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| Stanza 7.— | Ní ḋeanaim, ⁊c. = I do not hoard up the penny.
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| „ 8.— | Beiḋ cuidiuġad d'ár gcoḃair = there will be help to aid us. Os d'ár gcóṁai = along with us.
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| „ 9.— | Go dtógfá ḋíom = till you would "take off' from me.
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| „ 10.— | Feoḃas = feaḃas; goḃaim pronounced góḃaim, I take (myself), I go. Gaḃáil, st. 5, is pronounced góil.
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Flann Fionn Fíona
STAY NEAR ME IN THE VILLAGE.
1. I went for a space of time on a trip that I might myself view from me the sky, round through the islands on a chase, as a doe would be and a hound after it. I met a little young lass, and if I met, it is she that spoke sharply: "If you are a person that has meddled (eloped) with a young woman, I do not greatly approve of your trade.
2. "I saw a man on the mainland going without shoe yesterday. I think that you are the young man after whom they were in pursuit." I answered the maid, without haughtiness, because I took her word seriously: "Cease your mocking any more. I am not a person of that kind.
3. If you do not come over near me and (to) drop your speaking in vain, I will go before (follow) my nose out on the mainland in a bound." I fell into sorrow and grief, and asked of the gentle young woman: "Where shall we get a glass to drink that would lift this sorrow off us?"
4. "There is a little house on one side of the road, and it keeps always a drop. Go you and rap the table, and I will pay the score myself." When I got to the house of the son of the drinking, I was timid enough about sitting, for fear that the chase might come up, and that the young woman might be taken from me.
5. When I got every kind of what was fitting, I thought that it was not right for me lo sit down. She said: "Be you singing, and you shall not have to pay a farthing." I was not long singing till the young folk gathered into the house, everyone with his glass in his hand, to give a token (of respect) to the pair (of us).
6. Liquor was abundant on (the) table, and a little of it a-drinking in the country (i.e., outside). If I had drunk O'Donnell's gallon, it would have been easy to pay my reckoning. When we had settled the balance of the reckoning, this is what the young woman asked me: "Where do you live, or do you keep a cabin for yourself?"
7. "When I am a while in the drinking-house, I do not make store of (i.e., spare) a penny. That amount that I earn in the day, I spend in pleasure at night." "It does not befit a person of your sort to begin with the troubles of the world. It is better for us to wait a while till we both make a store (i.e., save something)."
8. "In waiting till we should save something, a good part of our life would be spent. It is better for us lo begin young, and there will be help to aid us again. Follow you me in the road, and you need not fear the trouble of the world—I to be gathering the store and you will get your lodging free."
9. "If I followed you in the road, it would be (a) short (time) till you would lift from me (leave me), till you would begin playing and drinking; and it be (a) short (time) that you yourself would be a treasure (to me). But stay in the village near me, and I will be of the (same) fashion (i.e., mind) with yourself. You shall get land enough, and me for ever as wife."
10. I cannot praise her with (sufficient) goodness. It is she that has distracted my heart. There is not a person (of those) that would see the jewel that would not fall greatly lamenting. I have not seen her equal yet in (any) direction that I take on the road. If she were seen in Ballinamore, there would be young girls for a penny.
NOTES ON THE ABOVE SONG.
The author of this song was Peter Walsh, a tailor, who lived in Ballinamore, in the County of Donegal, a place mentioned by him in the last verse. It was obtained from a woman named Mary Conaghan, who lives in Altadish, Glenswilly, in the same county. Much as the poetry of Munster or Connaught is praised, I myself believe that I have never heard a poem more sweetly worded or more musically composed than this.
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