"Daniel O'Rourke" by Thomas Crofton Croker

"Daniel O'Rourke" by Thomas Crofton Croker (1829, 5 pages)

March 1 to March 31

Year III

Thomas Crofton Croker

Cork, Ireland

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"THEE, Lady, would I lead through Fairy-land"  

In 1829 Catholics are for the first time given the right to be members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and serve as judges as part of The Catholic Emancipation Act.   Gerald Griffin's novel, The Collegians is published as is Goethe's Faust. I have yet to read either of these works.   The first patent on the typewriter is granted in the USA.   Bus service begins in London.  In India the British declare the practice of Suttee to be legally murder.

 Thomas Crofton Croker was born in Buckingham-square, Cork, 15th January 1798. In 1813, he was apprenticed to a merchant in Cork, but managed to nurture the archaeological tastes he had early acquired. He contributed sketches to local exhibitions, and wrote occasionally for a local periodical. On his father's death in 1818 he went to London, where he obtained an appointment at the Admiralty.  In 1821 he visited Ireland, and formed the plan of a work, published in 1824 — Researches in the South of Ireland. The success of his next work, Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland, published anonymously in 1825, was so marked that he wrote a second series, illustrated by Maclise, which met with as favorable a reception. Both works have been translated into German and French. These and other books, such as his valuable Memoir of General Holt, Popular Songs of Ireland, and various tales, established his reputation as a writer, and especially as an accurate collector of Irish fairy and legendary lore. He retired from Government service in 1850 on a pension of £580, and died at 3 Gloucester-road, Old Brompton, London, on 8th August 1854, aged 56. He was buried in Brompton Cemetery. He was described by Sir W. Scott, as "little as a dwarf, keen-eyed as a hawk, and of easy, prepossessing manners, something like Tom Moore." His Fairy Tales are enriched with notes, showing the points of similarity between Irish legends and those of other countries. His work was greatly admired by the Brothers Grimm.  

  "Daniel O'Rourke"  maybe based on an old folk tale but it is also a lot of fun to read and just flat out funny.    Like many an Irish literary work, alcohol plays a central part in the story.   The story is told as if it were Daniel O'Rourke telling a story to some of his friends about a wild adventure he had after a party for the return of the son of the local lord from a war.   Of course he drank way to much and he made the terrible mistake of sleeping next to a tower where a pooka lived.   He awakens to find a terrible creature approaching him and he runs in wild terror until he falls into the sea.    He desperately swims and swims until he finds himself on a totally desolate island.  Just when he thinks he will end up starving to death their, an eagle offers to carry him home.  He reasons that he has never spoken to an eagle before but he sees no other way from the island.   The eagle takes him on her back and away the go.   They pass over his house and Daniel says put him down here please.  The eagle says no I see hunters with guns and I will not risk being shot.   The eagle ends up leaving him in the moon.   Compressing a bit, the man in the moon comes out of his house and tells him get off the moon now.   He reasons he cannot jump as it is too high then he sees a door way open in the moon and he goes through it.   He finds himself falling to his death when a flock of geese fly by and he recognizes one of them and she kindly says to grab his leg and she will take him home.  As they pass over the sea just near his house the goose tells him they are headed for Arabia and will not stop until they get there.  He sees a ship and asks the goose to drop him on the ship.    He misses the ship and lands on the bottom of the sea.  

There is a hilarious closing scene.   He imagine a great whale approaches him and begins to splash water on his face.   Then the whale begins to speak  to him in a voice he thinks he knows.  I will Croker tell the rest of this story in his own wonderful prose:

" 'If you must, you must,' said he; 'there, take your own way;' and he opened his claw, and faith he was right—sure enough I came down plump into the very bottom of the salt sea! Down to the very bottom I went, and I gave myself up then for ever, when a whale walked up to me, scratching himself after his night's sleep, and looked me full in the face, and never the word did he say, but lifting up his tail, he splashed me all over again with cold salt water till there wasn't a dry stitch upon my whole carcase! and I heard somebody saying—'twas a voice I knew too—'Get up, you drunken brute, off o' that;' and with that I woke up, and there was Judy with a tub full of water, which she was splashing all over me—for, rest her soul! though she was a good wife, she never could bear to see me in drink, and had a bitter hand of her own.

" 'Get up,' said she again: 'and of all places in the parish would no place sarve your turn to lie down upon but under the ould walls of Carrigaphooka? an uneasy resting I am sure you had of it.' And sure enough I had: for I was fairly bothered out of my senses with eagles, and men of the moons, and flying ganders, and whales, driving me through bogs, and up to the moon, and down to the bottom of the green ocean. If I was in drink ten times over, long would it be before I'd lie down in the same spot again, I know that."

I suppose it is not a great complement to see you wife in a dream as a great whale!

The Library Ireland Project is a very valuable resource on Irish culture.   They have a perfectly formatted edition of Fairy Legends and Traditions of South Ireland (along with the original illustrations where you can read this story along with lots of others by Croker.

I may, time permitting post on more of Croker's stories during March. 

Mel u