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Chapter V. The Devil and his ‘Territory.’ [p.56] Those who wish to avoid uttering the plain straight name 'devil' often call him 'the Old Boy,' or 'Old Nick.' In some of the stories relating to the devil he is represented as a great simpleton and easily imposed upon: in others as clever at everything. In many he gets full credit for his badness, and all his attributes and all his actions are just the reverse of the good agencies of the world; so that his attempts at evil often tend for good, while anything he does for good - or pretending to be for good-turns to evil. When a person suffers punishment or injury of any kind that is well deserved - gets his deserts for misconduct or culpable mismanagement or excessive foolishness of any kind - we say 'the devil's cure to him,' or 'the devil mend him' (as much as to say [p.57] 'He stamped and he cursed and he swore he would fight, Sometimes the devil is taken as the type of excellence or of great proficiency in anything, or of great excess, so that you often hear 'That fellow is as old as the devil,' 'That beefsteak is as tough as the devil,' 'He beats the devil for roguery,' 'My landlord is civil, but dear as the divil.' (Swift: who wrote this with a pen dipped in Irish ink.) A poor wretch or a fellow always in debt and difficulty, and consequently shabby, is a 'poor devil'; and not very long ago I heard a friend say to another - who was not sparing of his labour-'Well, there's no doubt but you're a hard-working old devil.' [p.58] 'I don't wonder that poor Bill should be always struggling, for he has the devil of an extravagant family.' 'Oh confusion to you Dan,' says the T. B. C., (Repeal Song of 1843.) (But this form of expression occurs in Dickens-'Our Mutual Friend' - 'I have a devil of a temper myself'). An emphatic statement:- 'I wouldn't like to trust him, for he's the devil's own rogue.' 'There's no use in your trying that race against Johnny Keegan, for Johnny is the very devil at running.' 'Oh your reverence,' says Paddy Galvin, 'don't ax me to fast; but you may put as much prayers on me as you like: for, your reverence, I'm very bad at fasting, but I'm the divel at the prayers.' According to Mr. A. P. Graves, in 'Father O'Flynn,' the ' Provost and Fellows of Trinity' College, Dublin] are 'the divels an' all at Divinity.' This last expression is truly Hibernian, and is very often heard:- A fellow is boasting how he'll leather Jack Fox when next he meets him. 'Oh yes, you'll do the devil an' all while Jack is away; but wait till he comes to the fore.' In several of the following short stories and sayings the simpleton side of Satan's character is well brought out. Darner of Shronell, who lived in the 18th century, was reputed to be the richest man in Ireland - a sort of Irish Croesus: so that 'as rich as [p.59] 'There was ould Paddy Murphy had money galore, Darner's house in ruins is still to be seen at Shronell, four miles west of Tipperary town. The story goes that he got his money by selling his soul to the devil for as much gold as would fill his boot - a top boot, i.e. one that reaches above the knee. On the appointed day the devil came with his pockets well filled with guineas and sovereigns, as much as he thought was sufficient to fill any boot. But meantime Darner had removed the heel and fixed the boot in the floor, with a hole in the boards underneath, opening into the room below. The devil flung in handful after handful till his pockets were empty, but still the boot was not filled. He then sent out a signal, such as they understand in hell - for they had wireless telegraphy there long before Mr. Marconi's Irish mother was born-on which a crowd of little imps arrived all laden with gold coins, which were emptied into the boot, and still no sign of its being filled. He had to send them many times for more, till at last he succeeded in filling the room beneath as well as the boot; on which the transaction was concluded. The legend does not tell what became of Darner in the end; but such agreements usually wind up (in Ireland) by the sinner tricking Satan out of his bargain. When a person does an evil deed under cover of some untruthful but plausible justification, or utters [p.60] ‘You’re a very coarse Christina,’ as the devil said to the hedgehog. (Tyrone.) The name and fame of the great 16th century magician, Dr. Faust or Faustus,found way somehow to our peasantry; for it was quite common to hear a crooked knavish man spoken of in this way:- ‘That fellow is a match for the devil and Dr. Fosther.’ (Munster.) The magpie has seven drops of the devil’s blood in its body: the water-wagtail has three drops. (Munster.) When a person is unusually cunning, cute and tricky, we say ‘The devil is a poor scholar to you.’ (‘Poor scholar’ here means a bad shallow scholar.) ‘Now since James is after getting all the money, the devil can’t howld him’: i.e., he has grown proud and overbearing. ‘Firm and ugly, as the devil said when he sewed his breeches with gads.’ Here’s how it happened. The devil was one day pursuing the soul of a sinner across country, and in leaping over a rough thorn hedge, he tore his breeches badly, so that his tail stuck out; on which he gave up the chase. As it was not decent to appear in public in that condition, he sat down and stitched up the rent with next to hand materials – viz. Slender tough osier withes or gads as we call them in Ireland. When the job was finished he spread out the garment before him on his [p.61] The idea of the ‘old boy’ pursuing a soul appear also in the words of an old Anglo-Irish song about persons who commit great crimes and die unrepentant:- For committing those crimes unrepented A very wet day – teeming rain – raining cats and dogs – a fine day for young ducks:- ‘The devil woulnd’t send out his dog on such a day as this.’ ‘Did you ever see the devil A person struggling with poverty – constantly in money difficulties – is said to be ‘pulling the devil by the tail.’ ‘Great noise and little wool,’ as the devil said when he was shearing a pig. ‘What’s got over the devil’s back goes off under the devil’s belly.’ This is another form of ill got ill gone. Don’t enter on a lawsuit with a person who has in his hands the power of deciding the case. This would be ‘going to law against the devil with the courthouse in hell.’ Jack hates that man and all belonging to him ‘as the devil hates holy water.’ Yerra or arrah is an exclamation very much in use in the South: a phonetic representation of the Irish aire, meaning take care, look out, look you: - [p.62] 'When she saw the young devils tied tip in their
chains ‘Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.' The people of Munster do not always put it that way; they have a version of their own:- 'Time enough to bid the devil good-morrow when you meet him.' But an intelligent correspondent from Carlow puts a somewhat different interpretation on the last saying, namely, 'Don't go out of your way to seek trouble.' 'When needs must the devil drives': a man in a great fix is often driven to illegal or criminal acts to extricate himself. When a man is threatened with a thrashing, another will say to him:-' You'll get Paddy Ryan's supper - hard knocks and the devil’: to eat': common in Munster. 'When you sup with the devil have a long spoon': that is to say, if you have any dealings with rogues or criminals, adopt very careful precautions, and don't come into close contact with them than is absolutely necessary. (Lover: but used generally.) 'Speak the truth and shame the devil' is a very common saying. [p.63] A holy knave - something like our modern Pecksniff - dies and is sent in the downward direction: and - according to the words of the old folk-song - this is his reception 'when hell's gate was opened the devil jumped with joy, A man is deeply injured by another and threatens reprisal:- 'I'll make you smell hell for that'; a bitter threat which may be paraphrased: I'll persecute you to death's door; and for you to be near death is to be near hell - I'll put you so near that you'll smell the fumes of the brimstone. A usual imprecation when a person who has made himself very unpopular is going away: 'the devil go with him.' One day a fellow was eating his dinner of dry potatoes, and had only one egg half raw for kitchen. He had no spoon, and took the egg in little sips intending to spread it over the dinner. But one time he tilted the shell too much, and down went the whole contents. After recovering from the gulp, he looked ruefully at the empty shell and blurted out - the devil go with down! Many people think - and say it too - that it is an article of belief with Catholics that all Protestants when they die go straight to hell - which is a libel. Yet it is often kept up in joke, as in this and other [p.64] This reminds us of Father O'Leary, a Cork priest of the end of the eighteenth century, celebrated as a controversialist "and a wit. He was one day engaged in gentle controversy - or argufying religion as we call it in Ireland - with a Protestant friend, who plainly had the worst of the encounter. 'Well now Father O'Leary I want to ask what have you to say about purgatory?' 'Oh nothing,' replied the priest, 'except that you might go farther and fare worse.' The same Father O'Leary once met in the streets a friend, a witty Protestant clergyman with whom he had many an encounter of wit and repartee. 'Ah Father O'Leary, have you heard the bad news?' 'No,' says Father O'Leary. 'Well, the bottom has fallen out of purgatory, and all the poor Papists have gone down into hell.' 'Oh the Lord save us,' answered Father O'Leary, 'what a crushing the poor Protestants must have got!' Father O'Leary and Curran - the great orator and wit - sat side by side once at a dinner party, where Curran was charmed with his reverend friend. 'Ah Father O'Leary,' he exclaimed at last, 'I wish you had the key of heaven.' 'Well Curran it might be better for you that I had the key of the other place.' A parish priest only recently dead, a well-known wit, sat beside a venerable Protestant clergyman at [p.65] The preceding are all in joke: but I once heard the idea enunciated in downright earnest. In my early life, we, the village people, were a mixed community, about half and half Catholics and Protestants, the latter nearly all Palatines, who were Methodists to a man. We got on very well together, and I have very kindly memories of my old playfellows, Palatines as well as Catholics. One young Palatine, Peter Stuffle, differed in one important respect from the others, as he never attended Church Mass or Meeting. He emigrated to America; and being a level headed fellow and keeping from drink, he got on. At last he came across Nelly Sullivan, a bright eyed colleen all the way from Kerry, a devoted Catholic, and fell head and ears in love with her. She liked him too, but would have nothing to say to him unless he became a Catholic: in the words of the old song, 'Unless that you turn a Roman you ne'er shall get me for your bride.' Peter's theology was not proof against Nelly's bright face: he became a Catholic, and a faithful one too: for once he was inside the gate his wife took care to instruct him, and kept him well up to his religious duties. [p.66]
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