"The priest's meal"
(fairy-tale)

Introductory educidations

"The priest's meal" is a fairy-tale from southern Ireland. It was recorded in 1825-1828. It talks about the meeting of the Celtic world and Christianity; the meeting place is the question about salvation, or how much of the new religion answers the questions of the old world. It is not by chance folklorists this kind of fairy-tales (found at different countries) "The perspectives of the Elves' (or fairies') salvation".

The fairy-tale comes from the book of W.B. Yeats, "Fairy-Tales of Ireland" (Neil Philip's choice), Roberts Books, London 1996, pp. 14-19. On his set of features, see p. 155.

"The priest's meal"

The storytellers say that the good people, or elves, were originally angels that fell from the sky and some of them landed on this world, while some others, who had more sins upon them, sank deeper into a worse place. Thus, it is, that on an afternoon around the end of September we find a happy company of elves dancing and doing a whole lot of wild jokes under the bright moonlight.

The place of their revelry was not far from Inhegheeleh to the west of Cork County. It was a poor village, even though it had a barracks for soldiers. Great mountains and barren rocks, such as those surrounding it, are enough to bring poverty to a place. But as the elves can have whatever their heart may desire, they are not at all troubled by poverty. The only thing that matters to them is that they find isolated corners and distant lands, where it is unlikely for someone to appear and spoil their partying.

Upon the beautiful grassy bank of the river the little ones were dancing merrily, holding each other in a circle, with their red caps waving on every leap under the moonlight. So light were their leaps, that not even the dew drops, that hate strong vibrations, were troubled at all. Thus they kept jumping, swirling, twisting, moving up and down, jumping and doing all sorts of figures, until one of them chirped to the others:

"Cease, cease the imitations

And the comical rotations.

I can smell in the air that surrounds us,

That a priest is now moving and approaches us."

At once, all elves started running towards every direction as fast as they could and hid under the green leaves of the foxglove. If by any chance their small red caps had popped out, they would have seemed like the red bells of the foxglove. Some others hid behind shady rocks and prickly bushes, on the riverbank as in all sorts of split and crevice as well.

The elf was right. Indeed, on the road that could be seen from the river, father Horrigan was moving riding his pony. It was late in the afternoon and he thought that he'd better stop his journey for the night and enter the first hut he would meet. Thus it was that he stopped out of Dermont Leary's hut, raised the latch and entered while saying:

-"Blessed be, everyone".

Let us say here that father Horrigan was welcome wherever he might go, because there was no other man in the country more venerable and beloved than him. Dermont was embarrassed, for he had no delicacies to offer the reverend father for dinner, other than the potatoes that the "old lady" ?this is how Dermont used to call his wife, although she was barely over twenty years old- was boiling in a saucepan on the fire. Then it was that he remembered the net he had thrown into the river, but as it had remained there not for a long time, the chances of him finding a fish in that were minimal.

-"It doesn't matter", Dermont thought, "it does no harm going down there to have a look. Since I want the fish for the priest's meal, it is not out of the question that a fish is already there".

So, Dermont went down to the river and indeed found inside the net the finest salmon ever found in the bright and fruitful waters of Lee River. But as he was getting ready to take it out, without him having time to understand how or by whom, the net was detached from his hands and the salmon slipped and swimmed away merrily to where the current of the river was going, as if nothing had happened.

With grief Dermont looked at the furrow the fish was making in the water and which seemed like a shiny silver line under the moonlight. With an angry gesture of his right hand and a stomp of his foot he let his rage break out by mumbling these words:

-"Bad luck will follow you from now on, night and day, wherever you may go, you devious and mountebank salmon! You should be ashamed of yourself, if you have any shame in you, runni9ng away from me like this! I am absolutely certain that you will see no good in your life, because something demonic has helped you. Or is it that you think that I did not feel like the net was pulled away from me strongly, as if it was some demon himself doing that?"

-"This is not how things happened", said one of those little elves that had run away when the priest was approaching. He moved towards Dermont Leary, followed by a bunch of his companions and added: "It was just a dozen and a half of us pulling the net away from you".

Dermont, puzzled, looked at his tiny interlocutor who kept on by saying:

-"Don't worry at all about the priest's meal. If you go and ask him a question on our behalf, a wondrous meal will appear in front of him, such as none presented to his table ever before".

-"I have nothing to do with you", said Dermont decisively; and after a pause, he added: "I am obliged to you for your offer, sire, but I am not stupid enough to trade myself to you and your kind for a mere meal. Even better when I know very well that father Horrigan cares so much for my soul, that he would not wish me to enslave it for ever, as an exchange for something that you could have offered to me. Therefore, the matter has ended".

The little interlocutor, with a growing persistence, fed by Dermont's negative attitude, continued:

-"Will you ask the priest a simple question on our behalf?"

Dermont thought for a while, justifiably, and concluded that nobody can be hurt by a simple question.

-"I have no objection of doing that, sires, but know well that I will not do that as an exchange for the meal", he told them.

-"Then", said the little elf, as others started appearing from everywhere and crowded behind it, "go back to the cabin and ask father Horrigan if our souls will be saved on Judgment Day, as with good Christians. And if you wish something good for us, come back without delay and tell us exactly what he will tell you."

So it is that Dermont goes back to his cabin and finds there his good wife having put on the table the steamy potatoes and serving father Horrigan the biggest of all, beautiful as a smiley red apple and steaming as a panting horse in a freezing night.

-"Reverend father", said Dermont dubiously, "does your honorableness allow me to ask you a question, please?"

-"And what is that you want to ask me?", said father Horrigan.

-"Forgive my courage, but could you tell me if the souls of the good people, that is, the elves', will be saved on Judgment Day?"

-"Who put you to ask me this question, Leary?", said the priest looking at Dermont in the eyes strictly, something that Dermont could not stand at all.

-"I will tell you the truth, the whole truth about what has happened", said Dermont. "The very good people sent me to ask you this question, and at this moment thousands of them now expect me down at the river bank to go and give them the answer".

-"Of course, you should go there", said the priest, "and tell them that if they want to know they must come here to me themselves and then I shall tell them the answer with great pleasure, to this and to any other question they might wish to ask me."

Thus, Dermont, returned to the elves, who surrounded him like a swarm and waited to listen to the priest's answer. Dermont talked to them straight out as a brave man he was. But when the elves heard that they should go to the priest, they ran away, running towards every direction, panicked, leaving Dermont speechless.

Ass soon as he recovered from the surprise, something that didn't take much time, he returned back home and ate his dry potatoes along with father Horrigan, who was not bothered at all by the simplicity of the meal. However, Dermont could not get used to the idea that the reverend father, whose mere words had the power to make the elves disappear so quickly, would have no delicacy in his dinner and that the beautiful salmon he had caught in his net had escaped in such a way