Transcript

Bean í seo nár thug aon iasacht d'éinne riamh a dh'iarr aon rud uirthi. Agus an fear a bhí lena hais, bhriseadh é agus dh'imigh sé, agus tháinig duine eile agus thóg sé an áit. Agus bhí sé ag bualadh ar an eathla lá agus ní raibh aon mhála aige a chuirfeadh sé ar bhéal na meaisíne. Agus dúirt sé leis an mbuachaill dul fé dhéin tamall do mhála ar Bhean Uí Chárthaigh. Agus dúirt an buachaill leis ná raghadh mar nár thug sí aon rud d'éinne riamh a dh'iarradh uirthi.

Nach[1] chuaigh sé féin fé dhéin an mhála. Agus nuair a chuaigh sé ' dtí an doras bhí sí istigh ina (seasamh) sa chistin. Agus shid[2] é mar a dúirt sé:

"Mór agus Muire dhuit, a mháthair na gCárthach,
A bhean bheag shoineanta (shiosmaire) shásta;
Is fear bocht dealbh mé go bhfuil capaill ar pá agam;
Agus tabhair don teachtaire tamall do mhála;
Briseadh ná brú ní bhainfidh dod mhála;
Cuirfidh mé tuí agus aiteann idir[3] é (is an lámh so)
Agus beidh sé sa mbaile chughat an t-am so amáireach."

"Geobhair é sin agus fáilthe."

Translation

This was a woman who never loaned anything to anyone who asked anything of her. And the man who lived beside her, he was evicted (?) and he left, and another person came and took the holding. And he was thrashing in the haggard one day and he did not have a sack to put on the opening of the machine. And he told the boy to go to Mrs Carty to ask for a loan of a sack. And the boy told him that he would not as she never gave anything to anyone who asked of her.

But he went himself to ask for the sack. And when he went to the door she was inside standing (?) in the kitchen. And this is how he spoke:

"Good day to you, mother of the Cartys,
O pleasant (...) happy little woman;
I am a poor destitute man who has hired horses;
And give to the messenger a loan of a sack;
Your sack will not be torn or crushed;
I will put hay and furze between it and this hand (?)
And you will have it back this time tomorrow."

"You are welcome to it."

Footnotes

Commentary

This anecdote is of a type common in oral tradition regarding poets. Since earliest times, poets were given a privileged position in society, and the high regard for poetry continued long after the decline of the Bardic order at the end of the medieval period. There are many traditional narratives concerning poets, and the effects of their poetry. See Dáithí Ó hÓgáin, The lore of Ireland (Cork, 2006), 426-30.

In this instance, a mean woman is convinced to be generous by a praise poem. It may be loosely related to a motif that is of considerable antiquity in Ireland, P427.7.8. Poet rewarded for poem, although the connection is tenuous. See Tom Peete Cross, Motif-index of early Irish literature (Bloomington, Ind., 1952). In the earlier motif, a poet is rewarded by a queen for a praise poem, and is first recorded in a thirteenth-century text regarding Fergus mac Léti. See Standish H. O'Grady, Silva Gadelica (2 vols, London, 1892), vol. 2, 269–85.

It is perhaps worth mentioning the construct used by the man in the story to greet Bean an Chárthaigh. He says 'Mór agus Muire dhuit', a common enough expression in the Irish language. The Muire in question is Mary, the mother of Jesus from Christian tradition. Identifying the first word is a little more difficult. In some versions of the expression, as in the case above, the word is Mór, while in others, Móra is used. Tomás Ó Máille sees the expression as coming from the English word 'morrow', as in the expression 'good morrow'. See Tomás Ó Máille, An Béal Beo (Dublin, 1936; 3rd ed., Dublin, 2002), 2. Others identify Mór as a female name, and that the name may be latinised as Morina, or anglicised as Martha or Mary. See Donnchadh Ó Corráin and Fidelma Maguire, Irish names (Dublin, 1981), 139. The ultimate origin of the name likely lies with the mythological personage of Mór, as found in folklore and medieval literary tradition, particularly in material relating to Munster. The Mór of mythology is remembered in placename lore and Irish language phrases, and the possibility exists that this is the origin of the blessing uttered by the man in the first line of his poem. See Dáithí Ó hÓgáin, op. cit., 359.

A transcription of this track appears in Máirtín Verling, Leabhar Mhaidhc Dháith (An Daingean, 2007), 501. Another version, taken from the same speaker in 1948, appears ibid., 391.