FIONNUALA WILLIAMS
EULEN NACH ATHEN TRAGEN: VERSIONS FROM IRELAND
UNPUBLISHED EXAMPLES:
COUNTY MONAGHAN
Mo 22.1 No use in throwing apples into an orchard
945:46.
.2 It is no good throwing apples into an orchard
956:97.
.3-6 Throwing apples into an orchard 929:139; 934:202;
940:243; 953:118.
COUNTY LOUTH
Throwing apples into an orchard 667:18; 667:128;
672:264 (context: in list immediately prceded by
'Bringing coals to Newcastle').
Bringing coals to Newcastle 672:264 (context: in list
immediately followed by 'Throwing apples into an
orchard').
COUNTY CAVAN
Cav 40.1 There is no use bringing apples to an orchard
973:243.
.2 There's no use in throwing apples into an
orchard 1011:236.
The full text of this
article is published in De
Proverbio - Issue 11:2000 & Issue
12:2000, an
electronic book, available from amazon.com and other leading Internet booksellers.
.10 Bringing apples to an orchard, bringing coal to
Newcastle 1005:215.
Cav 251.1 Don't go bringing coals to Newcastle
1023:52.
.2 Bringing coal to Newcastle 1022:405.
Cav 1658.1 You need not bring turf to the bog 1003:357
(context: see Cav 40.4).
Cav 1802.1 Don't go putting wool on the sheeps back
[sic] 1023:52 (context: see Cav 40.4).
COUNTY LEITRIM
Le 23.1 There's no use in throwing apples into an orchard
210:401.
23.2 Throwing an apple into an orchard 211:265.
Le 138.1 Never send coals to New Castle [sic]
202:21.
Throwing fish into the river 198:84.
The above proverbs and proverbial phrases are from the
School's Collection Proverb Index. This collection was made
in the late 1930s and is in the Department of Irish
Folklore, University College, Dublin. It exists for 26 of
the counties of Ireland. So far I have indexed 4 counties
(Monaghan - Mo, Louth, Cavan - Cav and Leitrim - Le) and am
at present working on a 5th - Sligo. These
counties stretch from west to east in a band immediately
south of the political border of Northern Ireland. At the
time of the collection this area would have been
English-speaking with the odd person who remembered some
Irish here and there. Each county is numbered separately,
starting from zero. The numbers after the proverbs refer to
their manuscripts (Mo 22.1 is in School Manuscript 945, page
46). Only proverbial phrases which had a related proverb in
the index of the same county were indexed, thus the Louth
phrases have no index number and neither does one of the
Leitrim phrases. All of the above examples were found in
lists of proverbs and proverbial phrases; only a few had any
comment with them, such as another proverbial phrase, by way
of explanation. These are in brackets after the manuscript
number. In total Monaghan has 1142 different proverbs, Louth 679, Cavan 1960, and Leitrim 1217.
NOTE
Previously published in Proverbium 3
(1986), pp. 253-256.
Permission to publish this article granted by Proverbium
(Editor: Prof. Wolfgang Mieder, University of Vermont,
USA).
Fionnuala Williams
7 Balmoral Gardens
Belfast BT9 6PB
Ireland
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