Song of the Eel
[My title, none given, translation of stanza 1 from Irish by Joyce. The text is hard to read and cannot be retrieved by OCR. From: "An Irish Folk-Ballad" in Ériu, Volumes 2, 1905 by Douglas Hyde. The ballad was taken down by Father John MacDermot, of Castlerea, County Roscommon. Hyde's notes follow.
R. Matteson 2018]
Old Rogers, from whom this Irish version was recovered, is very deaf, and over eighty years of age, yet, though he repeated it to my friend Father Mac Dermot on several different occasions, he scarcely varied it by a single word, except that in the last verse he said sometimes, "What will you leave to Nuala?" and on others "What will you leave to your married wife?" thus showing that he looked upon the poisoner as wife, not sweetheart.
[Song of the Eel]- sung by Old Rogers before 1905 in Castlerea, Roscommon County Ireland. Here's a literal translation of the first stanza (Joyce):
"What was in the dinner you got, my fair-haired heart-pulse and my treasure?
What was in the dinner you got, thou flower of young men?"
"An eel that Nuala gave me with deadly poison in it;
Oh, my head! — it is paining me, and I want to lie down."