Scotland, manned by 50,238 men and boys, and employing 85,573 persons in all, including coopers, packers, curers, and labourers. Of the entire number of vessels, about 9000 belonged to Scottish ports. The entire quantity of herrings exported amounted to 239,730 barrels, of which 195,301 barrels were Scotch; and of those exported, 149,926 barrels were sent to and disposed of in Ireland. The entire quantity of herrings taken by Scottish boats, and cured both for home use and exportation, was 495,589 barrels; the total by English and Scotch 555,5593 barrels; but this return does not include the Yarmouth fishery, the herrings there being always smoked, or made into what are called red herrings. We need not describe the Prussian and other methods, as they resemble some one or other of those already mentioned. Come we now to our own, which we have purposely reserved to the last. Amongst the fishermen of Ireland, the men of Kinsale have long been the admitted leaders; and the Kinsale hookers are celebrated throughout the nautical world as among the best sea-boats that ever weathered a gale. They are half-decked vessels, with one mast, carrying a fore and aft mainsail, foresail, and jib, and are usually manned by four men and a boy. They are seldom used in the herring fishery, being for the most part confined to the deep-sea line fishery upon the Nymph bank, where cod, ling, hake, haddock, turbot, plaice, &c, abound in such quantity that many persons affirm it to be second only to the banks of Newfoundland. But the usual mode of fishing for herrings, and which is adopted all along the south, south-west, and west coast of Ireland, especially at Valencia and Kenmare, is with the deep-sea seine. This is formed sometimes for the express purpose, but frequently by a subscription of nets. Fifteen men bring a drift-net each, 20 fathoms or 120 feet in length, and 5 fathoms or 30 feet in depth; these are all joined together, five nets in length, and three in depth, so that the whole seine is 600 feet in length and 90 feet in depth, with a cork-rope (that is, a rope having large pieces of cork attached to it at intervals) at the top, and leaden sinkers attached to the foot-rope, which unites all the nets at the bottom. Two warps of 60 fathoms each are requisite, and there are brails (small half-inch ropes) attached to the foot-rope, which are of use to haul upon, in order to purse up the net and prevent the fish from escaping. The seine is shot from a boat whilst it is being pulled round the shoal of fish. All having been thrown over, the warp is hauled upon until the net is brought into ten fathoms' depth of water, when the brails and foot-rope are hauled in, and the fish is tucked into the largest boat. In this manner 80,000 to 100,000 herrings (about 100 barrels) may be taken at a haul. But where the people are too poor to supply themselves with nets or boats, many contrivances are made use of. For boats, the curragh, made of wicker and covered with a horse's skin, or canvass pitched, is used, and often even this cannot be had; sometimes the people load a horse with the nets, mount him and swim him out, shooting the nets from his back; and for nets, in many places, the people use their sheets, blankets, and quilts, which they subscribe and sew together, often to the number of sixty, and the fish thus taken are divided in due proportion amongst the subscribers. After the foreign statistics which we have laid before our readers, they will doubtless expect us to inform them how many vessels and what number of hands are now employed in the Irish fishery. This, however, we are unable to do. The Commissioners of the Herring Fishery have their jurisdiction confined to Scotland and England, almost exclusively to Scotland, the fishery of which thriving under their fostering care in a most surprising manner. By their judicious attention to the encouragement of careful curing, and the distribution of small aids in money to poor fishermen, the number of boats employed in 1839 exceeded that of the former year by 78; and the progressive increase in the fishery is fully exemplified by the following table, showing the quantity of herrings cured during the five years preceding the return now before By this table it appears that the Scotch fishery has doubled its amount in five years, without any description of bounty being given. It may, however, be as well to state, before concluding this paper, that it appears, by the Reports of the Irish Commissioners, whose sittings terminated in the year 1830, that during the time that Ireland possessed a Fishery Board, the number of persons employed in the fishery had more than doubled. At the time of the first appointment of Commissioners of Irish Fisheries in 1819, the number of men employed was estimated at 30,000. By the first return which they could venture to pronounce accurate, being for the year ending 5th April 1822, the number was 36,192 men; 5th April 1823, the number was 44,892 men, being an increase of 8.700; at 5th April 1824, the number was 49,448, being an increase on the preceding year of 4556; 5th April 1825, the number was 52,482, being an increase on the preceding year of 3034; and the numbers went on regularly progressing every year during the existence of the Board, until its termination, as the following extract from the last Report will best exhibit. It is for the year 1830, at which time the bounty had been reduced to one shilling per barrel : "The Commissioners have still the gratification to find, from the returns made by the local inspectors, that the number of fishermen still continues to experience a yearly increase. The gross amount, as taken from the returns of the preceding year, was 63,421 men. The gross amount, as taken from the returns of the present year, is 64,771 men, being an increase on the past year of 1350 men." By the same report it appeared that the number of decked vessels was 345; tonnage 9810; men 2147-half-decked vessels 769; tonnage 9457; men 3852-row-boats 9522; men 46,212. The quantity of herrings cured for bounty in the year ending 5th April 1830, was 16,855 barrels, the bounty on which was £842 15s. The tonnage bounty paid to vessels engaged in the cod and ling fishery was £829 10s; and the bounty on cured cod, &c. was £960. There is not in the reports that we have seen any attempt at estimating the quantity of herrings caught, which is somewhat extraordinary, considering the accuracy with which the number of fishermen, curers, coopers, &c, was ascertained; but the quantity cured is given above. Whilst, however, the number of fishermen employed in the fisheries generally, increased so very considerably during the period that the Irish Fishery Board was in operation, it is an extraordinary, and to us inexplicable fact, that the quantity of herrings cured for bounty in any one season never exceeded 16,855 barrels, so that even the high bounty of 4s per barrel was not sufficient to induce the Irish fishermen to cure their herrings in a proper manner. In short, the fishery board, in so far as the primary object of its formation was concerned, totally inoperative, and the people of this country were as dependent then as now upon the Scotch curers for the requisite supply of the staple luxury of the poorer classes. It is impossible to say to what extent the fisheries may have fallen off, if at all, in Ireland, since the abolition of the fishery board; but as the quantity of salted herrings imported into Ireland from Scotland has not materially increased since, it may be presumed that as many herrings are caught and cured now as at any former period. The alleged decline of the Irish fisheries has by many been attributed entirely to the withdrawal of the bounties and the fishery board. But when we consider the exceedingly trifling amount of bounty paid on herrings in any one year, the discontinuance of so small a sum as £842 15s 7d (the amount in 1829-30) could not possibly have any perceptible influence upon a branch of industry which gave employment to 75,366 persons. Nor could the discontinuance of the grants made for harbours and small loans to poor fishermen have produced any material influence upon the fisheries, as the total amount advanced in ten years for these two objects was only £39,508 18s 2d, or less than £4000 a year. There is then but one other point of view in which the withdrawal of the fishery board could have operated injuriously, namely, the absence of that supervision and authority in regulating the fisheries which the officers of the board exercised to a certain extent, and which in our opinion ought to have been continued. The various modes of curing herrings will form the subject of a future article. CASTLECOR, A REVERIE, BY J. U. U. Ancient oaks of Castlecor, Chance and change still sweeping past, Where the summer sunbeam plays What eventful hours might be Here recalled to memory! Straight upon the visioned sight, On free air in sunshine glancing, See a jovial train advancing, Bright housed steed and palfrey prancing. Horn and hound and hawk are there, Spear and scarf, and mantle fair, Sport and jest, and laughter gay, Shout and jolly hark away! On the glittering pageant streams, All have passed !-and in their stead, Sense, and mild humanity, Taste that spreads improvement round, On the old paternal ground; And without its blood and crime, Keeps the grace of elder time. SCRAPS FROM THE NORTHERN SCRIP. [The following specimens of the Icelandic Sagas have been closely translated for the Irish Penny Journal, from the publications of the Royal Society of Northern Antiquaries, Copenhagen.] NO. I.-KING OLAVE AND THE DEVIL. * AND now the enemy of the whole human race, the devil himself, saw how his kingdom began to be laid waste, he who always persecutes human nature, and he saw how much on the other hand God's kingdom prospered and increased; thereat he now felt great envy, and he puts on the human form, because he could so much the more easily deceive men, if he looked like a man himself. It so happened that King Olave was on a visit at Egvald's Ness, about the anniversary of our Lord Jesus Christ's nativity; and as all were regularly seated in the evening, and preparatious were making for the drinking bout, and they were waiting until the royal table should be covered, there came an old one-eyed man into the hall with a silk hat on his head; he was very talkative, and could relate divers kinds of things; he was led forward before the king, who asked him the news, to which he replied, that he could relate various matters about the ancient kings and their battles. The king asked whether he knew who Œgvald was, he whom the Ness was called after. He answered, “He dwelt here on the Ness, and dearly loved a cow, so that she would follow him wherever he led her, and he would drink her milk; and therefore people that love cattle say that man and cow shall go together. This king fought many a battle, and once he strove with the king of Skorestrand; in that battle fell many a man, and there fell also King Œgvald, and he was afterwards buried aloft here on the Ness, and his barrow will be found here a little way from the house; in the other barrow lies the cow." The drinking bout was now held according to usage, and all the diversions that had been appointed. Afterwards many went away to sleep. Then the king had that old man called to him, and he sat on the footstool by the king's bed, and the king asked him about many matters, which he explained well, and like an experienced man. And when he had related much and explained many things well, the king became constantly the more desirous to hear him; he therefore staid awake a great part of the night, and continued to ask him about many things. At last the bishop reminded him in a few words that the king should stop speaking with the man; but the king thought he had related a part, but that another was still wanting. Far in the night, however, the king at last fell asleep, but awoke soon after, and asked whether the stranger was awake; he did not answer. The king said to the watchers that they should lead him up, but he was not found. The king then stood up, had his cupbearer and cook called to him, and asked whether any unknown man had gone to them when they were preparing the guest-chamber. The head cook said, "There came a little while ago, sire, a man to us, and said to me, as I was preparing the meat for a savoury dish for you, Why do you prepare such meat for the king's table as choice food for him, which is so lean?' I told him then to get me some fatter and better meat, if he had any such. He said, Come with me, and I will show you some fat and good meat, which is fit for a king's table.' And he led me to a house, and showed me two sides of very fat flesh; and this have I prepared for you, sire!" The king now saw it was a wile of the devil, and said to the cook, "Take that meat now, and cast it into the sea, that none may eat thereof; and if any one tastes of it, he will quickly die. But whom do you suppose that devil to have been, the stranger guest?" We know not," said they, "who it is." The king said, "I believe that devil took upon himself Odin's form." According to the king's command the meat was carried out, and cast into the sea; but the stranger was nowhere found, and search was made for him round about the Ness, according to the king's commandment.-From Olave Tryggvason's Saga. 6 The Norse word which becomes ness as the termination of several British localities, and The Naze in our maps of Norway, means "promontory" (literally "nose") and must not be confounded with The Ness in the county of Londonderry, which is in Irish "the waterfall." Printed and published every Saturday by GUNN and CAMERON, at the Office of the General Advertiser, No. 6, Church Lane, College Green, Dublin.Agents:-R. GROOMBRIDGE, Panyer Alley, Paternoster Row, London; SIMMS and DINHAM, Exchange Street, Manchester; C. DAVIES, North John Street, Liverpool; JOHN MENZIES, Prince's Street, Edinburgh; and DAVID ROBERTSON, Trongate, Glasgow. THE individual to whom the heading of this article is uniformly applied, stands among the lower classes of his countrymen in a different light and position from any of those previous characters that we have already described to our readers. The intercourse which they maintain with the people is one that simply involves the means of procuring subsistence for themselves by the exercise of their professional skill, and their powers of contributing to the lighter enjoyments and more harmless amusements of their fellow-countrymen. All the collateral influences they possess, as arising from the hold which the peculiar nature of this intercourse gives them, generally affect individuals only on those minor points of feeling that act upon the lighter phases of domestic life. They bring little to society beyond the mere accessories that are appended to the general modes of life and manners, and consequently receive themselves as strong an impress from those with whom they mingle, as they communicate to them in re turn. Now, the Prophecy Man presents a character far different from all this. With the ordinary habits of life he has little sympathy. The amusements of the people are to him little else than vanity, if not something worse. He despises that class of men who live and think only for the present, without ever once performing their duties to posterity, by looking into those great events that lie in the womb of futurity. Domestic joys or distresses do not in the least affect him, because the man has not to do with feelings or emotions, but with principles. The speculations in which he indulges, and by which his whole life and conduct are regulated, place him far above the usual impulses of humanity. He cares not much who has been married or who has died, for his mind is, in point of time, communing with unborn generations upon affairs of high and solemn import. The past, indeed, is to him something, the future every thing; but the present, unless when marked by the prophetic symbols, little or nothing. The topics of his conversation are vast and mighty, being nothing less than the fate of kingdoms, the revolution of empires, the ruin or establishment of creeds, the fall of monarchs, or the rise and prostration of principalities and powers. How can a mind thus engaged descend to those petty subjects of ordinary life which engage the common attention? How could a man hard at work in evolving out of prophecy the subju gation of some hostile state, care a farthing whether Loghlin Roe's daughter was married to Gusty Given's son, or not? The thing is impossible. Like fame, the head of the Prophecy Man is always in the clouds, but so much higher up as to be utterly above the reach of any intelligence that does not affect the fate of nations. There is an old anecdote told of a very high and a very low man meeting. "What news down there?" said the tall fellow. "Very little," replied the other: "what kind of weather have you above?" Well indeed might the Prophecy Man ask what news there is below 394 for his mind seldom leaves those aërial heights from which it watches the fate of Europe and the shadowing forth of future changes. The Prophecy Man-that is, he who solely devotes himself to an anxious observation of those political occurrences which mark the signs of the times, as they bear upon the future, the principal business of whose life it is to associate them with his own prophetic theories-is now a rare character in IreThe Shanahus land. He was, however, a very marked one. and other itinerant characters had, when compared with him, a very limited beat indeed. Instead of being confined to a parish or a barony, the bounds of the Prophecy Man's travels were those of the kingdom itself; and indeed some of them have been known to make excursions to the Highlands of Scotland, in order if possible to pick up old prophecies, and to make themselves, by cultivating an intimacy with the Scottish seers, capable of getting a clearer insight into futurity, and surer rules for developing the latent secrets of time. One of the heaviest blows to the speculations of this class was the downfall and death of Bonaparte, especially the latter. There are still living, however, those who can get over this difficulty, and who will not hesitate to assure you, with a look of much mystery, that the real "Bonyparty" is alive and well, and will make his due appearance when the time comes; he who surrendered himself to the English being but an accomplice of the true one. to truth. night from their labour, to stretch himself upon two chairs, his "Barney, ahagur," the good man his host would say, "here's a lot o' the neighbours come to hear a whirrangue from you on the Prophecies; and, sure, if you can't give it to them, who is there to be found that can ?" Throth, Paddy Traynor, although I say it that should not say it, there's truth in that, at all evints. The same knowledge has cost me many a weary blisthur an' sore heel in The next fact, and which I have alluded to in treating of huntin' it up an' down, through mountain an' glen, in Ulthe Shanahus, is the failure of the old prophecy that a George sther, Munsther, Leinsther, an' Connaught not forgettin' the Fourth would never sit on the throne of England. His eo- the Highlands of Scotland, where there's what they call the 'short prophecy,' or second sight, but wherein there's afther ronation and reign, however, puzzled our prophets sadly, and indeed sent adrift for ever the pretensions of this prophecy all but little of the Irish or long prophecy, that regards what's to befall the winged woman that flewn into the wilderBut that which has nearly overturned the system, and routedness. No, no-their second sight isn't thrue prophecy at the whole prophetic host, is the failure of the speculations so all. If a man goes out to fish, or steal a cow, an that he confidently put forward by Dr Walmsey in his General History happens to be drowned or shot, another man that has the of the Christian Church, vulgarly called Pastorini's Prophecy, second sight will see this in his mind about or afther the time he having assumed the name Pastorini as an incognito or nom it happens. Why, that's little. Many a time our own Irish de guerre. The theory of Pastorini was, that Protestantism drames are alqual to it; an' indeed I have it from a knowand all descriptions of heresy would disappear about the year ledgeable man, that the gift they boast of has four parentseighteen hundred and twenty-five, an inference which he drew an empty stomach, thin air, a weak head, an' strong whisky, with considerable ingenuity and learning from Scriptural pro-an' that a man must have all these, espishilly the last, before phecy, taken in connexion with past events, and which he he can have the second sight properly; an' it's my own opinion. argued with all the zeal and enthusiasm of a theorist naturally Now, I have a little book (indeed I left my books with a friend anxious to see the truth of his own prognostications verified. down at Errigle) that contains a prophecy of the milk-white The failure of this, which was their great modern standard, hind an' the bloody panther, an' a forebodin' of the slaughter has nearly demolished the political seers as a class, or com- there's to be in the Valley of the Black Pig, as foretould by pelled them to fall back upon the more known to speak but when he prophesied, or to prophesy but ascribed to St Columball, St Bridget, and othered revelations Beal Derg, or the prophet wid the red mouth, who never was Having thus, as is our usual custom, given what we con- when he spoke.' ceive to be such preliminary observations as are necessary to make both the subject and the person more easily understood, we shall proceed to give a short sketch of the only Prophecy Man we ever saw who deserved properly to be called so, in the This individual's full and unrestricted sense of the term. name was Barney M'Haighery, but in what part of Ireland All I know he was born I am not able to inform the reader. is, that he was spoken of on every occasion as The Prophecy Man; and that, although he could not himself read, he carried about with him, in a variety of pockets, several old books and manuscripts that treated upon his favourite subject. Barney was a tall man, by no means meanly dressed; and it is necessary to say that he came not within the character or condition of a mendicant. On the contrary, he was considered as a person who must be received with respect, for the people knew perfectly well that it was not with every farmer in the neighbourhood he would condescend to sojourn. He had nothing of the ascetic and abstracted meagreness of the Prophet in his appearance. So far from that, he was inclined to corpulency; but, like a certain class of fat men, his natural disposition was calm, but at the same time not unmixed with something of the pensive. His habits of thinking, as might be expected, were quiet and meditative; his personal motions slow and regular; and his transitions from one resting-place to another never of such length during a single day as to exceed ten miles. At this easy rate, however, he traversed the whole kingdom several times; nor was there probably a local prophecy of any importance in the country with which he was not acquainted. He took much delight in the greater and lesser prophets of the Old Testament; but his heart and soul lay, as he expressed it, "in the Revelations of St John the Divine." His usual practice was, when the family came home at "The Lord bless an' keep us!-an' why was he called the Man wid 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." 66 Glory be to God! but that's wondherful all out. Well, well!" 46 Ay, an' Beal Derg, or the Red Mouth, is still livin'.” "Our own time! The Lord help you! It's more than a "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 for ever." "An' what is the Black Pig, Barney?" "The Prospitarian church, that stretch from Enniskillen to Darry, an' back again from Darry to Enniskillen." 66 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 mou tain, an' turns to the four corners of the heavens, to thry if he can see it; an' when he finds that he can not, he goes back to Beal Derg, who, afther the other touches him, starts up, an' 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." 46 Barney, wasn't Columkill a great prophet?" "He was a great man entirely at prophecy, and so was St Bridget. He prophesied that the cock wid the purple comb is to have both his wings clipped by one of his own breed before the struggle comes.' Before that time, too, we're to have the Black Militia, an' afther that it is time for every man to be prepared." An', Barney, who is the cock wid the purple comb?" "Why, the Orangemen to be sure. Isn't purple their colour, the dirty thieves?" "An' the Black Militia, Barney, who are they?" "I have gone far an' near, through north an' through south, up an' down, by hill an' hollow, till my toes were corned an' my heels in griskins, but could find no one able to resolve that, or bring it clear out o' the prophecy. They're to be sogers in black, an' all their arms an' 'coutrements is to be the same colour; an' farther than that is not known as yet." "It's a wondher you don't know it, Barney, for there's little about prophecy that you haven't at your finger ends." "Three birds is to meet (Barney proceeded in a kind of recitative enthusiasm) upon the saes-two ravens an' a dovethe two ravens is to attack the dove until she's at the point of death; but before they take her life, an eagle comes and tears the two ravens to pieces, an' the dove recovers. There's to be two cries in the kingdom; one of them is to rache from the Giants' Causeway to the centre house of the town of Sligo; the other is to rache from the Falls of Beleek to the Mill of Louth, which is to be turned three times with human blood; but this is not to happen until a man with two thumbs an' six fingers upon his right hand happens to be the miller." "Who's to give the sign of freedom to Ireland?" "The little boy wid the red coat that's born a dwarf, lives a giant, and dies a dwarf again! He's lightest of foot, but leaves the heaviest foot-mark behind him. An' it's he that is to give the sign of freedom to Ireland!" There's a period to come when Antichrist is to be upon the earth, attended by his two body servants Gog and Magog. Who are they, Barney?" "They are the sons of Hegog an' Shegog, or in other words, of Death an' Damnation, and cousin jarmins to the Devil himself, which of coorse is the raison why he promotes them." "Lord save us! But I hope that won't be in our time, Barney!" "Antichrist is to come from the land of Crame o' Tarthar (Crim Tartary, according to Pastorini), which will account for himself an' his army breathin' fire an' brimstone out of their mouths, according to the glorious Revelation of St John the Divine, an' the great prophecy of Pastorini, both of which beautifully compromise upon the subject. The prophet of the Black Stone is to come, who was born never to prognosticate a lie. He is to be a mighty hunter, an' instead of riding to his fetlocks in blood, he is to ride upon it, to the admiration of his times. It's of him it is said that he is to be the only prophet that ever went on horseback!' Then there's Bardolphus, who, as there was a prophet wid the red mouth, is called the prophet wid the red nose.' Ireland was, it appears from ancient books, undher wather for many hundred years before her discovery; but bein' allowed to become visible one day in every year, the enchantment was broken by a sword that was thrown upon the earth, an' from that out she remained dry, an' became inhabited. Woe, woe, woe,' says Bardolphus, the time is to come when we'll have a second deluge, an' Ireland is to be undher wather once more. A well is to open at Cork that will cover the whole island from the Giants' Causeway to Cape Clear. In them days St Patrick will be despised, an' will stand over the pleasant houses wid his pasthoral crook in his hand, crying out Cead mille failtha in vain! Woe, woe, woe,' says Bardolphus, 'for in them days there will be a great confusion of colours among the people; there will be neither red noses nor pale cheeks, an the divine face of man, alas! will put forth blossoms no more. The heart of the times will become changed; an' when they rise up in the morning, it will come to pass that there will be no longer light heads or shaking hands among Irishmen ! Woe,woe, woe, men, women, and children will then die, an' their only complaint, like all those who perished in the flood of ould, will be wather on the brain-wather on the brain! Woe, woe, woe,' says Bardolphus, for the changes that is to come, an' the misfortunes that's to befall the.many for the noddification of the few! an' yet such things must be, for I, in virtue of the red spirit that dwells in me, must prophesy them. In those times men will be shod in liquid fire an' not be burned; their breeches shall be made of fire, an' will not burn them; their bread shall be made of fire, an' will not burn them; their meat shall be made of fire, an' will not burn them; an' why?-Oh, woe, woe, wather shall so prevail that the coolness of their bodies will keep them safe; yea, they shall even get fat, fair, an' be full of health an' strength, by wearing garments wrought out of liquid fire, by eating liquid fire, an' all because they do not drink liquid fire-an' this calamity shall come to pass,' says Bardolphus, the prophet of the red nose. Two widows shall be grinding at the Mill of Louth (so saith the prophecy); one shall be taken and the other left." Thus would Barney proceed, repeating such ludicrous and heterogeneous mixtures of old traditionary prophecies and spurious quotations from Scripture as were concocted for him by those who took delight in amusing themselves and others at the expense of his inordinate love for prophecy. "But, Barney, touching the Mill o' Louth, of the two widows grindin' there, whether will the one that is taken or the one that is left be the best off?" "The prophecy doesn't say," replied Barney, "an' that's a matther that larned men are very much divided about. My own opinion is, that the one that is taken will be the best off; for St Bridget says that betune wars an' pestilences an' famine, the men are to be so scarce that several of them are to be torn to pieces by the women in their struggles to see who will get them for husbands." That time they say is to come." Right enough; but do you know the raison of it?" "We can't say that, Barney; but, however, we're at home when you're here." Well, I'll tell you. St Keeran was, may be, next to St Patrick himself, one of the greatest saints in Ireland, but any rate we may put him next to St Columkill. Now, you see, when he was building the church of Ballynasaggart, it came to pass that there arose a great famine in the land, an' the saint found it hard to feed the workmen where there was no vittles. What to do, he knew not, an' by coorse he was at a sad amplush, no doubt of it. At length says he, Boys, we're all hard set at present, an' widout food bedad we can't work; but if you observe my directions, we'll contrive to have a bit o' mate in the mean time, an', among ourselves, it was seldom more wanted, for, to tell you the thruth, I never thought my back an' belly would become so well acquainted. For the last three days they haven't been asunder, an' I find they are perfectly willing to part as soon as possible, an' would be glad of any thing that 'ud put betune them.' Now, the fact was, that, for drawin' timber an' stones, an * There certainly is such a prophecy. |