Transcript

Chas dís fear ar an bhóthar ar a chéile lá amháin. Agus deir aon fhear amháin leis an fhear eile, "An bhfuil scéala úr ar bith inniu agad?"

"Níl focal."

"Nach dtiocfadh leat bréag féin a ársú?" arsa seisean.

"Cha dtiocfadh, maise."

"Thiocfadh liomsa," arsa seisean. "Char chuala mé aon scéal ariamh nach dtiocfadh liom leasú Gobáin a chur air."

"Bhuel, cha dtiocfadh liomsa sin a dhéanamh," arsa seisean. "Bhuel, bhí... Dóigheadh an fharraige aréir. An dtiocfadh leat léasú Gobáin a chur ar sin?"

"Thiocfadh, fosta," arsa seisean. "Chuaigh lód scadáin bruite dóite suas an bóthar inniu," arsa seisean, "a tháinig (as) (...) dhóite."

Translation

Two men met on the road one day. And one man said to the other man, "Have you any news today?"

"Not a word."

"Could you not even tell a lie?" he said.

"I could not, indeed."

"I could," said he. "I never heard a story that I couldn't improve on."

"Well, I couldn't do that," he said. "Well, there was... The sea burnt last night. Could you better that?"

"I could indeed," he said. "A load of burnt herring came up the road today," he said, "that came out of (?) (...) burnt."

Commentary

This short story appears to be a variant of an international folktale, ATU 1920A The sea burns. See Hans Jorg Uther, The types of international folktales: a classification and bibliography (3 vols, Helsinki, 2004). This variant is itself based on an international motif, X908 Lie: sea has burned up. See Stith Thompson, Motif-index of folk literature (rev. and englarged ed., 6 vols, Bloomington, Ind., 1955-8). Many examples of this story, including other variants, are recorded in Irish tradition under the title 1920 Contest in lying. See Seán Ó Súilleabháin and Rieder Th. Christiansen, The types of the Irish folktale (Helsinki 1968). There is specific reference in the text to what is called 'leasú Gobáin' ('Gobán's improvement'). This may refer to an episode in the lore of the quasi-mythological figure of the Gobán Saor. In the episode, the Gobán asks his son to 'shorten the road', meaning to tell him a story. This is likely what is referred to here as 'leasú Gobáin', the ability to tell a tale. See Dáithí Ó hÓgáin, Myth, legend and romance (New York, 1991), 242.

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, 290, and in Róise Ní Bhaoill, Ulster Gaelic voices: bailiúchán Doegen 1931 (Belfast, 2010), 218-19.