He said he had no charter but the bull of the race of stoop-headed Conor Mac Lopus of Cavan to the Vicarage of Leargan,--the will of the people.
They swore by the God of the elements that he never could have a better charter than that, and they bound themselves by the sun and the moon to defend that parish for him to the end of his term and his life. And they did so.
And now Archy, the story which does not concern a smotàn (?) is good, for it is you that the application of this story concerns, and it is the good advice to you to take the same grade of priesthood, and if blows of a stick be struck on you, it is small damage compared with every comfort and ease that you will get on the head of it, and in addition to every other advice I have given you, here are a couple of little ranns for you which shall be in your memory continually, so that they may be a good help in every pinch that is before you. * * * * *
I wrote down this story carefully from the mouth of Mártain Ruadh O Giollarnáth from near Monivea, Co. Galway. He had no English. The story is a well-known one. It is the basis of Father O'Leary's delightful book "Séadna." It has been examined at great length with much learning and perspicacity by Carl Marstrander in the Miscellany presented to Kuno Meyer, pp. 386 ff., to which I refer the reader.
According to a Donegal story, called "Domhnall O Dochartaigh," taken down and given me by the late Mr. Larminie, Death is the being who is tricked. But, according to a Galway story which I heard, the Tinker had a son whose godfather was Death. He became a doctor and cured everybody at whose feet he saw Death standing. Death gave him leave to do this. Attracted one day by a huge bribe he turned round the bed where the patient lay so that Death, who had been at the patient's head with intent that he should die, was now at the patient's foot, who consequently recovered. After this Death is tricked in much the same way as the Devil in our story.
They were poor, both of them, the man and his wife. The man had no other means in the world except his day's pay, going here and going there, and earning his day's wages from place to place.
The beginning of the harvest was come now, and he went in to the wife and said to her--Elleesh was the wife's name--"Elleesh," says he, "stand up," says he, "and make ready my meal for me until I go to Kildare to-morrow."