Irish Folk Tales (84 page)

118
HUDDON AND DUDDON AND DONALD O’LEARY
Unpublished. Tape-recorded from Hugh Nolan, November 28, 1972. I also recorded this tale from Mr. Nolan on June 11, 1977. The history of this story provides us a good means for examining the creativity of the storyteller who must, Mr. Nolan said, repeat the tale accurately while using words of his own. Mr. Nolan learned the story from a Christmas number of the
Fermanagh Herald
, published in Enniskillen. Although the paper’s editor, Mr. P. J. O’Hare, could not find it when he generously searched his files for me, the story was surely reprinted from W. B. Yeats’ “Donald and his Neighbours,” in
Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry
(1888), reprinted in
Fairy and Folk Tales of Ireland
(1973), pp. 270–273. Yeats got the story from a chapbook,
Royal Hibernian Tales
, published in 1825. Before that it had been in oral circulation in County Antrim, and it is Aarne-Thompson international tale type 1535, which is especially common in India and Germany, and which I have heard in the southern United States and once published: “Three Southern Mountain Jack Tales,”
Tennessee Folklore Society Bulletin
30, no. 3 (1964): 88–102 (which also includes a version of type 300, Ireland’s most usual
Märchen
). Michael Boyle learned the story from Hugh Nolan, and their tellings made it the most popular “fireside tale” of the next generation in Ballymenone. Mr. Nolan’s story is longer and richer than his source. Here, for comparison, is the opening of the tale as Mr. Nolan would have read it: “Hudden and Dudden and Donald O’Nery were near neighbours in the barony of Balinconlig, and ploughed with three bullocks; but the two former, envying the present prosperity of the latter, determined to kill his bullock, to prevent his farm being properly cultivated and laboured, that going into the world he might be induced to sell his lands, which they meant to get possession of.” The whole text of the original is not only in Yeats’ anthology; it is in
Béaloideas
10 (1940), pp. 184–186, and Séamas Ó Catháin,
The Bedside Book of Irish Folklore
(1980), pp. 51–55. You would find it fascinating to read Mr. Nolan’s oral performance against the entire written text from which he learned the tale.

119
THE THREE WISHES
William Carleton,
Tales and Stories of the Irish Peasantry
(1846), pp. 330–357. Here Carleton retells one of Ireland’s most popular stories, Aarne-Thompson international tale type 330, known throughout Europe.

120
WILLY THE WISP
Michael J. Murphy,
Now You’re Talking
(1975), pp. 120–123 Hugh Nolan and Peter Flanagan both remembered this tale—Aarne-Thompson international type 330—as being the most popular story of their youth. Hugh McGiveney named one of his cats Willy the Wisp: see tale 40 in this collection.

121
THE BUIDEACH, THE TINKER, AND THE BLACK DONKEY
Douglas Hyde,
Legends of Saints and Sinners
(1915), pp. 247–257. Structured like a
Märchen
, incorporating memories of Aarne-Thompson international tale types 531 and 580
^*
, this story centers upon the supernatural to become something peculiarly Irish.

122
THE MAN WHO HAD NO STORY
Séamas Ó Catháin, “An Fear nach rabh Scéal ar bith aige,”
Béaloideas
(1969–1970), pp. 55–59. Ó Catháin’s paper includes the text in Irish, and he reprinted the English text in
The Bedside Book of Irish Folktale
(1980), pp. 81–86. This is O’Sullivan-Christiansen Irish folktale type 2412B. Sean O’Sullivan’s
Folktales of Ireland
(1966), pp. 182–184, contains another version of this characteristically Irish story.

PERMISSIONS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Grateful acknowledgment is made to the authors, publishers, and other copyright holders for permission to reprint the following previously published material:

“Owen Roe O’Sullivan,” “The Horse’s Last Drunk,” and “Cats Are Queer Articles” from
The Tailor and Ansty
by Eric Cross. Reprinted by permission of Devin-Adair Publishers.

“The King of Ireland’s Son” from
Brendan Behan’s Island
by Brendan Behan. Copyright © 1962 by Brendan Behan and Paul Hogarth. Reprinted by permission of Hope, Leresche & Sayle.

“An Actual Saint” from
Our Like Will Not Be There Again
by Lawrence Millman. Copyright © 1977 by Lawrence Millman. Reprinted by permission of Little, Brown & Company.

“Sarsfield Surrenders and Rory Takes to the Hills” from
Heavy Hangs the Golden Grain
by Seumas MacManus. Copyright 1950 by Seumas MacManus. Copyright renewed 1977. Reprinted by permission of Patricia MacManus.

“The Pious Man,” “The Coffin,” “The Blood of Adam,” and “The Feet Water” from
Folktales of the Irish Countryside
by Kevin Danaher; “Saved by the Priest,” “Terry the Grunter,” and “Magical Theft” from
Irish Life and Love
by Séamas Ó Catháin; “Columcille’s Coffin,” “The First Mirror,” and “Cromwell” from
The Bedside Book of Irish Folklore
by Séamas Ó Catháin. Reprinted by permission of The Mercier Press Ltd. “Terry the Grunter” and “Cromwell” also by permission of the Head of the Department of Irish Folklore, University College, Belfield, Dublin.

“Old Thorns and Old Priests,” “The Three Questions,” “Half a Blanket,” “A Hungry Hired Boy,” “The Lawyer and the Devil,” and “Willy the Wisp” from
Now You’re Talking
by Michael J. Murphy. Reprinted by permission of Michael J. Murphy and Blackstaff Press, Belfast.

“Hare and Hound,” collected by Michael J. Murphy, and “Grandfather’s Ghost,” collected by Ronald H. Buchanan,
Ulster Folklife Magazine
. Reprinted by permission of the collectors, and the Ulster Folklife Society. “Hare and Hound” also by permission of Prof. Bo Almqvist, Department of Irish Folklore, University College, Belfield, Dublin.

“How the Shoemaker Saved His Wife,” “The Blacksmith of Bedlam and the Fairy Host,” “The Fairy Shilling,” and “The Fairy Rabbit and the Blessed Earth of Tory” from
Fairy Legends from Donegal
by Sean Ó hEochaidh. Reprinted by permission of the Department of Irish Folklore, University College, Belfield, Dublin.

“The Baptism of Conor MacNessa,” “Saint Finbar,” and “Willie Brennan” from
Legends from Ireland
by Sean O’Sullivan. Reprinted by permission of Sean O’Sullivan.

“No Man Goes Beyond His Day,” “The Grave of His Father,” “Taken,” and “Ruined by Poetry” from
The Western Island
by Robin Flower. Reprinted by permission of Oxford University Press.

“Fairy Property,” and “The Cats’ Judgment” from
Lovely Is the Lee
by Robert Gibbings. Reprinted by permission of Laurence Pollinger Limited, and the Estate of Robert Gibbings.

“The Soldier in the Haunted House,” “Wicklow in the Rising of 1798,” and “The Man Who Had No Story” reprinted from
Béaloideas
by permission of the Folklore of Ireland Society, Department of Modern Irish, University College, Galway.

“A Clock Token,” “The Banshee Cries for the O’Briens,” “We Had One of Them in
the House for a While,” “Dreams of Gold,” “The Air Is Full of Them,” “A Pig on the Road from Gort,” and “Biddy Early” from
Visions and Beliefs in the West of Ireland
by Lady Gregory. Copyright by Lady Augusta Gregory on April 23, 1920, and renewed on July 27, 1947, by Richard Graham Gregory, Anne Gregory, and Catherine Frances Kennedy. “Saint Patrick,” “Jonathan Swift, Dean of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral,” “The Old Times in Ireland,” and “The Famine” from
The Kiltartan History Book
by Lady Gregory. Copyright 1909, 1926 by Lady Gregory. “Usheen’s Return to Ireland” by Lady Gregory from Lady Gregory’s
Gods and Fighting Men
. Reprinted by permission of Colin Smythe Limited on behalf of Anne de Winton and Catherine Kennedy.

“The Banshee Cries for the Boyles,” and “The Breaking of the Forth” by T.G.F. Paterson from
Country Cracks
, 1945. Reprinted by permission of Dundalgan Press Ltd.

“A Medical Expert from Lisnaskea” from
The Stone Fiddle
by Paddy Tunney. Reprinted by permission of Paddy Tunney.