A common saying about a person of persuasive tongue or with a beautiful voice in singing:--'He would coax the birds off the bushes.' This is borrowed from the Irish. In the 'Lament of Richard Cantillon' (in Irish) he says that at the musical voice of the lady 'the seals would come up from the deep, the stag down from the mist-crag, and the thrush from the tree.' (Petrie: 'Anc. Mus. of Ireland.')
Of a noted liar and perjurer it was said 'He would swear that a coal porter was a canary.' { 121}
A man who is unlucky, with whom everything goes wrong:--'If that man got a hen to hatch duck eggs, the young ducks would be drowned.' Or again, 'If that man sowed oats in a field, a crop of turnips would come up.' Or: 'He is always in the field when luck is on the road.'
The following expression is often heard:--'Ah, old James Buckley is a fine piper: _I'd give my eyes_ to be listening to him.'
That fellow is so dirty that if you flung him against a wall he'd stick. (Patterson: Ulster.)
Two young men are about to set off to seek their fortunes, leaving their young brother Rory to stay with their mother. But Rory, a hard active merry cute little fellow, proposes to go with them:--'I'll follow ye to the world's end.' On which the eldest says to him--a half playful threat:--'You presumptious little atomy of a barebones, if I only see the size of a thrush's ankle of you follyin' us on the road, I'll turn back and bate that wiry and freckled little carcase of yours into frog's-jelly!' (Robert Dwyer Joyce: 'The Building of Mourne.')
'Did Johnny give you any of his sugar-stick?' 'Oh not very much indeed: hardly the size of a thrush's ankle.' This term is often used.
Of a very morose sour person you will hear it said:--'If that man looked at a pail of new milk he'd turn it into curds and whey.'
A very thin man, or one attenuated by sickness:--'You could blow him off your hand.'
A poor fellow complains of the little bit of meat he got for his dinner:--'It was no more than a daisy in a bull's mouth!' Another says of _his_ dinner { 122} when it was in his stomach:--'It was no more than a midge in the Glen of the Downs.'
Exhorting a messenger to be quick:--'Don't be there till you're back again.' Another way:--'Now run as quick as you can, and if you fall don't wait to get up.' Warning a person to be expeditious in any work you put him to:--'Now don't let grass grow under your feet.' Barney urging on the ass to go quickly:--'Come Bobby, don't let grass grow under your feet.' ('Knocknagow.')