There was a son one time was all for putting his father away, saying he was done and no good only for eating!
John McCullagh
Biddable Daughter
It was this old gentleman farmer and he had three daughters. The two eldest were good working girls but the youngest one would do nothing. Everything had to be done for her.
So the father said he would give a hundred pounds to anyone who would marry either of the other two, but two hundred pounds to the man that would marry the youngest and lazy one. He had no fears to get rid of the other two – and he was right, for they were soon gone – but he was of the opinion that no one would take the lazy one, despite the two hundred pounds. He thought never to get rid of her.
But there was this fella anyway that was down in money and he said to himself if he took this one on, with the two hundred of money, he’d be right again and he’d soon put her right of her ways too!
Well he took her and they got married. He bought a horse and cart with the money and settled to the farm but it was little change he could get out of the woman. It was just his bad luck that it was an old rusty horse he’d bought too.
Now the father invited the three sons-in-law back to his home place after a month, for that was the custom in them days – to find out how they were turning till the married state.
On the road to the father’s place didn’t the oul horse rust in the trap and refuse to move another step.
‘If I have to order ye again, ye’re for it!’ he warned.
Still the horse wouldn’t move. He stepped out of the trap, pulled a pistol from his coat and shot it dead on the spot.
‘Now’, he said to his wife, ‘I want you to unharness the dead horse and pull him to the ditch at the side of the road!’
‘But…’ she protested.
‘If I have to order ye again, ye’re for it!’ he warned.
She jumped to it. Then he ordered her to stand between the shafts and draw the cart and him to the father’s yard.
At the house, the three sisters were sent to the low room to play cards while the menfolk were talking the important business. The oul’ fella went on about testing the women to see who was the most biddable.
‘I’m giving fifty pounds to whichever one of yous has the most biddable woman.’
‘Well, shure I have surely, and all knows it!’ said the first.
‘Call her!’ orders the father.
‘You’re a wanted up here, Bridget,’ the husband cried.
‘Sure,’ she answered, ‘as soon as I have this hand played’.
The second husband boasted his woman was the most biddable.
‘Call her!’ orders the father.
‘You’re a wanted up here, Mary’, the husband cried.
‘I’m dealing the cards,’ she answered. ‘I’ll be up in a minute!’
The husband of the lazy woman said his woman now was the most biddable.
‘Prove it!’ challenged the old man.
‘Ann!’ he roared, at the top of his voice.
‘If I have to order ye again up here, ye’re for it!’
Begab, no sooner were the words outa he’s mouth nor she appeared at the door with staring eyes and frothin’ mouth!
He won the fifty pounds.
Bad Luck Signs
Did you know?
If a pregnant woman should spy a hare, she was to make a hole in her vest (everyone wore a vest then!). This was to ensure that the child she was carrying wouldn’t be born with a hare-lip.
Shipping Losses
We all recall from our school days, tales of cruel shore people luring ships’ captains unto rocks with bright lights. They were after the spoils of wrecks, and they cared not at all for the watery fate of sailors
Geese for the Cooking?
These two neighbour men were forever falling out over a right of way. The problem was that one had to get through the other’s fields to get to his own. The thing was resolved in a peculiar way!
He put he’s coat and boots on and walked to town. In the lawyer’s office he stated his case and gave his name and address and that of his neighbour and rival. When he heared all the in’s and out’s of it,
‘Man!’, he says, ‘Begor, och aye, but ye have the great case there entirely! Shure we’ll win that aisy!’
(That’s the way them soliciting men talk. Didn’t ye know?)
He agreed till take the case and the man walked home to Fathom.
Meanwhile didn’t yer other man, not to be outdone, walk into Newry too to get he’s own lawyer.
Hell’th o me sowl, if he didn’t pick the self same lawyer as the first man, who was now back working he’s farm. When he’d heared all the in’s and out’s of it and was given the same names and addresses as before, why, even the lawyer man caught on it was the same case.
Well, that left he’em wi’ a dilemma for he couldn’t fight the same case for the two of them. He thought a wee while about it.
‘Man!’, he says,
‘Begor, och aye, but ye have the great case there entirely!
Shure you”ll win that aisy!
The on’y thing is, I’ll that busy I can’t take yer case.
BUT …
I’ll give ye a letter to take till another lawyer.
Besides meself, he’s the best lawyer in Newry.
He’ll fight it fir you.’
Hell’th o me sowl, but if yer man, no sooner than he got outa that office, didn’t he open the letter in a yard nearby and read it.
‘I’ve got a hoult of two fat geese from the country’,
it read,
‘You pluck this one and I’ll pluck t’other!’
Divil the step did he make for the other lawyer’s office at all but made a bee-line home an’ up to his neighbour’s farm.
The neighbours and former friends settled the trouble between them then and there, shook hands and never the cross word after.
An’ isn’t it a tarrib’ pity the young married wans couldn’t settle their differences the same way instead o’ making them soliciting men even fatter and richer?
Divil’s own sister
This man one time had the real targer of a wife and after the holy terror of a row, he tore out of the house cursing and damning her soul into hell and out again.
And here, all of a sudden he falls in with this strange man who walked out from under a bush along the road where he could have been sheltering.
They got into crack anyway. Passing this house, here wasn’t there another man and wife flailing oul’ hell out of other and calling other for all the wrong names in the wide world. The two on the road stood to listen.
‘What’s going on in there?’ says the strange man.
‘Need you ask?’ says our man.
‘Can’t you see that’s the devil outa hell in that house?’
‘Go long wi’ ye!’ says the strange man, and he drew the back o’ his hand across the other fellow’s jaw in a welt that stumbled him.
‘It’s you and the likes of you that gives me the bad name!’
”Why? Don’t tell me you’re the Divil himself?’
‘I am,’ say the Divil, an’ him still mad.
But the other man put out his hand in friendly greeting.
‘Put it there!’ says he.
‘We could be related.
I think I’m married to your sister!’
Hummerly Bummerly Counting
More curious counting:
Yen, twa tippling
March, mapplin
Mapplin how
How harry
Bow barry
Biddery gan
Gan gibby
Gilby nowd
Dis cum towd
Ten you marry.
One-ery, two-ery, dickery davey
Allibo crackery, ten-ery lavery
Just contendium merricum time
Hummerly, bummerly, twenty-nine.
‘Ye’re not as slow as ye walk aisy!’ says Gwendelene McEvoy to me, as I trumped her ace.
‘Ye’re not as slow as ye walk aisy!’ says Gwendelene McEvoy to me, as I trumped her ace.
‘Aye’, says Peter Cunningham, ‘the softest part of him is he’s teeeth!’