I see this is a recently revived thread and also that someone mentioned a song called "The Salt" earlier on. Here are the lyrics

Cheers, Aux

THE SALT
Kevin Conneff/Mrs. Chrissie Cunningham, Ardee, County Louth

Come all you young lads and young lassies, who hanker to work on the farm,
Now, be careful when choosing a master, it might serve for to keep youse from harm.

When I was a strapping young fellow, aged about seventeen
I hired myself to a farmer at the horse fair in Ballinascreen.

Now, his farm was way up the mountains and it all only heather and bog,
And me job, well, I got to look after his donkey, his goat and his dog

Now me, the farmer and his mother, we lived in a tumble-down shack,
His mother was well over ninety with the bones sticking out from her back.

It was only a tumble-down ruin, held up with ould yellow clay
The roof it was past all repairin', for the goat had the thatch et away.

His poor mother, she'd sleep by the fire, for the rain it came down on our bed--
And when I'd get up every morning, she'd be sittin' there noddin' her head.

The master was an awful ould skinflint, his heart was as hard as a stone--
He'd work me from daylight to darkness; in a month I was just skin and bone.

And he fed me on nothin' but piners? (Misunderstood word, sorry), he said they would make me a man;
Well, they damn near made me a dead one, eaten half raw off the pan!

Now, he had three ould hens and a rooster, one day they all died in the coop,
So he took them, he boiled them and salted them--we lived for a month on the soup!

Bad luck now, it never comes single, for the next day the nanny goat died:
So he skinned it, he boiled it and salted it--and made a bodhrán from the hide.

It was then poor ould Neddy, the donkey, he broke his hind leg and suffered great pain,
So he shot him, he skinned him and boiled him and called for the salt once again!

I thought, now, his mind was affected and myself I was going insane,
For when poor Fido died of distemper he called for the salt once again!

When I thought what happened, poor ould Fido, I couldn't sleep thinking that night;
And when I got up the next morning, I got a most horrible fright.

His poor mother was dead by the fire, when I ran for the door he cried "Halt!
Where are ye going so early? Come back here and help me to salt!"

Well, I went through the door like a rocket, says I, I'll get out in the fog,
I tripped in the yard with excitement and out he come runnin' with salt!

I took to me heels like a cowboy and over the hills like a hare,
I never stopped runnin' for a fortnight and I've never gone back to a fair!

Excess line breaks removed. --JoeClone, 12-Apr-03.