A FEW GAELIC PROVERBS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2892, 11 August 1909, Page 77

A FEW GAELIC PROVERBS.

By Jessie Mackay.

(Concluded.)

The crisp sayings of the Highlanders are | curiously practical, giving the lie direct to the popular idea of the dew-drenched mooniness of the Celt. None denies him the occult fame of the second-sight; but that does not hinder him from displaying a praiseworthy vigilanoe regarding the plain duties of this world. "Nurse your child this year, and do your own business next year" (i.'c.. Do the duty that lies nearest) is a warning the literalness of •which hits many a money-making parent bard, when he has won his fortune and lost his boy for all that counts most in life. "Allow the tadl to go with the- hide" (i.e., Do not swallow a camel and strain at a gnat) is a pithy old cattle proverb, as is this other. "The most contemptible cow in the fold has the loudest bellow on the hillside." In this proverb, "A fool at 30 is a fool for ever," the Gael is less patient than the Chinaman, who says: "Let .him who is 40 begin to wear tbe man's hat" less patient, even, than Byron, in the biting couplet : A* thirty mam suspects himself a fool; At forty, knows it. The misery of enforced idleness was tnown, it seems, to prehistoric generations of "unemployed,"' for it was said of old tinje, "A long lie [in .bed], haslittle attraction for the person in, want." " The old woman's cow has often been lucky" has an obvious analogy with the widow's mite, and seems, in fact, to be a reminiscence of St. Cblumba blessing' the poor woman's solitary cow, a benevolent action which inspired many pious Hebrid*an cattle-charms of later days. The sin of laziness was specially reprehended by tlve northern moralist. "Show you me the sluggard, and I will show you the thief," he says; and again he joins dishonesty with lack of veracity in this, •' The untruthful will steal ;f; f necessary." " Late will he reap who sows not in March" recalls the reproachful Maori i>aying, "Where were you when the riro-riro sang?" (i.e., in spring). There is a distinctly humorous side to many Gaelic proverbs. "Flesh ! no le£6, pussy," is appropriately addressed to the boastful man who does not match his words with his deeds. " The miserly man's fool — likely to be very ill off" recalls the colloquial simile, "As poor as Job's turkey." It was some undistinguished victim of gossip who pathetically remarked, "My little trot is as notorious as M'CodTiim's gallop." And surely there is a delightful flavour of Sain Weller in this: " Pity the one who falls in with bad company, as the crow said to the doves," a saying which has been quaintly expounded thus: "Tine hoodsd crow went one day to make a.n afternoon call in Doveland, where a few happy hours were spent cooing and cawing the news of the countryside. By-and-bye a hunter came the way and had a- shot at the party, wounding several of them, including the crow. The dark lady, however, in spite of her o^n misfortunes, had enough original sin left in her to have a sly hit on her own account at her companions in distress. * Caw, caw, caw !' said she, ' the nice, decent man would never have touched me had I been alone — but pity anyone who falls in with bad company !' " Most characteristic is the saying, " A thatch prayer," meaning the unspiritual form of words tliat stuck in the "roof inFtead of mounting to heaven. And the ill luck of the shiftless is neatly hit off in this: "He who was not stung by a bee was stung by an ant." The curious influence of magic numbers, specially three and seven, is clearly visible in many of these proverbs. Did their niakers know anything of the Welsh Triads — those strange three-lined verselete that embodied the struggling thought of the old C>mric bards? This idea is practically applied in "the tlrre-e -vrorfcs of Saint Patrick's Day in spring" (i.e.. ploughing, cowing, and 'liarrowing). .It Ls touched with true poetry in this: "Three beautiful things : a ship under sail, a tree in bloom, a Tiolv man on his deathbed." It is charged with piety in this other: "Three noble things: reverence for the Trinity, reverence for the clergy, and reverence for the aged." It is the same spirit that runs through Scott's " Lykewake Dirge " and this minatory proverb of the stormy Hebrides : "The wicked man lias to cross the Ferry on a dark and howling night in a broken boat." t Seasonal proverbs are numerous. "The spring-tide of the birds" or " The high spring-tide of St. Patrick's Day" is the spring-tide that leaves mpst sea-wrack, to become afterwards a nestine: place for the birds of the coast. "The mdst left by the old moon will be cleared away by wind or snow," is another saying of those watchers of the skies. A pious wish, but suspiciousy like a pagan left over, is conveyed in the remark made on seeing the new moon first : " There ig the new moon — may the King of the Elements bless it !" And "there is a world of dimly-grasped Celtic poetry in this other saying : " The harvest moon which comes in on a Saturday will either be king of seven or go mad seven times" — that is, it will either bring the best or the worst of weather Domestic themes. figure also to s large extent. "Where the husband is as fire the wife ought to be as water" lias found a counterpart in the thought of every corner of the globe, and it is only in these day 6 that we have left off praising the obedience of Esther, and begin to see the valiant nobility of Vashti the rebel. " Marriage is like a bee — there's honey in it, and there's a sting in it." was ihe temperate verdict of some fireside philosopher belonging to the same family as Mrs Poyssr. And for a last sample of the pawky, kindly Highland wit, -what could b9 more apt than this other triad : "The three kindest thinps I ever met: home, my purse, and my mother."