Subject: RE: Folklore: Selkie/Selchie? & pronunciation
From:
Jim Carroll
Date: 21 Mar 08 - 04:12 AM
Another take on the legend from Kerry Traveller Mikeen McCarthy.
Jim Carroll
Mermaid of Filemore (tape one)
Well, back in Kerry, even to this present day, the Murphys, anybody by the name of Murphy, they're supposed to be very unlucky fishermen, d'ye know. They never go out of a Friday and they never go out of' a Saturday at four o'clock. The reason why is that there was a Dan Murphy one time he lived in a place called Filemore. 'Tis back where I came from actually, a town called Caherciveen.
So their time for fishing back in this town was five-o'clock in the evening. So Dan was a bit anxious for the money and he hits away about four o'clock. So he was fishing away near a rock that's out there, the name of the rock now, we used call Over The Water. He was fishing away and he had his nets out and bejay, he found his nets getting very heavy anyway, and he was hauling and hauling and he couldn't lift it in.
So he said, "I've the biggest fish of all times".
So bejay, what did he do but he tied it on to the stern of the boat and he oared it away into the shore. And when he opened the nets, what was inside only a mermaid. He didn't know what to make of it at first.
"Oh", she said, she spoke to him, she said, "let me go back to the sea", she said, "or I'll curse you for the rest of my life".
He said, "I won't leave you go back to sea, you'll never go back to sea", he said.
Those mermaids, had a tail, he got the tail off like and he hid the tail inside in the house where he was for years. The shride was the name of the tail. He'd the shride hid away. There's a kind of loft back in the old houses long ago, they'd be made out of coarse bags and they'd be whitewashed, and that's where he hid it.
So she was the best housekeeper in the parish. For years he was married and all, to her, for seven or eight years.
So bejay, she was quite happy for years and years anyway, but one day, wasn't he out fishing again and bejakers, wasn't she poking around, she was whitewashing the ceiling, and what happens but she comes across the shride. And the very minute she found it, away back to sea with her. She met Dan out in the boat anyway.
She said, "Dan, I'm going to save your life, she said, because", she said, "you're the one to' look after the four children", she'd four children, "but anybody by the name of Murphy", she said, "that ever go out to sea again", says she, "I'll drown them", she said. "Moreover, a Friday, that's the day you caught me and the day is Saturday you hid the shride, from four o-clock".
Any a man by the name of Murphy could never go out fishing of a Friday or at four o-clock of a Saturday, he would always have to wait to five o'clock.
But bejay, there was 'Murphys went out after that, there was two Murphy chaps, cousins of his own, and they went out fishing. And bejay, whether it was her that did it or not, they found the boat and it turned upside down.
That's a hundred years ago now, and to this present day a Murphy will never go out fishing of a Friday until after five o-clock.
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