Anglo-Saxon, Norse & Celtic

Bhí Naomh Pádraig ag gabháil an bóthar Domhnach.  Chonnaic sé triúr saor ag déanamh tighe. D’fhiafraigh sé dhíobh dé chúis ná rabhadar aige’n Aifreann. Dubhaireadar go rabhadar ró-bhocht, agus nár bh’acfainn dóibh dul ann.  Chuir Naomh Pádraig a láimh ’na phóca, agus thug sé sgilling a’s dhá thistiún an duine dhóibh, agus dubhairt sé leó dul go dtí an Aifreann agus gan a thuilleadh oibre (do) dhéanamh an lá san.

D’imthigheadar, agus nuair do bhíodar ag gabháil thar an tigh táibhirne bhuail tart iad agus chuadar isteach. D’óladar a raibh aca, agus chasadar ar an obair aríst.

Nuair do bhí Naomh Pádraig ag casadh um thráth nóna, agus nuair do chonnaic sé ag obair iad, tháinig an-fhearg air. Chuir sé faoi shluagh-mhallacht iad, agus isé an mallacht é ná  ‘siobhal fada agus bróga briste’, agus atá an mallacht san ar gach aon tsaor chloiche riamh ó shoin.

St. Patrick was going the road one Sunday.  He saw three masons building a house.  He asked them why they weren’t at Mass. They said they were too poor and that they couldn’t afford to attend.  St. Patrick put his hand in his pocket and gave each of them one and eightpence [lit. a shilling and two fourpenny pieces] and told them to go to Mass and not to do any more work that day.

They went away, and when they were passing the pub thirst hit them, and they went in.  They drank all they had and they returned to work again.

When St. Patrick was returning in the evening and when he saw them working, he became very angry.  He put them under a mass curse and that curse is ‘long walking and broken shoes’, and that curse is on every stonemason ever since.

Note: Recorded in the University of Cambridge Language Centre by Saimon Clark (March 2014).  For a longer version of this story (with recording, translation and notes) go to the Doegan Records Web Project, Royal Irish Academy, Dublin: https://doegen.ie/taxonomy/term/21528?page=1

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