Legendary fictions of the Irish Celts

Ossianic and other Early Legends. 255
THE STORY OF THE SCULLOGE'S SON FROM
MUSKERRY.*
A long time ago, before the Danes came into Ireland,
or made beer of the heath flowers, a rich man, though
he was but a sculloge, Hved in Muskerry, in the south,
and he died there too, rolling in riches, for he was a
saving man. It is not often that a very thrifty and hardworking
man has a son of the same character to step
into his shoes, and the Muskerry sculloge \\«s no worse
off than many of his neighbours. When the young sculloge
came to own the chests and the stockings full of
gold, said he to himself, " How shall I ever be able to
spend all this money?" Litde he thought of adding
anything to it. So he began to go to fairs and markets,
not to make anything by buying and selling, but to meet
young buckeens like himself, and drink with them, and
gamble, and talk about hunters and hounds.
So he drank, and he gambled, and he rode races, and
he followed the hounds, till there were very few of the
guineas left in the chests or the stockings ; and then he
began to grope among the thatch, and in corners and
old cupboards, and he found some more, and with this
he went on a little farther. Then he borrowed some
money on his farm, and when that was gone, he bethought
him of a mill that used to earn a great deal
of money, and that stood by the river at the very bounds
of his land. He was never minded to keep it at work
while the money lasted. When he came near it he found
the dam broken, and scarcely a thimbleful of water in
the mill-race, and the wheel rotten, and the thatch of the
house and the wood-work all gone, and the uppei* millstone
lying flat on the lower one, and a coat of dust and
mould over everything. Well, he went about in a very
disconsolate way, and at last sat down for grief and
weariness on a seat fastened to the wall, where he often
saw his father sitting when he was alive. While he was
* Sceal V/iic Scoloige O'Muscrid/ie. Scolog means either a small
farmer, or a generous, hospitable person.