A Dialect of Donegal/Texts/Notes

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NOTES ON THE TEXTS.

J. H. relates this incident as having happened to an ancestor of his own. J. H.’s father was Andy son of Harry son of Seaghan the poet son of Áindrías Mór an Ime. Note the local colouring on p. 198 ll. 38, 40 where feuch in the sense of ‘look’ and íoc, ‘pay’, are both Connaught words.

p. 198 l. 5 Tá mé ar tógáil, locally ‘I am a-lifting’ = ‘I am badly nourished’. The phrase is stated to refer to cattle which were so weak at the end of winter that they had to be assisted out of the byre.

This story seems to be well known throughout Ulster. Lloyd has published it in his Sgéalaidhe Óirghiall under the title of Aodh Beag O Leabharcha (p. 1).

p. 203 l. 39 fir fagháil. I do not understand this phrase and J. H. was unable to throw any light upon it.

Some of the episodes of this tale are well known in Scotland and the north of Ireland. Larminie gives substantially the same story under the title of ‘King Mananaun’ in his ‘West Irish Folk-tales’ (p. 64) and there is a story called ‘Gille nan Cochla-Craicinn’ in ‘Waifs and Strays of Celtic Tradition’ vol. iii, ‘Folk and Hero Tales from Argyllshire’ (p. 42).