From: Gerard (Ger@r.d)
Date: Sun 17 Sep 2000 - 01:40:51 EEST
Gerard wrote:
>http://www.ucc.ie/celt/online/G201029.html
>
>Aroile —cl?ch rob*i i n-abdaine Druimenaigh, trialltair lais fled
>morchain do denam do fritheolad na c?sc.
Translation by Barbara Hillers, after Kuno Meyer
A certain young man who held the abbacy of Drimnagh endeavoured to
make a great and fine banquet in observation of Easter. after
preparing the banquet the young man goes out of the house and sits on
a big pleasant hill that was above the settlement; and it is thus the
young man was, a very comely linen hood around his head and a tunic of
royal silk closely fitted to his white skin, and an excellent very
beautiful robe on top of that, and a cloak of dark brown scarlet
flowing round him, and a gold-hilted sword fit for assembly in his
hand. and when he reached the top, he put his elbow to the ground and
slept.
And after he woke up from his sleep, when he wanted to take his sword,
he only found a woman's weapon in its place, i.e. a distaff. And this
is how he was, the skirt of a woman's tunic on him down to the ground,
and on his head there was a woman's hairdo, long golden and very
beautiful hair falling in fine curls from the top of his head, and
when he passed his hand over his face he did not find any hair of a
beard or moustache there, and he put his hand between his thigh and he
found the sign of womanhood there. Nevertheless the young man did not
believe those various, for he thought that it was shape-shifting and
magic which had been played on him.
Then a certain big woman comes past him, and she was very ugly, brown
and exceedingly hideous, an apparition with grey bristles and deep-set
eyes, and this is what she said: "Why are you here, smooth young blond
girl, alone on this hillock at the end of the day and the very
beginning of night?" And he was gloomy and tearful and sad at this
news and he said after that, "I do not know where I will go or what I
will do hence. Because if I go to my house, my people would not
recognize me, and if I should leave, I'm in danger as a single woman
going about on her own. Therefore then this is best for me, to go
through the world until God may pass judgement on me, for it is he who
has distorted my shape and my form and has put me in disfigurement and
repulsiveness. But still, although God has given me this change of
appearance, I swear in the presence of the Creator that I have not
hung a person or wronged anyone, that I have not committed an outrage
against bell or relic or staff, nor persecuted a church, nor spoken
evil against anyone, nor has a guest ever gone dissatisfied from my
dwelling and my house."
He descended then from the knoll and from the pleasant, beautifully
sloping hill, and he raised a sore lament and a heavy sorrowful cry,
for this is what he said going down the hill: "Pity," he said, "that
the ground does not swallow me up this very moment, because I do not
know whither I will go or what I will do." She went off after that
down across the slope of the hill, until she reached the green of
Crumlin, a church that was to the west of Drimnagh. After that she
meets a certain tall soldierly young man on the village green, and the
young man felt eager obsessive love for her and began to entreat her
and did not leave off until he had union and intercourse with her. And
after they had slept together, the young man asked the girl from what
place she came and who she was. The girl told him that he would not
get that knowledge from her whether they would be together for long or
short. "I, however," he said, will tell you my name, for I am erenagh
of this church, which is called Crumlin, and my wife died two years
ago, and you will be my harmonious and well-matched wife." And they
went together then to the erenagh's house and the people of the house
bade her a friendly and courteous welcome, and she was with him for
seven years as his wife and his spouse, and seven children she bore
him during that time.
After that a messenger comes to the erenagh from the congregation and
assembly of Drimnagh to invite him for easter and she goes together
with the erenagh to the hill on which her shape was first transformed,
and she falls immediately asleep on the hill, and the erenagh goes
with his people to the church. and after the girl woke up from her
sleep, it is thus she was, a man, with the same appearance she had had
in the first place, and she found her gold-hilted, ornamented sword on
her knee, and this is what she said: @O powerful God, the lamenting in
which I am in is great,@ and after a great lamentation he went to his
original home and his wife says to him then: "Its long that you are
absent from home." then the drinking hall had been arranged and that
strange story was told to the people of the house. However, that story
was not believed by them, for his wife said he had not been absent for
more than one hour of the day. Finally, after giving them many various
judgements and proofs, his case is presented and a judgement made
between him and the erenagh of Crumlin, and this is the judgement that
was made between them: to divide the children in half, giving the
extra son to the erenagh for fosterage, and this is how they parted
from each other, etc.
[Gotta love that "etc"]
- --
Gear—id Mac Cuinneag?in
abardubh at enteract dot com
__
Tom
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