Page:English as we speak it in Ireland - Joyce.djvu/75

 60 a wicked saying under a disguise: that's 'blindfolding the devil in the dark.' The devil is as cute in the dark as in the light: and blindfolding him is useless and foolish: he is only laughing at you.

'You're a very coarse Christian,' as the devil said to the hedgehog. (Tyrone.)

The name and fame of the great sixteenth-century magician, Dr. Faust or Faustus, found way somehow to our peasantry; for it was quite common to hear a crooked knavish man spoken of in this way:—'That fellow is a match for the devil and Dr. Fosther.' (Munster.)

The magpie has seven drops of the devil's blood in its body: the water-wagtail has three drops. (Munster.)

When a person is unusually cunning, cute, and tricky, we say 'The devil is a poor scholar to you.' ('Poor scholar' here means a bad shallow scholar.)

'Now since James is after getting all the money, the devil can't howld him': i.e. he has grown proud and overbearing.

'Firm and ugly, as the devil said when he sewed his breeches with gads.' Here is how it happened. The devil was one day pursuing the soul of a sinner across country, and in leaping over a rough thorn hedge, he tore his breeches badly, so that his tail stuck out; on which he gave up the chase. As it was not decent to appear in public in that condition, he sat down and stitched up the rent with next to hand materials—viz. slender tough osier withes or gads as we call them in Ireland. When the job was finished he spread out the garment before him on his