The Ned M'Keown Stories. William Carleton
and gives sufficient proof, that had the national intellect been duly cultivated, it is difficult to say in what position as a literary country Ireland might have stood at this day. At present the national recreations, though still sufficiently varied and numerous are neither so strongly marked nor diversified as formerly. Fun, or the love of it, to be sure, is an essential principle in the Irish character; and nothing that can happen, no matter how solemn or how sorrowful it may be, is allowed to proceed without it. In Ireland the house of death is sure to be the merriest one in the neighborhood; but here the mirth is kindly and considerately introduced, from motives of sympathy—in other words, for the alleviation of the mourners' sorrow. The same thing may be said of its association with religion. Whoever has witnessed a Station in Ireland made at some blessed lake or holy well, will understand this. At such places it is quite usual to see young men and women devoutly circumambulating the well or lake on their bare knees, with all the marks of penitence and contrition strongly impressed upon their faces; whilst again, after an hour or two, the same individuals may be found in a tent dancing with ecstatic vehemence to the music of the bagpipe or fiddle.
All these things, however, will be found, I trust I may say faithfully depicted in the following volume—together with many other important features of our general character; which I would dwell on here, were it not that they are detailed very fully in other parts of my works, and I do not wish to deprive them of the force of novelty when they occur, nor to appear heavy by repetition.
In conclusion, I have endeavored, with what success has been already determined by the voice of my own country, to give a panorama of Irish life among the people—comprising at one view all the strong points of their general character—their loves, sorrows, superstitions, piety, amusements, crimes, and virtues; and in doing this, I can say with solemn truth that I painted them honestly, and without reference to the existence of any particular creed or party.
W. Carleton.
Dublin.
NED M'KEOWN.
Ned M'Keown's house stood exactly in an angle, formed by the cross-roads of Kilrudden. It was a long, whitewashed building, well thatched and furnished with the usual appurtenances of yard and offices. Like most Irish houses of the better sort, it had two doors, one opening into a garden that sloped down from the rear in a southern direction. The barn was a continuation of the dwelling-house, and might be distinguished from it by a darker shade of color, being only rough-cast. It was situated on a small eminence, but, with respect to the general locality of the country, in a delightful vale, which runs up, for twelve or fourteen miles, between two ranges of dark, well-defined mountains, that give to the interjacent country the form of a low inverted arch. This valley, which altogether, allowing for the occasional breaks and intersections of hill-ranges, extends upwards of thirty miles in length, is the celebrated valley of the “Black Pig,” so well known in the politico-traditional history of Ireland, and the legends connected with the famous Beal Dearg.*
* The following extract, taken from a sketch by the author
called “The Irish Prophecy-man,” contains a very appropriate
illustration of the above passage. “I have a little book
that contains a prophecy of the milk-white hind an' the
bloody panther, an' a foreboding of the slaughter there's to
be in the Valley of the Black Pig, as foretould by Beal
Derg, or the prophet wid the red mouth, who never was known
to speak but when he prophesied, or to prophesy but when he
spoke.”
“The Lord bless an' keep us!—an' why was he called the Man
with the Red Mouth, Barney?”
“I'll tell you that: first, bekase he always prophesied
about the slaughter an' fightin' that was to take place in
the time to come; an', secondly, bekase, while he spoke, the
red blood always trickled out of his mouth, as a proof that
what he foretould was true.”
“Glory be to God! but that's wondherful all out. Well,
we'll!”
“Ay, an' Beal Deig, or the Red Mouth, is still livin'.”
“Livin! why, is he a man of our own time?”
“Our own time! The Lord help you! It's more than a thousand
years since he made the prophecy. The case you see is this:
he an' the ten thousand witnesses are lyin' in an enchanted
sleep in one of the Montherlony mountains.”
“An' how is that known, Barney?”
“It's known, Every night at a certain hour one of the
witnesses—an' they're all sogers, by the way—must come out
to look for the sign that's to come.”
“An' what is that, Barney?”
“It's the fiery cross; an' when he sees one on aich of the
four mountains of the north, he's to know that the same
sign's abroad in all the other parts of the kingdom. Beal
Derg an' his men are then to waken up, an' by their aid the
Valley of the Black Pig is to be set free forever.”
“An' what is the Black Pig, Barney?”
“The Prospitarian church, that stretches from Enniskillen to
Darry, an' back again from Darry to Enniskillen.”
“Well, well, Barney, but prophecy is a strange thing, to be
sure! Only think of men livin' a thousand years!”
“Every night one of Beal Derg's men must go to the mouth of
the cave, which opens of itself, an' then look out for the
sign that's expected. He walks up to the top of the
mountain, an' turns to the four corners of the heavens, to
thry if he can see it; an' when he finds that he cannot, he
goes back to Beal Derg. who, afther the other touches him,
starts up and axis him, 'Is the time come?' He replies, 'No;
the man is, but the hour is not!' an' that instant they're both asleep again. Now, you see, while the soger is on the mountain top, the mouth of the cave is open, an' any one may go in that might happen to see it. One man it appears did, an' wishin' to know from curiosity whether the sogers were dead or livin', he touched one of them wid his hand, who started up an' axed him the same question, 'Is the time come?' Very fortunately he said, 'No;' an' that minute the soger was as sound in his trance as before.” “An', Barney, what did the soger mane when he said. 'The man is, but the hour is not?'” “What did he mane? I'll tell you that. The man is Bonyparty, which manes, when put into proper explanation, the right side; that is, the true cause. Larned men have found that out.”
That part of it where Ned M'Keown resided was peculiarly beautiful and romantic. From the eminence on which the house stood, a sweep of the most fertile meadowland stretched away to the foot of a series of intermingled hills and vales, which bounded this extensive carpet towards the north. Through these meadows ran a smooth river, called the Mullin-burn, which wound its way through them with such tortuosity, that it was proverbial in the neighborhood to say of any man remarkable for dishonesty, “He's as crooked as the Mullin-burn,” an epithet which was sometimes, although unjustly, jocularly applied to Ned himself. This deep but