Final Portfolio (Revised Assignments 1-3, and Introduction) Folklore

AN IRISH CHRISTMAS MUMMING zyill Silver and No Brass

HENRY GLASSIE

Illustrated by the Author

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS

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CONVERSATIONS

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Hugh Nolan

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Ellen Cutler:

I Loved to See the Mummers Come

B EYOND THE ORANGE LILIES, fenced next to the street, and over the low hills, hedged into smooth small fields, the sky pales. It thickens slowly, darkens slowly. No sudden

change comes on a long summer’s evening: edges soften, forms melt, blues and greens fade.

Mrs. Cutler sits straight on the edge of her big chair at the corner of the hearth. Her hair, never cut, lies plaited down her back. She watches the window’s square of sky. You expect to see, nearly hear, the line separating night from day, but twi­ light abides, relentlessly, night slides in unseen and silent.

She turns from the window and back to our conversation on the Great Days that punctuate the year’s circle. The day’s last light is trapped in the buffed brass of the front door latch, the knobs on the dresser’s drawers. She says:

“Christmas was a great time. Now. A great time all right.”

She tongs the sticks of the fire into order. Sticks, she feels, make a cheerier fire than turf, and they are as good as turf for baking fadge, so she keeps a good heap of sticks next to the lane, near where she has tied that bad villain of a goat whose tastes require the paling around the orange lilies. She leans the tongs against the jamb of the hearth. It is painted green with pink dots.

“We went out and got red-berried holly—red berries on the holly. And I used to put that up on the dresser ...”

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FOUR CONVERSATIONS Ellen Cutler: / Loved to See the Mummers Come

Our eyes follow her hand upward past the shelves of delph, gleaming, spiraling across the dresser that stands opposite the kitchen’s hearth. She loves to take those plates down, each the memory of some occasion, wash them and set them up again neatly. They are not used; there are plates to eat from in the pantry. She turns, sweeping a gesture over her “ornaments,” symmetrically arrayed: china ducks and a plastic Santa on a shelf at the rear, a donkey’s shoe over the front door, plates on the wall with verse and Irish scenes, an embroidered Lead Me and Guide Me, an aerial photograph of her farm, a print of a thatched house, another of a dog, calendars.

“ . . . and round behind the pictures. Well then, I used to get paper decorations for the ceilin. And balloons. Oh, and things like that, you know.

“That’d be just before Christmas, and then Christmas day would come along, and we’d be watchin for our presents. And children were here, and they used to get aiot of things.

“Then, there was always a goose or maybe two goose for the dinner. Big fat dinner. I never eat goose, for I don’t like it. Neither I do.

“The men would have a jorum of maybe old porter or whiskey. Well, I could take a half-one of whiskey all right— and maybe two. I don’t deny it.

“And the children was playin with their toys, and had a good dinner, and we sat around the fire chattin till it was time to go out and do the work again, milkin and feedin and all like that on a farm. You were always goin. And very little for it.

“But sure we got on.”

She pauses, thinking. Some celebrated their Christmas in the Room, the parlor off the kitchen—above the fireplace in most of the old Fermanagh houses like Mrs. Cutler’s. An an­ cient tall clock and dark dining room furniture stand in her Room. The local Orange Lodge met there before the hall was built at Bellanaleck. King Billy equestrian, George V and his

queen, Sir Edward Carson, and members of the family are tightly framed on the papered walls. The Room is a piece of sculpture, rarely used. Christmas at the Cutlers’ always hap­ pened in the kitchen; it was, she said, “more homely.” The kitchen is the farm’s heart. The house’s front door carries you immediately into it. Food is cooked and eaten there and the eve­ ning’s ceili curls around its ever live fire. It was the Cutlers’ kitchen that was decorated with holly and evergreen boughs, providing a setting for the Christmas dinner and play and chat —providing a stage for the mummers.

“Then there would be the mummers. “They used to come around the New Year. You’d be wait­

ing and then you’d hear them coming down the street there.”

“Would they be making music, or just noise?” I am sitting close by her. She looks at me and blinks coquettishly to show that my interruption, though a bit stupid, was all right. She answers me and returns to her narrative.

“Just making a noise afore they’d come in, and then they’d knock at the door and they’d say, ‘Any admittance for Cap­ tain Mummer and his men? ’

“I’d go down and open the door to them, and they’d come in and some of them were dressed in women’s clothes and big straw hats touchin the ceilin—made out of straw—and some of them might have straw belts on them. And big ould boots and wide trousers and then the Doctor would come in and he’d have a big hat on him and the first man comes in. He’d say:

‘Here comes I, Big Beelzebub. And over my shoulder I carry me club. Money I want, money I crave, If you don’t give me money I’ll sweep you till your grave.’

FOUR CONVERSATIONS

Here comes 1

“Then this man gets sick. One of them. And the Doctor’s called. And the Doctor can cure all aches and pains and the gravel and—och, I couldn’t tell you the half of what he could cure.

“And he was lyin on the ground. And the Doctor says to him, ‘Get up dead man and fight again.’

“So then, the man would get up. And they’d go through a whole pile of old ramases; I can’t mind all what they used to say.”

She laughs gently, happily and continues:

“So, anyway, then they had to go around for the money. Coorse, we all give a little to it.

“And they’d thank us very much. And wish us a happy New Year, and away they’d go.

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Ellen Cutler: / Loved to See the Mummers Come

“But before they would go, if they could see a cake of bread on the table or any eatables, you wouldn’t have them long; they’d have them with them. I’d say, ‘The best of luck to yez.’ And away they’d go.”

She chuckles, waving an exaggerated adieu to the imag­ inary mummer who had just fled out the open door and into the summer night, a cake of fadge tucked under his shirt. The tape-recorder hums on the floor at her feet, and I break with her into laughter as she sums it all up:

“So there’s the mummers now, and all in a lump and a stack.”

On a still, chilling December’s night, the mummers would have left the main road and entered the narrow lane that Billy Cutler used to get his donkey-cart of milk to the creamery. Muddy, forest dark, the lane curved before them up the hill. Behind the hedges of trees and thorn, back in the blackness, fell the fields where hay had grown and cows had grazed. Before winter, though, the hay would have been built into pecks in the haggard or piled under sheds, and the milk cows would have been tied into steamy byres. Beating their biceps for warmth, breathing hotly inside the straw helmets that rose from their shoulders, the mummers climbed the lane. The long slow grade grew steeper after they had passed through a gate—the chain holding it was icy to the touch— but their trip was near done. The lane veered sharply to avoid a fairy forth, untouched, tangled in darkness, and forked at the top of the hill, at the corner of the house. One of the lane’s branches bent over the Corn Hill toward the farm that lay below, near the bog, the other became the Cutlers’ street, its cobbles rough under feet that were numbly wet. On even a cloudless night, the whitewashed stone and crisp thatch of the house would have stood out, coldly, ghostly clear. The mum­ mers passed the byre to the house’s door without light, for in

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FOUR CONVERSATIONS

winter the window is close-curtained and the door, left open in summer, is shut against the winds rushing down the street and off the hillside. A word of preparation. A knock. And the doorway bursts with the kitchen’s brightness. Chairs are shoved back to the walls, and between the hearth and the dresser, their drama begins.

About thirty years have gone. Billy Cutler and Johnny, his cousin who helped in the farm work, have passed on. The two boys who played by the hearth are married men. There are ducks rather than cows in the byre, chickens rather than horses or asses in the stable that extends from the dwelling’s other end. Geese for Christmas still fatten in a wooden house down the hill.

Mrs. Cutler places a new stick across the fire. The tongs reflect its pink rising. She sits back and smiles. She has a beauti­ ful smile. “It must have been a great performance,” I say. “They’d come up here, come in and say their rhymes.” The memory is good to her:

“Aye, indeed. Surely. “Everyone of them would have a rhyme to say, you see.

And the big tall hats touchin the ceilin. “Ah, dear. “And one of them used to play a flute or a tin whistle. And

they had another one to dance a reel. Do something for their money, do you see.

“They were great, right enough. “Ah now. “But they daren’t go out now you know. No indeed. Be­

cause the last couple of years they were out, they had to get a permit, for since this Trouble they wouldn’t be allowed out atall. Masked men in the dark. Not this years.

“No indeed.”

The smile with which she began has become a frown. There is daily bad news on the wireless. Belfast lies far to the east

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Ellen Cutler: I Loved to See the Mummers Come

but the Troubles are not confined there. The bombs that blow in the town or down along the border echo to her hilltop. People at work on their farms in the soft green Fermanagh countryside have been suddenly, brutally murdered. You never know when the next stranger on the street will be a bitter bas­ tard with a gun. The nights are lonely. The wind howls cold on the street. There is not much money and the work is hard and constant for a woman in her seventies. But she is strong. Last year she whitewashed the entire house, stable, byre, dwelling, all. And she is good-hearted. It is grand remembering when times were calmer and people interacted informally, fearlessly. The young men who went out mumming were mostly from “the other side,” as she would say, but they made the long trip up to perform for the Cutlers and they were wel­ comed when they arrived.

The frown was a momentary lapse, she smiles again:

“Ah, they used to be great, right enough. “Ah, they were right lads, now. “I hear tell of them acting the candyman in other houses

but they wouldn’t do it here now. They were very nice\ “Coorse, they were only neighbor lads about, do you know.

They knew us. They didn’t do anything out of place. “They came to the door: ‘Any admittance?’ And then if

you’d say no, that there was no admittance, you see, they’d walk away.

“They might say to you when they’d be goin away . . .”

She glances impishly at me, raises her voice and rams the words together as closely as her tongue can get them:

. . ‘Good luck to your cows that your hens may lay golden eggs that your sow might have a hundred pigs.’

“Every one of them would say something to you: ‘The best of luck to you.’ ”

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FOUR CONVERSATIONS

Mrs. Cutler relaxes back in her chair. The smile is still with her:

“Ah now. “I liked to see them come. “And Billy liked to see them coming. “Coorse, there was no lino on the floor that time, and we

didn’t care what way they came in. Because I used to scrub it out. Twas cement.

“But I loved to see the mummers come. So I did.”

The fire shifts into itself. The bottom of the black pot hanging over it glows crimson. Away from the hearth the kitchen is lost in shadow and silence. Outside the door, over the hills and the Lough, the sky is close, dark, soundless. She rises and strikes a match to the gas lamp. The room explodes back into color.

Hugh Nolan:

I’ll Tell You the Way It Was

A MATCH FLASH FLUSHES ACROSS MR. NOLAN’S FACE. He

draws the flame into his pipe, puffs, and sits back against the fireplace jamb. “Well, Henry, it is time for us to take a sup

of tea.” A kettle dangles from the crane crook over the fire. The

teapot sits on the table at the back of the kitchen. The bread and butter are safe in a tin by the table under the front window. Our cups, side by side, stand on the dresser opposite the hearth. Making tea would mean much walking for Mr. Nolan. His back is stiff, the clay of the floor uneven. I link the kettle down its chain to get it boiling and spoon tea into the teapot.

As a young man Mr. Nolan pleasured in the company of his elders. He listened closely and rehearsed what he heard over in his mind. He watched the life around him and, being uneasy with writing, filed his observations carefully in his memory. People appeal to him to act as judge in disputes over past events. He is asked to settle bets on the prices of farm commodities and the customs of an earlier time. When ques­ tions of land tenure and legacy arise, people come to Hugh Nolan. He is, his neighbors say rightly, a great historian.

The kettle begins to sing. I pour the burbling water over the tea, mash some coals next to the fire into a bed, and set the teapot onto it. The bread is cut, buttered thickly, and piled on a plate. His neighbors told me that Mr. Nolan is a very religious man; they likened him to a monk of old. He sits serenely in his long dark overcoat, bound round with a purple sash. Exactly. Like a scholarly monk from Ireland’s gone

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FOUR CONVERSATIONS

golden age. Steam waves from the teapot’s stroop. I pour the tea over the mound of sugar and synthetic cream in our cups, stir it, and serve the bread and tea to Mr. Nolan. He removes his cap, sets it on his knee, and twinkles me a compliment on my clumsy domesticity.

During the profoundly pleasant days we have spent to­ gether he has detailed the work that all men did in his youth. With the first warmth of spring, it was off to the moss ground: nicking and coping, planting and tending potatoes and cab­ bage and oats so that there would be food on the table and thatch on the roof. The gardens had been hardly begun before the bogs would glitter with the white shirts of men cutting, wheeling, spreading, clamping—winning the turf that kept the hearth red the year through. In all but the best years, the men were up to the meadows before the turf had been brought home to cut, to tedd, to ring and rook the hay that would sustain the cows over the winter. In the heat of the summer most men labored at brick making. Veins of soapy, blue clay ran along the Arney River. It was dug and soughed, slapped into molds, edged, hacked, stacked, crowded into kilns for burning, and loaded onto cots to be shipped down the Lough to build Enniskillen. These slap bricks brought them a little money. Butter and milk brought a little more. There was always the task of following the cows that grazed the upland, and milking those that came to the byre. As winter closed the year down, there was still threshing to be done and perhaps a young beast to drive to the market to finance the pleasures of the Christmas season. Mr. Nolan told it all with a clarity and precision that would cow the proudest prose stylist.

The tea is done. While I rinse the cups, the spoon and the plate, Mr. Nolan glances at the clock on the dresser, moves to the front table, and in the window’s light he adjusts the wireless. In silence we listen to the news from Dublin and Derry, Belfast and Washington. Bad news as usual.

This morning we had talked of the battles that had crashed in the locality. Toward the end of the sixteenth century, an

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Hugh Nolan: Til Tell You the Way It Was

English army marching from Dublin had been drubbed at the Ford of the Biscuits in the Arney. The carnage was such that some fields about two miles to the west of us are called still “The Red Meadows.” A mile to the south at Mackan Hill in 1829 a group of Catholics armed with pitchforks had fought with Protestants who were marching to commemorate William of Orange’s victory at the Boyne. Two died. Mr. Nolan ar­ ranged the particulars in impeccable sequence, treating the events with the objectivity of the ideal scholar. I was always deeply impressed by his enormous memory and pristine logic.

The news ended, the wireless is snapped off. When battery powered radios first came into use a few years ago, people listened to them constantly, enjoying the “free music” they provided. Soon it was learned that good music—the “real old Irish music”—came over the airwaves but rarely and now radios are left quietly on the kitchen’s front table unless it is newstime. To help conversation along, people in Ballymenone maintain a high level of sophistication about national and inter­ national politics.

Mr. Nolan returns to his seat and brings the fire to a blaze with a sup of oil. He settles back. The kitchen is dim. Its ceiling and walls surround us in richly textured darkness. One of Mr. Nolan’s cats comes to rest purring on my knee. The other sways, almost asleep, in the warmth at the edge of the couch before the hearth. We watch the fire feather and dance. I click on the recorder that sits between us and begin a new topic: “There’s another thing I was wondering about, Hugh, and that’s mumming. Did you ever go out with the mummers?”

He looks up from the fire. He is an old man deep in his seventies, but his eyes shine, bright as a child’s. He provides his own image: his eyes gleam as a sign of his inner clarity.

“No. I never was out with them, but I often seen them, and I often beared their rhymes.”

He looks back to the fire in thought. I ask if this kitchen

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FOUR CONVERSATIONS

were a stage for the mummers: “Did they come here to this house?” He answers:

“They did. Oh aye surely. Visited all the houses in the locality.”

“Do you remember any of the rhymes?” Though he was not a mummer, his memory is so clean that it is possible he will remember some of their lines. Whatever question I pose, he will pause, then say, “Well, I’ll tell you how that was,” and launch into a full discourse. He looks down to his right, down into the fire, and draws on his pipe. The clock ticks.

“Well, there was different rhymes, do you know. Every lot of mummers had nearly a different rhyme.”

He pauses, puffs. A tractor rackets by, drawing a load of hay bales. The white shirt of its driver reflects a reverse path across the ceiling. The kitchen is dark again. I have learned to wait while Mr. Nolan is doing research. He shifts his pipe from his lips to the fists folded in his lap.

“There came mummers here one time. The first man would come, and he’d tip the door, and he’d say . . . . ”

With the beginning of the rhymes, Mr. Nolan modulates into a regular cadence, swinging the words along in near song:

‘Here comes I, Captain Mummer with all me men. Act of young and act of age, The like of it has never been acted on a stage.’

“So then you’d tell him,Tome in' He’d come in. So then the next man he’d call, it be Oliver Cromwell.

“He’d come in and he’d say:

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Hugh Nolan: I'll Tell You the Way It Was

7 fought in France, And I fought in Spain, And I'm back to Ireland to fight again. And if you don't believe in what I say, Come in Saint Patrick and he’ll clear the way.’

“There’ll come another man in, and he’ll say:

‘Here comes I Saint Patrick.'

“And I just don’t mind the commencement of his rhyme, but Oliver, he says something, and Saint Patrick calls him a liar. So he draws his bayonet and he gives Saint Patrick a stab of it, and he falls on the floor.”

I had followed the mummers up to the door of Mr. Nolan’s whitewashed house by the road. His grandfather built it of local brick. It would still have been thatched then. One by one the characters had ducked through the door and flickered in

He gives Saint Patrick a stab of it

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FOUR CONVERSATIONS Hugh Nolan: I’ll Tell You the Way It Was

the light of the kitchen’s lone candle. The battle had raged. It seemed reasonable for Ireland’s saint to have been trading sword thrusts with Cromwell who occupies a uniquely iniqui­ tous niche in Irish traditional consciousness. And it was reason­ able that calling him a liar would engender a fight, for there is no worse insult in this very oral culture. But. Knowing Mr. Nolan’s politics are as Green as Mrs. Cutler’s are Orange, I ask in surprise, “Saint Patrick dies?”

“Aye. He falls on the floor. So then. The Captain then calls the Doctor. So then. In comes a fellow then and he’d have a black hat on him and a pair of glasses. And he’d have a wee bag with him.

“And the Captain’d say to him: What can you cure?’ “He says he can cure:

‘The pain within and the pain without, The croup and the palsey and the gout?

“So then the Captain says, ‘What are you going to do for this man?’

“Well:

‘The livers and lights of a creepie stool. The spare ribs of a besom. Give’im that seven times before day, And if that doesn’t cure’im. I’ll look for no pay?

“Well then. The next man comes in was Little Devil Doubt. So he comes in and he says:

‘I’m Little Devil Doubt. If I don’t get money, I’ll sweep you all out. And if you don’t believe in what I say,

Call in Miss Funny, And she’ll clear the way?

“So then, Miss Funny’s dressed up—she’s dressed up like a girl, and she comes in and she has a wee bag for the money. So she goes round:

‘Here comes 1 Miss Funny. Money 1 want, and money I crave, And if I don’t get money, I’ll sweep yez all away to the grave?

“So then. She goes round the house. She gets the money. So then. The Captain then calls for a dance. There was a musician with them and he started on a flute or a mouth organ or a piano accordion, if he had one with him, and two of them started and danced a reel.

“So then, they bid goodnight, wished the occupants of the house a happy Christmas and went on to the next house.”

Mr. Nolan chuckles gently, while once again I compliment his memory. He smiles:

“Ah, well now. That’s not perfect, but it’s just as well as I can gather it up. For them that never heard it, it would do rightly.

“There wasn’t mummers round this locality for upwards of thirty years.

“You see ...”

He puts the pipe into his mouth and sucks the flame far into the tobacco. Words return with smoke wisps:

“... I’ll tell you the way it was in the days of the mummers. There was hardly many fellows in the locality had bicycles, and there was none had cars, except a terrible well-to-do man

FOUR CONVERSATIONS

in a good job, you see; well then, the fellows was knockin about the whole winter round, and there was no attractions like what’s now, do you see, and they picked up this for a pastime.

“Well, that’s a thing of the past now because there’s no young lads but they’re nearly all in jobs. They’re not on the farm, do you see, and then once they’re a while in a job, they get a car.

“Well then, when they come home from their work and gets their refreshment, they’ll go away again on the car. So there’s no combination of young people like what was in days gone by, do you see.”

The work Mr. Nolan and others of his generation like Hugh Patrick Owens and Paddy McBrien have described to me was hard, but the work in the bog and at the hay, the terrible labor of the brick making, had all been done by men working in groups. The nights were passed in neighborly chat at ceilis. Times have gotten easier but not altogether better. Quick transport and abundant tobacco do not fully compensate for loneliness. Mr. Nolan has efficiently formulated the theory of alienation. Touched, I agree: “That’s right. They don’t have much sense of community.”

“No. No. And in days gone by, in the winter season of the year, there was no townland but there was a ceiliing house in. And every lad, from he’d quit school (if he got leave from his father and mother to go to such a house) he’d go to it. There bes good sport in it.

“This used to be a ceiliing house in days gone by. “Well, that has all quit, do you see.”

The men who go into the bogs now often do the work of three men alone, but the hay is won by people working in groups. And on cold evenings, the latch of Mr. Nolan’s door still lifts regularly as men gather tightly around the fire, warm-

Hugh Nolan: ľ ll Tell You the Way It Was

ing their palms, smoking and talking until late into the night. The spirit of community has not passed entirely. But groups of young men no longer walk to every house to act out the Christmas drama.

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Peter and Joseph Flanagan:

A Little Entertainment

B ACK FROM HER STROLL with the other hens, she stands in the doorway. Cautiously stretching one foot, then her

beak, then another thin foot, she crosses the wet threshold and perks an eye at us. The sky behind her is the color of old tin. No one moves toward her sack of feed and scraps. It is not yet time for her dinner: she scurries out and around the corner.

The gray light of the front window is mellow over our dinner. “A good feed,” P says. “Aye,” Joe concurs. And so it is. The potatoes were boiled until they split their skins laughing in the great pot over the fire. They are this year’s—new po­ tatoes, fresh from P’s garden. It is not possible to stop at one or two. Maybe it’s the situation more than the spuds them­ selves, but their taste seems rich and complete. P passes me the plate, then forks another, deftly skins it, and taps salt over it. My times with the Flanagan brothers in their house at the top of the brae are always pleasing. Peter Flanagan is an artist.

Whenever he arrives where men gather, they will ask for a tune: “Give us ‘The Copper Plate’ or one of Coleman’s reels.” His flute is wrapped with brown paper in his inside breast pocket, but P does not always oblige, for he takes his music seriously and wishes to play only for those who can appreciate his talent. He is excellent and has been for longer than a gen­ eration. He is beyond the need for new compliments. But should the moment or company be right, he will draw the bright whistle and allow his fingers to fall naturally to it. Quavering and gliding, wild, the notes will rip in ascent. No

Peter and Joseph Flanagan: A Little Entertainment

room could contain the sound: it clatters like a trapped bird at the ceiling and windows, and breaks into sunlight, soaring. Around him the critics will stand, silently in black suits with black stout, staring down into nowhere, their ears cocked the better to hear. They have heard many a man play the tin whistle (there seems to be no public house in the south Ulster hills that lacks its fluter or two) but they will look up, nodding in consensus: there’s none better than yer man Flanagan.

Our dinner is done. Joe takes the hens’ food to them. P and I settle with cigarettes next to the fire. He brings his body to rest on a low wooden stool. Had he matured in a different world, he could have been a concert flutist or a composer of symphonies. There is music enough in his ear and hand and soul. He grew up, though, on the green hills that roll out of the bogs, and his hands are as familiar with the spade as with the flute or fiddle bow. P Flanagan is a laborer.

Into the workaday chat of the early summer, cold rain had dropped predictions of a bad crop—and worse: the consistent unseasonal chill had reminded everyone of ancient Irish prophecies of the world’s end. When the later summer filled day upon day with bright heat, the change was a wonder. Moods lightened as faces reddened and the meadows bloomed with rooks of hay. For over a week, P has been helping his neighbors with their hay, for he owns neither cow nor field. The work is now nearly done and this mizzly day provides him with a chance at a satisfying rest.

It is a relief that the hay has been won, but P lets the agri­ cultural topic fade as he turns to his task of educating me about Irish history. In the past this was one of the Great Days. Doon Sunday they called it and everyone would tramp up to one of the few wild spots left on this controlled landscape—Doon Mountain, beyond Derrylin, where the young people would pick bilberries, sing, dance and court. Our talk skips through the calendar and lights on the Christmas season. Mumming had not entered our earlier conversations, but I know from Mrs.

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FOUR CONVERSATIONS Peter and Joseph Flanagan: A Little Entertainment

Cutler that P had been a mummer. He had been, surely, and he would be glad to record the rhymes, just as we had recorded tunes and songs on other days.

Occasionally folklorists recommend sneaky recording, but I have learned that it is best from any perspective to put the machine out in plain view so that the person we strangely term the informant can come to understand and conquer it. I set the machine next to the iron square on which the turf burns, snap it on, check to be certain the batteries are at full strength, and begin by asking when the mummers would go out. He answers:

“It could be around Christmas and it could extend of course as far as the New Year. I think that New Year’s Night would be the definite night, the correct night, or even in New Year’s Day.”

Joe returns to the kitchen and takes the stuffed seat at the opposite corner of the hearth. “Some of them start a week afore Christmas,” he adds. P agrees:

“It could start before Christmas, it often did. But the Sec­ ond Night of Christmas was always the startin time here. It twould be the Second Day of Christmas—Boxing Day.

“And then there was other parts of Ireland, I think, that only done the one day. It was rather a daylight mumming in other parts of Ireland, I understand, and that was on New Year’s Day. On New Year’s Day. And they would go out and travel that area. Of course, it could be more thickily populated, you see, and maybe more wee towns and villages nearer than what we had. We had only the town of Enniskillen; well, that was pretty far away from us here: it twould be six or eight miles.

“And I think it was really the same in Scotland as well. And they get out and do the one day and wind it up. That finished the procedure.

“We’d keep at it much longer in order to get as much

money—a satisfactory amount to buyin a sufficient supply of drink, you see. And food.

“We went out for a week, went out for a full week, or I might add to that, maybe ten days. Ten nights.

“It wasn’t just out to get money personally for themselves; it twas more or less to have a wee bit of a dance, you see, and a bit of a hoolie. Aye.

“They’d have one big dance in a country house, a big party, and have a little of the creatur, as they called it. . .”

Sitting up at the edge of his chair, a hand on each knee, Joe nods his cap and smiles broadly. P laughs aloud, and while laughing keeps on:

“. . . accordin to the money. “A big night that. That was that. That’s what the funds

went towards now. The whole collection.”

The laughter had brought P back on his stool. He flicks the ash of his cigarette into the fire and leans forward, his elbows on his knees, still smiling. I ask him to think back and describe how the mummers would gather.

“Everyone knew of the ould custom, you see, and me and you we’d meet and we’d say, we’ll go out the year again. We went out last year and everyone was aware of the bit of sport and the ould customary thing, and we’d all assemble, maybe in a house, an unoccupied house. We wouldn’t like to give the occupants of the house any trouble, and we’d say, we’ll go to this unoccupied house, and we’d assemble the hats and buy this cotton attire in town; maybe the girls of that district might make the dress for us—the uniform.

“The uniform would be of variegated colors. It twould be cotton. It might be blue. It might be red. It could be any color, and then, of course, there’d be different types of ribbons on it. Oh, very attractive altogether—in such a way that it would

FOUR CONVERSATIONS Peter and Joseph Flanagan: A Little Entertainment

entice the people of that district or wherever we’d travel, do you see, that they’d let us in as soon as they’d see us on the street in particular, and we’d be admitted. It twould leave us in that position...”

P tilts his head coyly, glancing from the tail of his eye and chuckles:

“... we’d be more attractive and enticin.”

He sits back and returns to the informational mode:

“And then, of course, as well, they knew that this pro­ cedure was takin place, you see, and it being a customary thing they’d be delighted to see us and would admit us right away.

“Maybe if you were a person that liked the mummers. Well. You were waitin there and you had the money just on the table ready to hand them. And there were drinks given. And there was tea. We got tea often in houses. They were watchin and there would be a table set. Ah yes, there would be.

“There was some of them really overdone it altogether. They did surely.

“And if you were tired, you could sit down there. “Supposin you were out the whole long night, you know,

from early in the evenin, and come to this house, or go to your house. Maybe you were delighted with the boys’ entertainin, you’d let them sit there for as long as they liked. Stay till mornin.

“I seen people puttin us across the Lough there where we done Inishmore. In two boats. Yes. Ferried us across and left us safe. Well, it saved us, you see, maybe the march of two or four miles. That was a big thing after a long day’s travelin, you see. A mile means aiot when you’re tired out.

“Aye.”

P pauses, wrinkles his nose and continues. A grave sneer darkens his voice. The words come slowly, violently:

“And then. You got the other snig that there was no kick, nor no sport, nor anything in, you see, and they wouldn’t like them atall, and they wouldn’t admit them.”

He sits up abruptly.

“Weill There was rules in the mummin squad that you daren’t touch anyone. The Captain was responsible for any­ thing that be done.

“If there was any thing done to any occupant—or in the premises around any man’s house—well, the Captain would see to that: that that injury would be repaired, and as well that that man—if he was found out during that night or that day that he had done anything, transgressed in any one way— he may get a hidin. And he may get a hidin that he’d lie in bed for a week after. Oh, he would surely. Oh aye.

“So everyone was watched very tightly that they wouldn’t commit themselves in any one way. Oh aye surely: because it would give them a bad name, you see, for future Christmases. Oh aye surely: it was really the way: they’d watch that very, very carefully. If they lifted anything in a house, or done any­ thing around a house—outside or in—well: they’d be pulled up for it. Yes. That was just the way. Aye, there were very strict rules in connection with the whole transaction, you see.”

Dressed in their cotton tunics with the tall straw cones covering their faces, the mummers were in disguise. “Did the people know who all the mummers were?” P’s answer is quick:

“Aw they did. You knew the mummers surely. Why not? And even you didn’t know them, you knew they were from the same area not too far away—surely between this and Kinawley.

“And the mummers would know you, do you see, lookin through this straw hat, they’d know you as well as anything. They’d know who was good to them and who wasn’t and so on. Oh aye surely.

FOUR CONVERSATIONS Peter and Joseph Flanagan: A Little Entertainment

“And then if they seen that you were friendly, if any of them was hungry or dry, they’d stand at the door and say, ‘Give me a drink,’ or ‘Help us on.’ Well, if you had a bottle of stout in the house, certainly you’d take it out.

“Christmas time, you know, it bes a very plentiful time for drink, and maybe you’d give them a bottle apiece, or maybe some of them drinking a mineral. That’s the way.

“And then if you saw that they were finishing up here, you know, then you’d say, ‘Well, boys, your day’s near ended.’ And they’d say it was, that this was our last house. And maybe you’d have a kettle there on the fire and the woman wouldn’t be ten minutes preparin a sup of tea for them you know.

“That’s the way it would wind up.”

P is content. The memories remain in a gentle smile. He tosses the butt of his cigarette into the fire, folds his hands. Our friendship and his good humor are strong enough to endure my questions which are mildly abrasive in terms of the local etiquette. The direct question is shunned in normal chat, but I am an ignorant Yank (the notion would horrify my Con­ federate ancestors) and P deals with my brashness courteously, patiently. I ask how many men would make up the mumming team.

“Well, it would vary in number according to the district of the country. It might be composed of six or eight and it might go as far as twenty. There might be twenty in the bunch.

“Yes, that’s the way. So that’s it, and we’d all start off and have a musician, either a fiddler or fluter, and a person of course to collect the money, and there and then we’d start off on march with the musician playing. All in step. And we’d go from one house to the other, let it be in the country, let it be on the road, or let it be in the town. Wherever it would be.

“We’d just take every house that we faced, whether we’d

be admitted or not. We’d just take every house that we’d face. Of course, there was people on the other hand that wouldn’t admit them because it might frighten youngsters, you see, or cause some confusion. That’s the way. That’s the way it goes now.

“So. You all stood at the door and . . .”

He twists and rapidly knocks five times on the table.

“. . . ‘who’s there?’ “ ‘Captain Mummer. Any admission?’ Yes, aye, or no: that

was the way. ‘Any admittance for Captain Mummer and his men?’

“And if the person was pleased to admit you, well, they’d open the door. Throw it wide open for you.

“And Captain Mummer walked in.”

P moves quickly from his seat and down the kitchen. His heavy boots sound sharp on the floor. He closes the front door behind him, raps on it thrice, and reenters. He strides ten feet into the kitchen and stands to deliver his lines, turning his torso to project to the audience assembled in a semicircle that runs from the front table past the hearth to the back table. Joe and I are fixed upon him. He is a compact, handsome man.

P is not proud of his tale-telling abilities in the way that he is of his music, but he is a master raconteur, capable of comical impersonations and swift shifts in expression. In con­ versation he uses two voices artistically. One is low, slow, mea­ sured; it is appropriate to serious reminiscence and stories of the weird caprice of fairies and ghosts. The other soars in melodic runs, in looping long sentences that descend to short, punctuating statements. When he recites the mummers’ rhymes, though, his voice is set a shade above normal. The words come choppily, without glissandi or variations in timbre. Ί he sound and rhythm are clear, end stops firm:

FOUR CONVERSATIONS Peter and Joseph Flanagan: A Little Entertainment

Here comes I, Captain Mummer and all me men. Room, room, gallant room, gimme room to rhyme, Till I show you some dinarsion round these Christmas

times. Act of young, and act of age, the like of this was never

acted on a stage. If you don't believe in what I say, enter in Beelzebub

and he will clear the way'

Here comes I Beelzebub. In under my arm I carry me club. ' In my hand a dripping pan. I think meself a jolly old man. If you don't believe in what I say, Enter in Prince George and he will clear the way.'

Here comes I, Prince George with my armor shining bright.

I am a famous champion, likewise a worthy knight. If you don't believe in what I say, Enter—’

Frowning, P returns to his stool. It has been years since he has thought of the rhymes. “Let me see now,” he says, and sits repeating the speeches of Beelzebub and Prince George under his breath. Joe picks the large turf out of the fire with the tongs and sets them at the front of the hearth. He sweeps the thick ashes off the iron to his side with a besom, places new turf against the backstone, and arranges the old coals next to them. The smoke and glow increase as the new turf ignite. Joe, too, went mumming, but he went out less often than P and cannot remember the part he played. He sits back as P starts in again:

“Beelzebub had a club in his hand and an imitation of a pan. He’d have a sup of water and it’d be drippin off it, if there

was any near at hand, you know: ‘In me hand a drippin pan. Over me shoulder I carry me club.’ He’d have a club with a head on it.

“And Prince George, he’d have a bright band around him, the color of aluminium. And a scabbard here, a holster by his side:

Here I come Prince George. With my armor shining bright. I am a famous champion, Likewise a worthy knight. From merry England I have come Many battles I have fought.'

“Wait’ll I see now. Ah now it’s very hard when you don’t mind these things.”

He is newly shaved, for they went to chapel this morning. His dark suit is trim. His father was a tailor, a noted musician, a learned man with a fascination for geography. Phil Flanagan is well remembered as “the neatest wee man.” Before he died, he moved his family into this house. His two daughters are married and live in New York. Two of his sons farm together near Enniskillen. P and Joe remain. Joe, the older, sits squarely watching P who has wrestled the rhymes into order and brings us in at the start of the fight:

“Then Beelzebub says:

‘I swear, be George, you lie sir.’

“And Prince George says to him:

‘Pull out your purse and pay, sir.’

“He’ll say: ‘no!’

FOUR CONVERSATIONS

He’ll slap down on the floor

Peter and Joseph Flanagan: A Little Entertainment

Joe offers: “ ‘Take out your sword and try sir!’ ” P agrees, “Aye” and continues:

‘Take out your sword and try, sir.’

‘I’ll drive me dagger into your side, And make you die away, sir.’

“Prince George says that. That’s what rises the row, and Prince George pulls out his dagger and he drives it into his side, and he’ll slap down on the floor. The wounded man. Beelzebub.

“This one they had was a big long knife. You’d swear it was a bayonet. And, be jingo, you’d swear it went into him— the way the spring drives the blade back. And he’ll fall, do you see, and let a big groan out of him and you’d swear he was dead.”

Suddenly, P clutches an imaginary apron up to his chest and raises his voice into a startling feminine whine:

“ ‘Ah, God bless us, the puir fellow is dead. Oh what brought yez in here atall atall? I want no one dyin in my house

The woman’s distracted keening blends hilariously with P’s own laughter.

“ ‘Run for the clergy for him. Run. Run, run.’ “Bletherin ould lassie: ‘Ah, na, na, na, run for the priest,

run for the priest. The puir fellow’s dead.’ “Says I: ‘He’s a Protestant.’ Says I, ‘Don’t be runnin for

the priest, go down,’ says I, ‘to the minister.’ ”

The comical scene dissolves in the laughter that catches us

•31·

FOUR CONVERSATIONS

up and bounds high into the vaults of the roof. The turf sparkles. Our joy quiets into chuckles. Smiling, P says:

“The Doctor is called then:

‘Doctor Doctor, ten pounds for a doctor. Doctor, Doctor, ten pounds for a doctor.’

‘Yes, here I come.’

“The Doctor, he’ll come. He’s dressed up with a bowler hat and a white collar, and, that time of year, a heavy tweed coat, you know, same as any doctor.

‘Here I am a doctor sure and good. With my broad sword, I'll quench this man's blood. If you want this champion's life saved, Forty guineas I must have.'

‘You shall have it, Doctor.’

The vocal tone P uses distinguishes clearly between the Doctor and the other character in the dialogue, Captain Mum­ mer, for the Doctor speaks in the mummers’ sing-song, while the Captain strikes a normal conversational pitch.

‘What medicine do you use, Doctor?’

‘The fillicifee of a bum bee, And the thunder nouns of a creepie stool.'

P smiles. Joe chuckles. We all laugh as P works into the Doctor’s rann, submerging the rhymers’ cadence in a whippy verbal stream before getting back into step at the end:

‘Mix that together with a hen’s feather and a wran’s blether.

Peter and Joseph Flanagan: A Little Entertainment

Give him that ninety-nine fortnights before day. And if that doesn't cure him, I'll ask no pay. I have a little bottle in the waist band of me trousers, Called Hocus Focus Shally shampain; Rise up dead man and fight again.’

“So he puts down his hand and he rubs the victim on the floor. And he jumps up.

“Miss Funny comes along then. I was Miss Funny the time I was out. I was the treasurer. She’s liftin the donations:

‘Here comes I, Miss Funny with me big long bag to carry the money.

All silver, no brass If you don't give me money, I'll steal your ass.’

“The musician comes and enters in, and he’ll stand in the floor, and, let it be fiddle, flute, or whatever the instrument is, he tunes it up, and the two dancers gets out and gives them a very enjoyable dance. It was always Irish dance music was played, you see.

“And if there’s any requests, after, of a song, there’s always someone to sing a song—nearly a song to please everybody, no matter who they are.

“That’s that, then. They walk out peacefully and on to the next house.”

A sense of accomplishment embraces the fireside. We relax warmly. P is a performer of live arts, more than a student of the past, but he has excavated through the strata of his memory, and brushed the dust off a full account of the play in which he had acted. Joe and I congratulate the effort. P picks a coal out of the fire with the tongs, lights my cigarette and then his own.

• 32 · .3r

ľ

FOUR CONVERSATIONS

I I ask Joe: “How far did you-all travel?” He swings his arm i slowly past the dresser, then points south of the hearth:

ï “Around here and on round Bellanaleck, you know. Round Druminiskill and up that country.”

P draws on his cigarette, rocks forward and expands the mummers’ territory.

“We done Inishmore and all the townlands away up around Derrylin and away around Kinawley and around Derrylester, and our last course was Enniskillen. We had to get a permit from the District Inspector to do the town area, the urban area, after doing the rural.

“And that was our last night. The last time that I mummed anyway. Of course, that’s quite a number of years ago. That would be away back twenty-five years ago. So it would.”

Their area was ambitious. It spread out from their home district, from Ballymenone, where the Flanagans and most of the other mummers lived, but it was not circular. The mummers lept six miles north to Enniskillen and covered Inishmore, an island in Lough Erne, a mile to the east, but their travels were mainly “up” to the south: seven miles along the main road toward Derrylin, and five miles in the direction of the inky mountains, Bennaughlin and Cuilcagh, that brood over the border. They were drawn along lines of cultural and religious affinity toward the well of St. Naile at Kinawley, within a couple of miles of the line dividing Ireland into the North and the State. The southwestern limit of their course ran by a sandbagged military outpost and followed a road that was cratered and bloodstained in the Civil War of 1922. In our years, again, it is the scene of roadblocks, bomb blasts, and twi­ light rifle fire.

“There was mummers throughout Northern Ireland, but it

• 34’

Peter and Joseph Flanagan: A Little Entertainment

was kind of prohibited in the years that there was trouble here in Ireland, you see. Nineteen and sixteen. And it was a kind of prohibited or banned to a certain extent. You had to get permission from the police to go about in disguise or wear­ in hoods over your head, you see, that was the reason why. Aye.

“The police would stop you surely. They report, whether it was right or not, that the police could shoot you if they wanted. There was law to shoot any masked or disguised man at that time, you see.

“So then of course that killed that little procedure at that time for quite a long time. Well then, times went on and Ire­ land got more peaceful. The thing was revived up, you see. Revived up again and it did take a great lead there for fif­ teen or twenty years, I’d really say, and latterly it has kind of cooled off again now, as all the other Irish customs is just dying out gradually.

“This last few years there hasn’t been any of them out. It must be due to the standard of livin raisin in Ireland, and they haven’t been out.”

With his arms folded, P gazes into the fire. Its patterns vary endlessly. He is one of the few who still wins enough turf for the year’s fires. Turf, he says, is composed of matted herbs, so the person who cuts it and the person who sits by its smoke, breathes in the herbs’ curative benefit. The smell of the turf burning is sweet. The kitchen is quiet. A rosary and a fiddle bow hang together next to the chimney. The fire darkens. “When did the mummers last come to this house?” I ask of the hearth. Joe responds:

“Well, it would be nine or ten years since they were out in this country. They didn’t go out around here. There were people from other districts came in.

“They came by car that time, doin no travelin except through the country. They had their car to bring them around.

•35·

FOUR CONVERSATIONS Peter and Joseph Flanagan: A Little Entertainment

“When I went out with them, it was a very hard job, mummin.”

P shifts on his stool: “Very hard.” Joe: “Travelin at night through the country.” P draws on his cigarette and watches the blue smoke curl out of his palm: “Aye, it’s very tough, do you know.” Joe nods quickly to the side: “They wouldn’t do it now.” P gestures over his shoulder toward the southeast to a lane leading up from the river bottom, a lane he knew I knew to be a muddy slough on a rainy day:

“You’d be coming up that lane and you’d go up to your knees. It was really mud up to your waist. And you’d have to travel on.

“And there wasn’t even the wellington. It wasn’t in this country at that time. Twas only the strong, rough, hobnailed boots. Well, you’d have to roll your trousers up to your knees.”

It was hard trudging over the hills. Black nights, muddy roads. But you were out with your comrades—the McBriens, the Quigleys, Michael Boyle—the play was fun to put on, and you could look forward to the Mummers’ Ball, where all would tumble together for a bright night of warm dancing, fast music, sweet cakes and stout. It was great sport. P’s hair curls down over his forehead. He smiles up:

“Ah, they were happy days at that time. Everyone went along. We got money in every house. All sides was delighted.

“They’d like to see mummers every six months at that time. “A little entertainment, you know. Aw, God, aye. Seeing

people perform like that, you know, they were delighted. “They were delighted.”

The clocks on the dresser at the kitchen’s other end report that the afternoon has nearly passed. Soon P will insert his flute in his coat pocket and we will be away, through the fields

to the car, the road, and a little town south of the border where Fermanagh men gather each Sunday for drink, familiar chat, and music. We will be stopped, we know, by soldiers who will search the car and call us mate alot. The history of our route is well known; its chronicle is one of marching armed men, gunfire, and bombs. We will approach the border by the charred ruins of a customs post along a stretch where innocent men have been cut down in cross fire. It is a risk, but it is worth it. You cannot just sit there looking at the wall, P feels, you need to get out and have a bit of sport with your friends: “Life wouldn’t be worth it without a little entertainment.”

Michael Boyle: We Used to Mum in Our Country

Michael Boyle:

We Used to Mum in Our Country

H ARSH BLUE LIGHT reflects off the floor between the precise

rows of white beds. The old men in them lie, unmoving. Some are dozing. Others stare awake, hearing the rasp of their sleeping comrades, the squeaky shoes of the nurse who flits quickly from bed to bed, scratching on a clipboard. Michael Boyle sits up in bed, smoking. His eyes are deep, piercing. He finishes a cigarette, offers me one and takes one himself. I light his then mine.

He was a youthful companion of Hugh Nolan’s, a close neighbor of the Flanagans. He is known widely for his knowl­ edge of history. Often I had been told that I should call to see him, but I had been in the area for several months before I found my way through the glossy hospital corridors to his bedside. I returned regularly. Our times together were brief, arbitrarily and unmercifully limited by the bells that signaled visiting hours.

It seemed as though he had been waiting for me. He valued the information stored in his memory and he wanted it pre­ served. As soon as I would arrive, he would instruct me to get the recorder going; he had been mulling over topics for dis­ cussion: he had rehearsed them and was set to start. There was no time for informal pleasantries, no time for solicitous or of­ ficious nurses, no time for people who wandered by to gossip or compare illnesses. Our work must go on.

Having finished an account of local ballad making, Mr. Boyle settles back on his pillow. He looks at me, impatient for my next question. His eyes flash. An ashtray, brimming with

wrecked butts rests next to him. He is thin. A bad cold fell into his chest while he was thinking more of his farm work than his health, and he has been in bed for nine months. He is very thin, but he is intense and tough.

Michael Boyle, they all said, was the star of the mumming. He was the Doctor, the fullest, funniest role. When the mum­ mers trooped through Enniskillen, he was particularly comical, frightening the little children. “I’ll eat you,” he would snap at them before they fled.

His hands lie folded outside the covers. I begin to ask about mumming, but once the word is in the air, I have no time to frame an opening question. He rises excitedly on one elbow and is off:

“Oh aye, the mummin. Oh aye, the mummin. I was in the mummin.

“Oh I was a mummer. I was a mummer. We used to mum in our country, nine or ten of us.

“We used to make straw hats, you know, straw hats. “First, you got a rod, a sally rod, and you made a hoop of

it, do y’see. And then you got this straw; you took it like a nice wee handful and you platted it round this hoop, do y’see, and you brought it up to the top. When you done so many, you tie it with a string, do y’see, at the top.

“Like that.”

He is sitting up. The straw has been gathered out of the air. He binds it above his left fist with a quick twist.

“And it pulled right down over your face, do y’see, but then you could look out between the wee handfuls of straw and see where you were goin. It covered your face.

“You went into a house, do y’see. You’d see them and know them, but they wouldn’t know who you were, when your nose was only out, you see, and you just peepin through it. Aye.

n

i FOUR CONVERSATIONS

I “Well, then you got a bit of some kind of old fancy dress, i do y’see. You get a yard or two of what they called cotton— i firnical cotton, we used to call it—and you made some kind of

a wee jacket, do y’see, and they curved open stripes of ribbons and put on the hat. Decorated yourself, do y’see.

“There was nine or ten of us. There was the Captain and there was a character they called Beelzebub. And there was

I Miss Funny. She carried the bag, do y’see. Miss Funny. And there was Saint Patrick. There was Prince George. And there was Oliver Cromwell. Then there was a man they called Big Head. He was a musician, do y’see.

“Saint Patrick had some kind of a big gown on him, do y’see, kind of made after the style of a bishop’s robe, do y’see, and then he had the ordinary big hat on him that we all wore to disguise his face. And Prince George, do y’see, his armor shinin bright: he had some kind of a lad, you know, like a big white gown on him to shine like armor. Aye.

“Well then: Oliver Cromwell. Coorse, you see, he was sup­ posed to have a big nose stickin out through the hat. Copper nose.

“Well then: I was the Doctor. I had a long black coat on me and a castor hat. They were tall hats. I didn’t wear a mask, do y’see. I had the hat on, pulled down, and a bit of an old black veil an old woman gave me over me face. I had a wee travelin bag, you know, that a doctor carries. And I had a big black curving stick. Make meself a kind of a gentleman, you know.

“Then every man had a rhyme to say. Every man had a rhyme. The Captain went in first with his rhyme.”

Mr. Boyle slows down, enunciating clearly. He rises to hit each of the rhyming words with particular strength:

‘Here comes I Captain Mummer, And all me men. Room, room, gallant boys,

•40·

Michael Boyle: We Used to Mum in Our Country

Give us room to rhyme. We'll show you some divarshion Around these Christmas times. Act of young, and act of age, The like of this was never acted on a stage. And if you don't believe in what I say,

, Come in Beelzebub and clear the way.'

‘Here comes Beelzebub. ; And over me shoulder 1 carry a club. ; A nd in my hand a fry ing pan. : And I think meself a jolly old man

And if you don't believe in what I say Come in Saint Patrick and clear the way."

‘Here comes I, Saint Patrick—’

Apologizing quietly, a nurse breaks in to enter Mr. Boyle in her census. In the distance, a floor buffing machine whirrs. Though he is more than twice her age, she speaks to him like a schoolboy, calling him Michael, pronouncing it in the English manner—My-kill—rather than the way his friends do—Me­ ehuil. I am, as usual, annoyed, but I bite my anger back, for they take good care of him and he trusts them. In my own nation, with its enlightened tradition of profiteering medicine, country people of modest means hate and fear hospitals and are allowed to lie ill, waiting for death alone. With further soft apologies she leaves, and Mr. Boyle returns, without com­ ment, immediately to the rhymes, repeating Beelzebub’s speech in order to get on the right track:

‘Here comes Beelzebub And over me shoulder 1 carry a club. And in my hand, a frying pan And I think myself a jolly old man And if you don't believe in what I say Come in Prince George and clear the way.'

'41'

pg-—

i FOUR CONVERSATIONS

I ‘Here comes I, Prince George, i With me armor shining bright. i I am a famous champion, likewise a worthy knight. i From merry England I have come. i Many deeds I have done. i And if you don't believe in what I say, i Enter in Oliver Cromwell and clear the way.'

‘Here comes I Oliver Cromwell, And the reason I came—’

He stops. “Damnit, I’m gone astray.” His forehead furrows. The man with the buffing machine roars nearer. “Let me see now.” He looks up. “I’ll start anew.” He repeats the rhymes of the Captain, Beelzebub and Prince George without change, and sails smoothly into Oliver Cromwell:

‘Here comes 1, Oliver Cromwell, And as you may suppose, I have conquered many nations with my copper nose. I have caused the Frenchmen to quiver, The Scotsman to quake, And I beat the jolly Dutchman Till I made his heart to ache. And if you don't believe in all I say, Come in Saint Patrick and clear the way.'

‘Here comes 1 Saint Patrick. And the reason I came, I'm in search of that bully Prince George is his name. And if I do find him, I'll tell you no lie, I'll hack him to pieces as small as a fly. And throw'im to the Devil for a Christmas pie.'

Michael Boyle: We Used to Mum in Our Country

‘I swear, by George, you lie, sir.'

‘Pull out your purse and pay, sir.'

‘I'll run my rapier through your side, And make you die away, sir.'

“So then, Saint Patrick falls, and then the Doctor’s called in. So the Captain calls:

‘A doctor, a doctor Any money for a doctor.'

“And the Doctor comes in then:

‘Here comes I, a doctor sure and good. With my broad sword to stanch this man's blood.'

“And the Captain says:

‘What pills do you use, Doctor? ’

“So the Doctor says:

‘The filliciefee of a bumbee, And the thunder nouns of a creepie stool, All boiled up in a woodenleatheriron pot. Let that be given to him fourteen fortnights before day, And if that doesn't cure'im, I'll ask no pay.'

“ ‘What can you cure, Doctor?’ the Captain says.

Ί can cure the pain within, the pain without, The little pain, The big pain,

a •42· •43*

FOUR CONVERSATIONS

The crippin and the palsey and the gout. And I have a wee bottle here in the waistband of me

trousers. They call it: Hokey, pokey Halicumpain Rise up dead man and fight again.'

“So then the dead man rises up and that’s that. So he calls then:

‘And if you don't believe in all I say, Come in Big Head and clear the way.’

‘Here comes I, Big Head and Little Wit. The more me head's big, me body's small, But I'll play a tune to please yous all.'

“So then he pulls out a flute or a tin whistle. He starts playin and some two fellows starts dancin.

“Miss Funny, then, she was the last to come in:

‘Here comes I Miss Funny, With a long leather bag to carry the money. All silver and no brass, If I don't get money, I'll steal the ass.’ ”

Mr. Boyle laughs brightly, drawing himself up in bed.

“Well there was different mummers’ rhymes all right— more than them—but them was the ones we used when we were mummin.”

“That’s great,” I say, handing him a cigarette. He cracks a match and lights us up. “Who else went around with you?” Above the buffer’s scream, he answers:

•44'

Michael Boyle: We Used to Mum in Our Country

“I was the Doctor. I was the Doctor. But John McBrien was the Captain. And there was a fellow named Lunny, Johnny Lunny-, he was Beelzebub. He was Beelzebub. Paddy McBrien was Saint Patrick. Benny Quigley, a brother of Paddy’s, was Prince George. And Paddy Quigley was, as I remember, Oliver Cromwell. I was the Doctor. Aye. Phil Flanagan, a brother of P’s, he was Big Head. And P was Miss Funny, he gathered the money.

“The two Quigleys and two Flanagans and me. There was three McBriens. There was Paddy McBrien and John McBrien and Jemmy McBrien. John and Paddy’s livin yet. Jemmy’s dead. There was meself. I was the Doctor.

“Them was the mummers.”

Dredging the rhymes up onto the decks of consciousness had taken great concentration. With subdued jubilation, Mr. Boyle announces, “Aye, them’s the rhymes.” He remains buoyant. “Would you-all get together and practice before you went out?”

“We did. We’d get together. We’d gather up in some house and make the hats and practice, you see, and decorate our­ selves.

“A couple of night’s practice would get them all. Two nights. Three or four nights would get them all.”

He taps the ash off his cigarette. The mad buffer has re­ treated. A radio somewhere mumbles on, recounting last night’s roster of explosions. “Would one person remember all the rhymes?”

“Yes. It was an old man named Owens. He lived down in Clockareddy. And he had the rhymes and he wrote them out for us.

“He did. He wrote them out, for us and we learned them. He was the man put us on the road. He had the rhymes, do you

•45·

Michael Boyle: We Used to Mum in Our Country

Them was the mummersAll silver and no brass

47

FOUR CONVERSATIONS

see. Oh, he had a great head. Very smart man. And he gave every man his rhyme. We learned them as he wrote.

“Well, Owens, he was an old man like in that time and he had them on down from his ancestors.

“We’d go out, we’ll say, of a Monday night. And we’d mum for about five nights before Christmas. About five or six nights.

“We went to every house. Ah, we traveled to every house in the district and away out of it too, do y’see. We used to get money in every house. Not an awful lot, but six pence and a shillin, and then we had a big dance, and we bought sweet bread and tea and sugar, and had a dance. Not an awful lot of drink at it. But some, do y’know. We wanted it anyway.

“Ah, if you got three or four pound that time you could have a powerful spree, do y’see.

“If you got three or four pound you had a powerful do. Aye. We had a powerful do all right. If you had a few pound that time you had a great do.

“Got a house from someone, do y’see. We had a grand spree around the Christmas time. It would sometimes be the Second Night and often later. It was always of a Sunday night or the Second Night of Christmas. Aye, it used to be a great way to get entertainment. The best sport.

“They’d be watchin for the mummers for a week before Christmas, and they’d be delighted to hear tell of them comin, and be all ready for you.

“You’d nearly always get refreshments. Get tea, do y’see. There was none of us at the time hardly takin a drink. We were all young lads. Eighteen or nineteen; that was the age we were. We weren’t much interested in drink. But we’d take tea. Oh aye.

“There would be tea in some houses. We wanted it for travelin about. You want refreshments all right. We walked plenty.

“Aw, it was great sport. It was a bit hardship at the same

Michael Boyle: We Used to Mum in Our Country

time. Generally, you’d get bad weather about that time and often a bit of a rough night.

“We didn’t mind it; we were all young. “We didn’t mind it. We were all young.”

When I first met Mr. Boyle he had contrasted today’s world with that of his youth. The people now travel in cars. They pass anonymously on the roads, moving too quickly to appre­ ciate the beauties of the countryside or to find a moment for talk. No time is left from their efforts at money making for a friendly night’s ceili. In the days of the mummers, “they were poor,” he said, “but they had comfort and sport.” Each time I saw him he looked fitter. He said the frequent talks about good times in the old days had done more for him than the doctor’s medications. When I stopped to see him just before my return to America, he was sitting up in bed, fully dressed in a suit and a tie. Color had risen in his cheeks. He was planning to be home for Christmas.