The Time When The Story-Teller Comes...

A time to bring in fuel for the fires and open up the wooden chests to bring out woollen blankets scented with Lavender...a time for a ham to hang from the rafters near the fire and to scour the skillets and put the ashes out...

To trim the wicks on the lamps and buy in bundles of yellow candles...to polish the brasses and the dresser and guard the bags of flour against the field mice with their bright beady eyes...

Time to take up the wool from the basket by the hearth and knit warm jumpers and thick socks to keep out the cold...metal needles clicking away.

Tatties are stored in an earthen clamp and cabbages hang by their stalks in the barn...ripe pungent onions are threaded in strings and the hens go off lay...

The cat brings her Winter kittens home...sickly and frail...they huddle by the fire on the hearthstone and the child comforts them when they cry for the milk the mother cat doesn't have...a bit of rag soaked in fresh milk from the cow acts as a teat and they grow stronger...

But the baby fails to thrive... the mewling stops and the tiny hands which beat against the air are still and the Dadda takes her to the priest to be buried quietly one chilly evening as the sun goes down.

There are stout boots to be mended and gates to be re-hung...hedges to be thinned out and walls to be repaired...the Story teller arrives one evening...his pony given hay and stabled with the old horse...he claps his hands together and stands in front of the fire and the skillet has a rabbit stew and the Mammy makes dumplings and serves the Teller first...he sits at the table and devours the food...stuffing fresh baked bread into his mouth...drinking down the jug of buttermilk. He spits out the rabbit bones and the dog snaps them up...the cat retreats to the rafters...her kittens coming behind.

The children say the Rosary...kneeling on the much swept dirt floor...outside to pee on the muck heap then it's to bed in the roof space with the pattering of rats and the squeaks of mice...

Jugs of Poiteen are laid out...clay pipes filled with pungent baccy rest on the dresser...the neighbours begin to come through the front door...they sit on the floor or on the bench beside the fire...the turf warming their faces and cold, rough hands.

Bowls of stew are eaten greedily and plates of bread devoured before the Story-Teller settles himself on the three legged stool and, lighting his pipe, begins to weave tales which frighten and enchant his listeners...stories of Giants and the Shee...of magical Swans and the other-worldly who made the plains of Ireland fertile and battles won and the Hags who weaved spells...

The children listen enraptured from their bed in the roof...the smoke from the pipes drifts upwards and the fire is but glowing embers...

The Story-Teller...much poiten drunk and a belly full of rabbit and dumplings...stops his stories gradually. The men rise and stretch their arms above their heads...they lean towards the Mammy and thank her for the evening and shake hands with the Teller before going out into the dark...they weave their way home along ancient boreens to small cottages built of stone...a wisp of turf smoke coming from the chimney...the hint of frost in the night air.

Their heads full of old tales from times long ago...