W E were kalying [ceilidh, a visit] at Mary Ann James
Peter's house. She is a McCaughey, but then every- body in that part of the mountain is a McCaughey too, except a few who are Corrigans; and James Peter McCaughey being her father, she just gets Mary Ann James Peter for her name.
The little cabin was snug and cosy with its "corrag " or "owld man" of dried heather standing on the windy side of the door to keep away the blast, the turf glowed warm on the hearth, a right reek of it filled the Loose, and the light of it shone out of the window to bid failte [welcome] to any neighbour that might happen in. Outside in the darkness the winds were wantlesa and wild, for Mary Ann James Peter lives far up in the mountain—so high that, looking out over the bag-door on clear mornings, you may see Loch More, and beyond it Armagh Cathedral, a grand white church, full forty miles away.
It was Hallow Eve, and the girls had been out to the corn- stacks (oats), each blindfold, to pull a stalk out and see when she'd be gettin' married. -If there was one ear on the stalk
it would be within a twelvemonth, but if there was none at all, it's an old maid she would be, and bedad, it was no aisy task not to strip the stalk as you'd be puffin' it out. Also they had made wee ladders with rushes cut in the Fairies' Hollow to hang above their beds that night—a sure way for a girl to nee " himself " walk up the ladder in her dreams.
And now we drew our stools closer together round the fire, for the talk was of the Wee People, the "Gentry," of their malevolence, their tricks, their constant interference in the affairs of men and women.
Old Cormic Corrigan was speaking. "There was a man," said he, "lived in then wee house beside the burn, where Biddy McNanily lives now, and the Palsies stole his wife on him, and nowhere could he find her at all, and he after gettin' married to her that day. He was murtherin' and lamentin' when there came a young gorsoon to the door with a message from herself. She was not a hair's worth the worse as yet, she said, and if he was man enough to do it he could win her back on Hollantine Night. He bid to [must] stand by the end of his own byre when it grew dark and there he would see a boon [company] of Fairies go by. She would be with them riding on the foremost white horse, and he bid to catch her and pull her off the horse and hold her. If he let her go the Fairies would kill her, for they would know that she had told him to be there. He waited that night by the end of the byre, and she came with the Fairies, riding on the foremost white horse. He catched her and held her and would not let her go. They put her into a dog and they put her into a cat, into a trout, into an eel, and into a blaze of fire in his arms, but no matther what they put her into he still [always] kept Lowlt on her. At last twelve o'clock struck and they bid to be away, so then he fetched her safe into the house, but not a word did she speak till him. He went out to see what road the Fairies were after going, and there were two of them and they talking. 'He has her now,' says one Fairy, 'but sorra a bit of good she'll be till him for she can't speak at all.' 'Ho,' says the other Fairy, 'but if he took off the piece of a rush that lies in under her tongue she would have her speech rightly.' He came into the house and joined [began] to speak till her, but she could say never a word, not a heth [smallest bit], bat only sign her head till Lim. Then he told her to open her mouth, and he took the bit of a rush from in under the root of her tongue, and she could speak plenty and tell him whole reels then, and 'twos he was the happy man all out."
" Ach now : heard ye ever the like o' that!" we all exclaimed politely. "Sure 'tie Cormic's the boy for the great wee stories, anyway. He can tell them the hest at all, so he can. Troth, ye'd go nine miles of a dark night only to hear him."
Thus encouraged, Connie applied a creish [half-burnt sod of turf] to the bowl of his pipe, and after a few puffs began the story of the Seven Questions.
There was a man and he was in sore distress; the snow was deep on the ground, and he had neither bite nor sup for his wife and childher. He was bothered entirely, and one night he went out to the end of the house and he prayed to either God or Devil to grant him some relief. A big black man come up till him. "I understand, me poor man," sez be, "that ye're howlding very tight for some help for yourself and your family." "The Dear knows I am," said the man. "Sure I'm in a loosen way entirely. I haven't a male's mate in the house for my childher this day and no means of gettin' one." "I'm the Devil," sez the black man. " Throth, and if ye're the Devil, ye can be off out of that, for I'll have naught to do with ye !" sea the man. "If that bee the way it is ye may stay as ye are !" sez the Devil, and he turned to go. But the poor man besought him to help him and he consented, but only on condition that in seven years' time the man would come to him body and soul. There was only one way he could then release himself from everlasting bondage, and that was by answering the seven hard questions that would be asked him.
The man agreed, and the Devil promised to send him a sow pig on the morrow. "And let you open the craw [sty] door and have her in," ea he.
When the man riz out of his bed on the morra's morn a sow pig and seven right wee suckers come up to his door and he opened the craw and let her in. He sold the pigs and got double prices for them, they were so good and them so young, and so he grew more than rich. Be was always over-kind to any poor body that would ask of him, and would keep them the night, and feed them, and give them a loch o' pmties or a taste o' turf to have away with them.
The seven years went by, and the day came round when the man must fulfil his bargain. Lo and behowld ye! there was a poor old travelling man at the half-door of the house, seeking his bit. "You shall have your mate," sez the man of the house, "but I can't lodge you the night; sure I've important business on band that will not be denied," eez bekase, you persave, he knew that the Devil was entitled to come for him on that same night. " Och! I may go out so," sez the owld travelling man, "and sure Ill be lost with the rain and the snow and the wind that's in it." "Oak, when [if] yell be lost," eez the man of the house, "come in and I'll put down a couple of waps of straw and ye can crouch into the corner beyond." "Not so," sez the owld man, " rit not lie," sez he; "hut this stool forninst the fire will do me rightly." When the man of the house saw that he would hot be gainsaid he let him have his will, and went off to his own bed, where he fell asleep on the moment and slept rings round him [soundly]. But his woman was awake the whole time, and was listening for 'fraid the Devil would come to take himself to hell.
At twelve o'clock that night there came a knock at the window, and a voice said, "Are ye within ?" "I am," said the owld travelling man sitting at the fire, and he made answer for the man of the house. "Are ye ready for the questions?" said the voice. "Ask on," said the owld man. "What is One ?" mid the Devil. "One is God alone," said the owld man. "What is Two ? " "Two is the holy bond of matrimony." "What is Three P " " A three-legged stool is good for an owld man to be sitting on." " Four P" "Four teats of a cow is good for a maid to milk on a frosty morning." "Five? " "Five cogs of a wheel makes it go round." "Six ?" "Six oxen in a plough makes a good furrow." "Seven ?" "Seven pigs and a sow makes a poor man rich in the inside of seven years, and I command ye to go back to hell where ye come from." The next morning, when the man of the house riz out of his bed, the owld singer [tramp] was gone, and himself was rich and happy to the day of his death. "Sure, 'twos God sent the owld travelling man," said Cormic.
And now, for the end of all, Biddy McCaughey would sing a kind of antic song to please no, and she is as good a singer as you'll get within the ringin' of a bell. Her song begins " Mary's grandeur, her wit and splendour, Leaves me in anguish here to module," but it was too long to be written down. At last we bid farewell with many a "Safe home !" and "We shall think long till we see yea again!" and " Watch yourselves now, for there's a mist in the mountain, and there's them abroad that I wouldn't have yen to meet !" Down the mountain pad vre go in the darkness, Pat Edward McElroy with his lantern walking before us to convoy us over the heather and bog, and so ends our kaly at Mary Ann James Peter's, where we all agree we had the best of crack and a right good Shanagh in
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