Transcript

Bhí Seán 'ac na Mí[1] lá amháin agus bhí sé ag baint arbhair. Agus Lá 'le Mícheál a bhí insa lá. Agus bhí sé gaothach. Bhí gaoth ard[2] ann. Agus bhí an t-arbhar... na gráinneacha sa... (shéid) siad suas chun a bhéil, 'un a aghaidhe. Agus sheasaigh sé suas agus bhí an corrán ina lámh aige agus ar seisean, "Séid, séid, Mícheál na Gaoithe. Sé do dhúshlán an cothán a thabhairt leat."

Translation

John MacNamee was harvesting corn one day. And it was Saint Michael's Day. And it was windy. There was a strong wind. And the corn was... the grains were in... they blew up to his mouth, to his face. And he stood up and he had the sickle in his hand and he said, "Blow, blow, Michael of the Wind. Your challenge is to take the chaff with you."

Footnotes

Commentary

This story is set on 29 September, St Michael's Day. The fact that this feast coincides with the gathering of corn may account for the reaping in the story, but weather lore and the personification of the wind is not usual for Michaelmas. It might have been borrowed from lore surrounding St Bartholomew's Day, 24 August. This feast in Ireland was particularly associated with reapers and flails were prepared for the upcoming harvest. Strong winds on this day were said to be caused by 'Beartlaí na Gaoithe', or 'Bartholomew of the Wind', a manifestation of the saint in wind form who threshed the corn in the fields of lazy reapers. See Kevin Danagher, The year in Ireland (Dublin, 1972), 179.

This item is transcribed also in Heinrich Wagner and Colm Ó Baoill, Linguistic atlas and survey of Irish dialects (4 vols, Dublin, 1958-69), vol. 4, 285, and in Róise Ní Bhaoill, Ulster Gaelic voices: bailiúchán Doegen 1931 (Belfast, 2010), 336-7.