’"O man, wanting sense, put from you your share of love; it is bold you are entirely to say such a thing as that; you will not get hate from me; you will not get love from me; you will not get anything at all, good or bad, for ever.”

’I was myself the same night at the house of drink; and I saw the man, and he under the table.  Laid down by the strength of wine, and without a twist in him itself; it was she did that much with the talk of her mouth.’

There is another that I thought was meant to provoke laughter, the lament of a girl for her ‘beautiful comb’ that had been carried off by her lover, whom she had refused to marry, ’until we take a little more out of our youth,’ and invites instead to ’come with me to Eochaill reaping the yellow harvest.’  Then he steals the comb, and the mother gives her wise advice how to get it back:—­

’He will go this road to-morrow, and let you welcome him; settle down a wooden chair in the middle of the house; snatch the hat from him, and do not give him any ease until you get back the beautiful comb that was high on the back of your head.’

But an Aran man has told me:  ’No, this is a very serious song; it was meant to praise the girl, and to tell what a loss she had in the comb.’

I am told that the song that makes most mirth in Aran is ’The Carrageen’; the day-dream of an old woman, too old to carry out her purpose, of all she will buy when she has gathered a harvest of the Carrageen moss, used by invalids:—­

’If I had two oars and a little boat of my own, I would go pulling the Carrageen; I would dry it up in the sun; I would bring a load of it to Galway; it would go away in the train, to pay the rent to Robinson, and what is over would be my own.

’It is long I am hearing talk of the Carrageen, and I never knew what it was.  If I spent the last spring-tide at it, and I to take care of myself, I would buy a gown and a long cloak and a wide little shawl; that, and a dress cap, with frills on every side like feathers.’

* * * * *

     ’(This is what the Calleac said, that was over a hundred years
     old:—­)

’"I lost the last spring-tide with it, and I went into sharp danger.  I did not know what the Carrageen was, or anything at all like it; but I will have tobacco from this out, if I lose the half of my fingers!"’

This is a little song addressed by a fisherman to his little boat, his curragh-cin:—­

     ’There goes my curragh-cin, it is she will get the prize; she will
     he to-night in America, and back again with the tide....