Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry | Page 4

the rivulet formed by the cascade. On the shrubs which grew out of the crag-cliffs around it, might be seen innumerable rags bleached by the weather out of their original color, small wooden crosses, locks of human hair, buttons, and other substitutes for property; poverty allowing the people to offer it only by fictitious emblems. Lower down in the glen, on the river's bank, was a smooth green, admirably adapted for the dance, which, notwithstanding the religious rites, is the heart and soul of a Patron.
On that morning a vast influx of persons, male and female, old and young, married and single, crowded eagerly towards the well. Among them might be noticed the blind, the lame, the paralytic, and such as were afflicted with various other diseases; nor were those good men and their wives who had no offspring to be omitted. The mendicant, the pilgrim, the boccagh, together with every other description of impostors, remarkable for attending such places, were the first on the ground, all busy in their respective vocations. The highways, the fields, and the boreens, or bridle-roads, were filled with living streams of people pressing forward to this great scene of fun and religion. The devotees could in general be distinguished from the country folks by their Pharisaical and penitential visages, as well as by their not wearing shoes; for the Stations to such places were formerly made with bare feet: most persons now, however, content themselves with stripping off their shoes and stockings on coming within the precincts of the holy ground. Human beings are not the only description of animals that perform pilgrimages to holy wells and blessed lakes. Cows, horses, and sheep are made to go through their duties, either by way of prevention, or cure, of the diseases incident to them. This is not to be wondered at, when it is known that in their religion every domestic animal has its patron saint, to whom its owner may at any time pray on its behalf. When the crowd was collected, nothing in the shape of an assembly could surpass it in the originality of its appearance. In the glen were constructed a number of tents, where whiskey and refreshments might be had in abundance. Every tent had a fiddler or a piper; many two of them. From the top of the pole that ran up from the roof of each tent, was suspended the symbol by which the owner of it was known by his friends and acquaintances. Here swung a salt herring or a turf; there a shillelah; in a third place a shoe, in a fourth place a whisp of hay, in a fifth an old hat, and so on with the rest.
The tents stood at a short distance from the scene of devotion at the well, but not so far as to prevent the spectator from both seeing and hearing what went on in each. Around the well, on bare knees, moved a body of people thickly wedged together, some praying, some screaming, some excoriating their neighbors' shins, and others dragging them out of their way by the hair of the head. Exclamations of pain from the sick or lame, thumping oaths in Irish, recriminations in broken English, and prayers in bog Latin, all rose at once to the ears of the patron saint, who, we are inclined to think--could he have heard or seen his worshippers--would have disclaimed them altogether.
"For the sake of the Holy Virgin, keep your sharp elbows out o' my ribs."
"My blessin' an you, young man, an' don't be lanin' an me, i' you plase!"
"_Damnho sherry orth a rogarah ruah!_* what do you mane? Is it my back you're brakin'?"
* Eternal perdition on you, you red rogue.
"Hell pershue you, you ould sinner, can't you keep the spike of your crutch out o' my stomach! If you love me tell me so; but, by the livin' farmer, I'll take no such hints as that!"
"I'm a pilgrim, an' don't brake my leg upon the rock, an' my blessin' an you!"
"Oh, murdher sheery! my poor child'll be smothered!"
"My heart's curse an you! is it the ould cripple you're trampin' over?"
"Here, Barny, blood alive, give this purty young girl a lift, your sowl, or she'll soon be undhermost!"
"'Och, 'twas on a Christmas mornin' That Jeroosillim was born in The Holy Land'----'
"Oh, my neck's broke!--the curse----Oh! I'm kilt fairly, so I am! The curse o' Cromwell an you, an' hould away--
'The Holy Land adornin' All by the Baltic Say. The angels on a Station, Wor takin' raycrayation, All in deep meditation, All by the'----
contints o' the book if you don't hould away, I say agin, an' let me go on wid my rann it'll be worse force for you!--
'Wor takin' raycraytion, All by the Baltic Say!"
"Help the ould woman there."
"Queen