Transcript

Nuair a bhí mise i mo dhiúlach óg bhí mé ar aimsir ag feilmeoir thuas in áit a dtugann siad Paiteagó air. Fear óg a bhí ann agus bhí bean an-dóighiúil aige. Agus nuair a bhí sinn amuigh ag obair bhíodh sé i dtólamh ag inse domh féin dá dtigeadh dadaí airsan go bhfaigheadh an bhean bás. Bhínn féin ag magadh air agus deirinn leis, "Dheamhan dheor a d'fhágfadh í."

"D'fhágfadh," a déarfadh sé. "Gheobhadh sí bás roimhe[1] cheann míosa."

"Ní bhfaigheadh. Bheadh sí marbh[2] roimhe cheann míosa."

Ach lá amháin bhí mé bodhar ag éisteacht leis agus deirimsa leis, "Cuirfidh mé geall leat go bpósfadh sí roimhe cheann míosa."

"Ní phósfadh. Bheadh sí marbh roimhe cheann míosa."

"Maith go leor," a deirim féin. "Tchífimid."

An oíche seo, nuair a bhí muid ag goil abhaile, chaith mé féin isteach insa cheart[3] é agus chaith mé mo chóta mór ina mhullach agus thiomáin mé liom go dteachaigh[4] mé 'un an bhaile. Nuair a chuaigh mé 'na[5] bhaile tháinig an bhean amach agus d'fhiosraigh sí domh, "Cá háit a bhfuil Seán?"

"Ó," deirimsa, "tá Seán bocht marbh. Loiteadh é agna[6] chuid oibre."

Thoisigh sí ag caoineadh agus chaoin sí léithe fada go leor. Fá dheireadh, nuair a bhí a sáith caointe aici chuidigh sí liom féin é a iompar isteach agus d'fhág muid ina luí[7] insa leabaidh é. Shuigh sí a chos[8] na tineadh[9] agus bhí... thoisigh sí ag caoineadh ar ais. Nuair a bhí a sáith caointe aici, deir sí liom féin, "Ar labhair sé focal ar bith sulma[10] bhfuair sé bás?"

"Labhair."

"Maise," a deir sí, "goidé a dúirt sé?"

"Dúirt sé gur cheart duitse agus domh féin pósadh, ná nach rabh fear ar bith eile a rabh fios na hoibre aige fán teach seo ní b'fhearr ná thú."

Thóg sí maide briste agus thug sí iarraidh den mhaide bhriste orm. Agus thoisigh sí ag caoineadh ar ais. Agus nuair a bhí a sáith caointe aici bhain sí a naprún anuas dena súile agus a deir sí, "Creidim go rabh an ceart aige. Creidim go mb'fhearr dúinn pósadh."

Bhí an fear a bhí ina luí insa leabaidh a shíl sise a bhí marbh, léim sé amach agus thug sé mo thuarastal dúbailte domhsa agus d'fhág mise é féin agus a bhean ansin go slán folláin.

Translation

When I was a young lad I was in the service of a farmer up in a place they call Pettigo. He was a young man and he had a very beautiful wife. An when we were out working he would always be saying to me that if anything happened to him that the wife would die. I would be mocking him and I'd say to him, "No tear would she shed."

"She would," he would say. "She would die within a month."

"She wouldn't. She would be [married] within a month."

But one day I was deaf from listening to him and I said to him, "I bet you that she would be married within a month."

"She would not marry. She would be dead within a month."

"Fair enough," I said. "We'll see."

This night, when we were going home, I threw him into the cart and I threw my coat over him and I drove on until I went home. When I went home the wife came out and she asked me, "Where is John?"

"Oh," I said, "poor John is dead. He was injured at work."

She started crying and she cried for long enough. In the end, when she had cried her fill she helped me carry him in and we left him lying in the bed. She sat beside the fire and she... she started crying again. When she had cried her fill, she said to me, "Did he say anything before he died?"

"He did."

"Well," she said, "what did he say?"

"He said that you and I should marry, because there was no other man who knows the work around this house better than you."

She picked up the tongs and she went for me with it. And she started crying again. And when she had cried her fill he took the apron down from her eyes and she said, "I believe he was right. I believe we should marry."

The man who was lying in the bed whom she thought was dead, he jumped out and the gave me my double pay and I left himself and his wife there hale and hearty.

Footnotes

Commentary

Although this story is presented as a personal anecdote, it is clearly an example of an international folktale, ATU 1350 The soon-consoled widow, which the storyteller has presented from a first-person perspective. International versions concern a man who feigns death to test his wife's faithfulness, and the wife expresses a wish to marry the man who has brought her news of her husband's death. The story is popular throughout Europe, parts of Africa and the Middle East. See Hans Jorg Uther, The types of international folktales: a classification and bibliography (3 vols, Helsinki, 2004). The story is relatively well known in Irish tradition, particularly so in Donegal. See Seán Ó Súilleabháin and Rieder Th. Christiansen, The types of the Irish folktale (Helsinki, 1968). It is also categorised as an international folk motif, T231.3 Faithless widow ready to marry messenger who brings news of husband’s death. See Stith Thompson, Motif-index of folk literature (rev. and enlarged ed., 6 vols, Bloomington, Ind., 1955-8).

This story is transcribed also in Róise Ní Bhaoill, Ulster Gaelic voices: bailiúchán Doegen 1931 (Belfast, 2010), 188-91.