them wouldn't take the pound. So they agreed to let the next man that would come up, settle the business between them. So a clergyman was the first that came that way. And the settlement that he made was that each of them should give him his pound, and he should keep the two pounds. Well St. Pádraic [Patrick] come up when the thing was settled, and he asked what was the argument about? And he was told. So he told there and then that he'd leave the unrest for the money upon the clergy from that day forward.
27. How the Death came to Shaun MacGuire.
My father Shaun was at Limerick one time and he met the Death. Then the Death laid alongside of him, and gave him a shake-hands. "Come and meet me at Glen Even," said the Death to Shaun, "and there make your repentance to me." "I'll not go with ye," said Shaun, "ye ugly spirit, but give me pardon for three months till I go home to Father Martin. 'Tis there ye'll find me in the publichouse among the neighbours drinking the beer, and I'll promise ye, if I get my health back again, ye won't be troubled with me again for much longer." Now this is what the Death said now,—"I brings young and old, rich and poor, and the strong men on earth." And this is what the Death said again to him,—"I am going to take ye now, I'll spare ye no longer." And he was taken away then. He was given too much for the world, and too fond of the girls, and he had to be taken away.
28. The Sticky Spirit.[1]
There was a woman lived in the neighbourhood of Colligan. She was married to an old man, and she sent the old man looking out for news every night. So one night the old man went along and met a goat boring. The man turned back then and went home again to his wife, and she asked him,—"What wonder did he see to-night?" "The goat, and he boring," answered the man. "That's no wonder," says she, and she sent him out again the next night and the goat came back the same way. The third night he
- ↑ Cf. Grimm's Household Tales (trans. M. Hunt, 1884), vol. i., p. 274 ("The Golden Goose").
