'My brother has been a long way in the world,' he said, 'and seen
great wonders. He does be telling us of the people that do come out
to them from Italy, and Spain, and Portugal, and that it is a sort
of Irish they do be talking - not English at all - though it is only a
word here and there you'd understand.'
When we had dug out enough of roots from the deep crannies in the
rocks where they are only to be found, I gave my companion a few
pence, and sent him back to his cottage.
The old man who tells me the Irish poems is curiously pleased with
the translations I have made from some of them.
He would never be tired, he says, listening while I would be reading
them, and they are much finer things than his old bits of rhyme.
Here is one of them, as near the Irish as I am able to make it: -
RUCARD MOR.
I put the sorrow of destruction on the bad luck,
For it would be a pity ever to deny it,
It is to me it is stuck,
By loneliness my pain, my complaining.
It is the fairy-host
Put me a-wandering
And took from me my goods of the world.
At Mannistir na Ruaidthe
It is on me the shameless deed was done:
Finn Bheara and his fairy-host
Took my little horse on me from under the bag.
If they left me the skin
It would bring me tobacco for three months,
But they did not leave anything with me
But the old minister in its place.
Am not I to be pitied?
My bond and my note are on her,
And the price of her not yet paid,
My loneliness, my pain, my complaining.
The devil a hill or a glen, or highest fort
Ever was built in Ireland,
Is not searched on me for my mare;
And I am still at my complaining.
I got up in the morning,
I put a red spark in my pipe.
I went to the Cnoc-Maithe
To get satisfaction from them.
I spoke to them,
If it was in them to do a right thing,
To get me my little mare,
Or I would be changing my wits.
'Do you hear, Rucard Mor?
It is not here is your mare,
She is in Cnoc Bally Brishlawn
With the fairy-men these three months.'
I ran on in my walking,
I followed the road straightly,
I was in Glenasmoil
Before the moon was ended.
I spoke to the fairy-man,
If it was in him to do a right thing,
To get me my little mare,
Or I would be changing my wits.
'Do you hear Rucard Mor?
It is not here is your mare,
She is in Cnoc Bally Brishlawn
With the horseman of the music these three months.'
I ran off on my walking,
I followed the road straightly,
I was in Cnoc Bally Brishlawn
With the black fall of the night.
That is a place was a crowd
As it was seen by me,
All the weavers of the globe,
It is there you would have news of them.
I spoke to the horseman,
If it was in him to do the right thing,
To get me my little mare,
Or I would be changing my wits.
'Do you hear, Rucard Mor?
It is not here is your mare,
She is in Cnoc Cruachan,
In the back end of the palace.'
I ran off on my walking,
I followed the road straightly,
I made no rest or stop
Till I was in face of the palace.
That is the place was a crowd
As it appeared to me,
The men and women of the country,
And they all making merry.
Arthur Scoil (?) stood up
And began himself giving the lead,
It is joyful, light and active,
I would have danced the course with them.
They drew up on their feet
And they began to laugh, -
'Look at Rucard Mor,
And he looking for his little mare.'
I spoke to the man,
And he ugly and humpy,
Unless he would get me my mare
I would break a third of his bones.
'Do you hear, Rucard Mor?
It is not here is your mare,
She is in Alvin of Leinster,
On a halter with my mother.'
I ran off on my walking,
And I came to Alvin of Leinster.
I met the old woman -
On my word she was not pleasing.
I spoke to the old woman,
And she broke out in English:
'Get agone, you rascal,
I don't like your notions.'
'Do you hear, you old woman?
Keep away from me with your English,
But speak to me with the tongue
I hear from every person.'
'It is from me you will get word of her,
Only you come too late -
I made a hunting cap
For Conal Cath of her yesterday.'
I ran off on my walking,
Through roads that were cold and dirty.
I fell in with the fairy-man,
And he lying down in the Ruadthe.
'I pity a man without a cow,
I pity a man without a sheep,
But in the case of a man without a horse
It is hard for him to be long in the world.'
This morning, when I had been lying for a long time on a rock near
the sea watching some hooded crows that were dropping shellfish on
the rocks to break them, I saw one bird that had a large white
object which it was dropping continually without any result.
