible support in life, an’ only propped up by the prophecy. It can’t fall till a M’Mahon comes undher it; but although there’s plenty of the name in the neighbourhood, ten o’ the strongest horses in the kingdom wouldn’t drag one of them widin half a mile of it. There, now, is the prophecy that belongs to the hangin’ wall of Ballynasaggart church.”
“But, Barney, didn’t you say something about the winged woman that flewn to the wildherness?”
“I did; that’s a deep point, an’ it’s few that undherstands it. The baste wid seven heads an’ ten horns is to come; an’ when he was to make his appearance, it was said to be time for them that might be alive then to go to their padareens.”
“What does the seven heads and ten horns mane, Barney?”
“Why, you see, as I am informed from good authority, the baste has come, an’ it’s clear from the ten horns that he could be no other than Harry the Eighth, who was married to five wives, an’ by all accounts they strengthened an’ ornamented him sore against his will. Now, set in case that each o’ them—five times two is ten—hut! the thing’s as clear as crystal. But I’ll prove it betther. You see the woman wid the two wings is the church, an’ she flew into the wildherness at the very time Harry the Eighth wid his ten horns on him was in his greatest power.”
“Bedad that’s puttin’ the explanations to it in great style.”