Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 251 pages of information about Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee.

Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 251 pages of information about Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee.
to remain for ever unknown, as he has lately left the world without divulging it.  His son, who follows the same occupation, possesses but a small portion of the art, having either never learned its true secret, or being incapable of putting it in practice.  The wonder of his skill consisted in the short time requisite to accomplish his design, which was performed in private, and without any apparent means of coercion.  Every description of horse, or even mule, whether previously broke, or unhandled, whatever their peculiar vices or ill habits might have been, submitted, without show of resistance, to the magical influence of his art, and, in the short space of half an hour, became gentle and tractable.  The effect, though instantaneously produced, was generally durable.  Though more submissive to him than to others, yet they seemed to have acquired a docility, unknown before.  When sent for to tame a vicious horse, he directed the stable in which he and the object of his experiment were placed, to be shut, with orders not to open the door until a signal given.  After a tete-a- tete between him and the horse for about half an hour, during which little or no bustle was heard, the signal was made; and upon opening the door, the horse was seen, lying down, and the man by his side, playing familiarly with him, like a child with a puppy dog.  From that time he was found perfectly willing to submit to discipline, however repugnant to his nature before.  Some saw his skill tried on a horse, which could never be brought to stand for a smith to shoe him.  The day after Sullivan’s half hour lecture, I went, not without some incredulity, to the smith’s shop, with many other curious spectators, where we were eye-witnesses of the complete success of his art.  This, too, had been a troop-horse; and it was supposed, not without reason, that after regimental discipline had failed, no other would be found availing.  I observed that the animal seemed afraid, whenever Sullivan either spoke or looked at him.  How that extraordinary ascendancy could have been obtained, it is difficult to conjecture, in common eases, this mysterious preparation was unnecessary.  He seemed to possess an instinctive power of inspiring awe, the result, perhaps, of natural intrepidity, in which, I believe, a great part of his art consisted; though the circumstance of his tete-a-tete shows, that, upon particular occasions, something more must have been added to it.  A faculty like this would, in other hands, have made a fortune, and great offers have been made to him for the exercise of his art abroad; but hunting, and attachment to his native soil, were his ruling passions.  He lived at home, in the style most agreeable to his disposition, and nothing could induce him to quit Dunhalow and the fox-hounds.”

Phil’s journeys as a pig-driver to the leading seaport towns nearest him, were always particularly profitable.  In Ireland, swine are not kept in sties, as they are among English feeders, but permitted,

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Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.