PREFACE.

This story was written down, word for word, and given me by my friend Mr. C. M. Hodgson, from the telling of James Mac Donagh, one of his brother tenants, near Oughterard, Co. Galway. It is obvious that the story is only a fragment, and very obscure, but it is worth preserving if only for the sake of Friar Brian's striking answer to the Devil, which would come home with particular force to all who have ever bought or sold at an Irish fair; the acceptance of "earnest" money is the clinching of the bargain, behind which you cannot go. If you receive "earnest" in the morning you may not sell again, no matter how much higher a price may have been offered you before evening. I have heard another story about Friar Brian.

THE STORY

There was a young man in it long ago, and long ago it was, and he had a great love for card-playing and drinking whiskey. He came short [at last] of money, and he did not know what he would do without money.

A man met him, and he going home in the night. "I often see you going home this road," said the man to him.

"There's no help for it now," says he; "I have no money."

"Now," says the man, "I'll give you money every time you'll want it, if you will give to me written with your own blood [a writing to say] that you are mine such and such a year, at the end of one and twenty years."

It was the Devil who was in it in the shape of a man.

He gave it to him written with his share of blood that he would be his at the end of one and twenty years.

He had money then every time ever he wanted it until the one and twenty years were almost out, and then fear began coming on him. He went to the priest and he told it [all] to him. "I could not do any good for you," says the priest. "You must go to such and such a man who is going into Ellasthrum (?) He has so much of the Devil's influence (?) that he does be able to change round the castle door any time the wind is blowing [too hard] on it."

He went to this man and he told him his story. "I wouldn't be able to do you any good," says he, "you must go to Friar Brian."

He went to Friar Brian and told him his story. The one and twenty years were all but up by this time. "Here is a stick for you," said Friar Brian, "and cut a ring [with the stick] round about the place where you'll stand. He [the Devil] won't be able to come inside the place which you'll cut out with this stick. And do you be arguing with him, and I'll be watching you both," says he. "Tell him that there must be some judgment [passed] on the case before you depart [to go away] with him."

"Very well," says the man.

When the appointed hour came the man was standing in the place he said. The Devil came to him. He told the man that the time was up and that he had to come along.

The man began to say that the time was not up. He cut a ring round about himself with the stick which Friar Brian had given him. "Well, then," says the man, says he [at last], "we'll leave it to the judgment of the first person who shall come past us."

"I am satisfied," says the Diabhac.[74]

Friar Brian came to the place where they were. "What is it all about from the beginning?" says Friar Brian. The Diabhac told him that he had this man bought for one and twenty years, and that he had to come with him to-day; "it is left to you to judge the case."

"Now," says Friar Brian, says he, "if you were to go to a fair to buy a cow or a horse, and if you gave earnest money for it, wouldn't you say that it was more just for you to have it than for the man who would come in the evening and who would buy it without paying any earnest money for it?"

"I say," says the Diabhac, "that the man who paid earnest money for it first, ought to get it."

"And now," says Friar Brian, "the Son of God paid earnest for this man before you bought him."

The Diabhac had to go away then.

Friar Brian asked then what would be done to him now when he had not got the man.

"I shall be put into the chamber which is for Friar Brian," said the Diabhac.[75]

"And now," said Friar Brian to the man whom he had saved, "I saved you now," says he, "and do you save me."

"What will I be able to do for you to save you?"

"Get the axe," says Friar Brian to him, "take the head off me," says he, "and cut me up then as fine as tobacco."[76]

He did that, and Friar Brian repented then, and he was saved.

He suffered himself to be cut as fine as tobacco on account of all he had ever done out of the way. There now, that was the end of Friar Brian.