Page:English as we speak it in Ireland - Joyce.djvu/309

 people to be caused by a red little flesh-worm, and hence the name míol [meel], a worm, and cearr [car], an old Irish word for red:—Meel-car, 'red-worm.' (North and South.)


 * Meeraw; ill luck. (Munster.) From Irish mí, ill, and ráth [raw], luck:—'There was some meeraw on the family.


 * Melder of corn; the quantity sent to the mill and ground at one time. (Ulster.)


 * Memory of History and of Old Customs, 143.


 * Merrow; a mermaid. Irish murrughagh [murrooa], from muir, the sea. She dives and travels under sea by means of a hood and cape called cohuleen-dru: cochall, a hood and cape (with diminutive termination); druádh, druidical: 'magical cape.'


 * Midjilinn or middhilin; the thong of a flail. (Morris: South Monaghan.)


 * Mihul or mehul [i and e short]; a number of men engaged in any farm-work, especially corn-reaping, still used in the South and West. It is the very old Irish word meithel, same sound and meaning.


 * Mills. The old English game of 'nine men's morris' or 'nine men's merrils' or mills was practised in my native place when I was a boy. We played it on a diagram of three squares one within another, connected by certain straight lines, each player having nine counters. It is mentioned by Shakespeare ('Midsummer-Night's Dream'). I learned to be a good player, and could play it still if I could meet an antagonist. How it reached Limerick I do not know. A few years ago I saw two persons playing mills in a hotel in Llandudno; and my heart went out to them.