Transcript

Bhí fear thíos anseo ar Thoigh Bán Luí na Gréine a bheir siad Paidí Ó Lochráin air. Agus bhí sé ag treabhadh aon lá amháin áiridhe, é féin agus a chomrádaí. Bhí seisean ag coinneált an mhaide[1] agus bhí an comrádaí ag tiomáint na gcaiple. Nuair a tháinig scairt orthu chun a ndinnéara, d'amharc[2] sé síos 'uig a chois agus bhí sé i ndéidh crocán óir a nochtadh.

"Anois, rachaidh muid 'na mbaile[3]," arsa seisean leis an fhear, "ag ár ndinnéar, ár ndinnéar." "Chan (ársaim aon) dadaí bhua[4] seo dó," a deir sé, "for[5] a chaithfinn (páirt den airgead) a thabhairt dó."

Fuaidh siad 'na mbaile 'uig a ndinnéar agus tháinig sé ar ais chun an crocán óir a thógáilt é féin 'air[6] a bhí an dinnéar thart. Agus 'air a tháinig sé ar ais chun an chnoic bhí an cnoc uilig falaiste[7] le maidí seisrí. Agus chuaigh sé ón chionn amháin go dtí an cionn eile ag cuartú a chionn féin. Má tá, cha dtiocfadh leis a dhéanamh amach for a bhí siad uilig cosúil lena chionn féin.

Nuair[8] a bhí sé corthaí ag cuartú, d'fhág na maidí seisrí uilig an cnoc ach a chionn féin, agus 'air a d'amharc sé bhí a chionn féin aige. Má tá, cha rabh aon dadaí den chrocán óir, bhí sé ar shiúl comh maith le na[9] maidí seisrí. Thiontaigh sé 'na mbaile agus bhí an t-airgead caillte aige. (Ní thiocfadh leis) aon leithphínn de a thabhairt don fhear bhocht a bhí ag tiomáint na gcaiple.

Translation

There was a man down here at Teebane West who was called Paddy Loughran. And he was ploughing this one day, himself and a friend. He was holding the (ploughing) stick and his friend was directing the horses. When they were called to dinner, he looked down at his foot and he had just unearthed a crock of gold.

"Now, we'll go home," he said to the other man, "to our dinner, our dinner." "I won't say anything to him about this," he said, "for I'd have to give him some of the money."

They went home to their dinner and he came back to take the crock of gold himself when the dinner was over. And when he returned to the hill the whole hill was covered with ploughs. And he went from one to the other looking for his own. However, he couldn't distinguish it for they were all identical to his own one.

When he was fed up searching, all the ploughs disappeared from the hill but his own, and when he looked he had it. However, there was no sign of the crock of gold, it had disappeared along with the ploughs. He turned for home and he had lost the money. He couldn't even (?) give a halfpenny to the poor man who was driving the horses.

Footnotes

Commentary

This is a version of a legend that is well known in Ireland, which usually, though not in this case, involves a leprechaun as well as a cache of buried treasure. For further examples and a list of print versions, see Diarmuid Ó Giolláin, 'The leipreachán and fairies, dwarfs and the household familiar: a comparative study', Béaloideas 52 (1984), 75-150: 85. The central theme of the story sees the site of the treasure marked, but when the finder returns, there are many other markers placed in the area, making retrieval impossible. It is ultimately based on an international motif, K415 Marked culprit marks everyone else and escapes detection. See Stith Thompson, Motif-index of folk literature (rev. and enlarged ed., 6 vols, Bloomington, Ind., 1955-8).

This story is transcribed in Heinrich Wagner and Colm Ó Baoill, Linguistic atlas and survey of Irish dialects (4 vols, Dublin, 1958-69), vol. 4, 288, and in Róise Ní Bhaoill, Ulster Gaelic voices: bailiúchán Doegen 1931 (Belfast, 2010), 204-6.