At Swim-Two-Birds

by Flann O'Brien

  Though you do the best you can,

  When life looks black as the hour of night –

  A PINT OF PLAIN IS YOUR ONLY MAN.

  By God there’s a lilt in that, said Lamont

  Very good indeed, said Furriskey. Very nice.

  I’m telling you it’s the business, said Shanahan. Listen now.

  When money’s tight and is hard to get

  And your horse has also ran,

  When all you have is a heap of debt –

  A PINT OP PLAIN IS YOUR ONLY MAN.

  When health is bad and your heart feels strange,

  And your face is pale and wan,

  When doctors say that you need a change,

  A PINT OF PLAIN IS YOUR ONLY MAN.

  There are things in that pome that make for what you call permanence. Do you know what I mean, Mr Furriskey ?

  There’s no doubt about it, it’s a grand thing, said Furriskey. Come on, Mr Shanahan, give us another verse. don’t tell me that is the end of it.

  Can’t you listen? said Shanahan.

  When food is scarce and your larder bare

  And no rashers grease your pan,

  When hunger grows as your meals are rare –

  A PINT OF PLAIN IS YOUR ONLY MAN.

  What do you think of that now?

  It’s a pome that’ll live, called Lamont, a pome that’ll be heard and clapped when plenty more…

  But wait till you hear the last verse, man, the last polish-off, said Shanahan. He frowned and waved his hand.

  Oh it’s good, it’s good, said Furriskey.

  In time of trouble and lousy strife,

  You have still got a darlint plan,

  You still can turn to a brighter life –

  A PINT OF PLAIN IS YOUR ONLY MAN.

  Did you ever hear anything like it in your life, said Furriskey. A pint of plain, by God, what! Oh I’m telling you, Casey was a man in twenty thousand, there’s no doubt about that. He knew what he was at, too true he did If he knew nothing else, he knew how to write a pome. A pint of plain is your only man.

  Didn’t I tell you he was good? said Shanahan. Oh by Gorrah you can’t cod me.

  There’s one thing in that pome, permanence, if you know what I mean. That pome, I mean to say, is a pome that’ll be heard wherever the Irish race is wont to gather, it’ll live as long as there’s a hard root of an Irishman left by the Almighty on this planet, mark my words. What do you think, Mr Shanahan?

  It’ll live, Mr Lamont, it’ll live.

  I’m bloody sure it will, said Lamont.

  A pint of plain, by God, eh? said Furriskey.

  Tell us, my Old Timer, said Lamont benignly, what do you think of it? Give the company the benefit of your scholarly pertinacious fastidious opinion. Sir Storybook. Eh, Mr Shanahan?

  Conspirators’ eyes were winked smartly in the dancing firelight Furriskey rapped Finn about the knees.

  Wake up!

  And Sweeny continued, said corn-yellow Finn, at the recital of these staves.

  If I were to search alone

  the hills of the brown world,

  better would I like my sole hut

  in Glen Bolcain.

  Good its water greenish-green

  good its clean strong wind,

  good its cress-green cresses,

  best its branching brooklime.

  Quick march again, said Lamont. It’ll be a good man that’ll put a stop to that man’s tongue. More of your fancy kiss-my-hand by God.

  Let him talk, said Furriskey, it’ll do him good. It has to come out somewhere.

  I’m a man, said Shanahan in a sententious fashion, that could always listen to what my fellowman has to say. I’m telling you now. it’s a wise man that listens and says nothing.

  Certainly said Lamont. A wise old owl once lived in a wood, the more he heard the less he said, the less he said the more he heard, let’s emulate that wise old bird.

  There’s a lot in that, said Furriskey. A little less of the talk and we were right.

  Finn continued with a patient weariness, speaking slowly to the fire and to the six suppliant shoes that were in devotion around it, the voice of the old man from the dim bed.

  Good its sturdy ivies,

  good its bright neat sallow,

  good its yewy yew-yews,

  best its sweet-noise birch.

  A haughty ivy

  growing through a twisted tree,

  myself on its true summit,

  I would lothe leave it.

  I flee before skylarks,

  it is the tense stern-race,

  I overleap the clumps

  on the high hill-peaks.

  When it rises in front of me

  the proud turtle-dove,

  I overtake it swiftly

  since my plumage grew.

  The stupid unwitting woodcock

  when it rises up before me,

  methinks it red-hostile,

  and the blackbird that cries havoc.

  Small foxes yelping

  to me and from me,

  the wolves tear them –

  I flee their cries.

  They Journeyed in their chase of me

  in their swift courses

  so that I flew away from them

  to the tops of mountains.

  On every pool there will rain

  a starry frost;

  I am wretched and wandering

  under it on the peak.

  The herons are calling

  in cold Glen Eila

  swift-flying flocks are flying,

  coming and going.

  I do not relish

  the mad clack of humans

  sweeter warble of the bird

  in the place he is.

  I like not the trumpeting

  heard at morn;

  sweeter hearing is the squeal

  of badgers in Benna Broc.

  I do not like it

  the loud bugling;

  finer is the stagbelling stag

  of antler-points twice twenty.

  There are makings for plough-teams

  from glen to glen;

  each resting-stag at rest

  on the summit of the peaks.

  Excuse me for a second, interposed Shanahan in an urgent manner, I’ve got a verse in my head. Wait now.

  What!

  Listen, man. Listen to this before it’s lost. When stags appear on the mountain high, with flanks the colour of bran, when a badger bold can say good-bye, A PINT OF PLAIN IS TOUR ONLY MAN!

  Well by God, Shanahan, I never thought you had it in you, said Furriskey, tinning his wide-eyed smile to the smile of Lamont, I never thought you had it in you. Take a look at the bloody poet, Mr Lamont. What?

  The hard Shanahan by God, said Lamont. The hard man. That’s a good one all right. Put it there, Mr Shanahan.

  Hands were extended till they met, the generous grip of friendship in front of the fire.

  All right, said Shanahan laughing in the manner of a proud peacock, don’t shake the handle off me altogether. Gentlemen, you flatter me. Order ten pints a man till we celebrate.

  My hard bloody Shanahan, said Lamont.

  That’ll do you now the pair of ye, said Shanahan. Silence in the court now.

  The droning from the bed restarted where it stopped.

  The stag of steep Slieve Eibhlinne,

  the stag of sharp Slieve Fuaid,

  the stag of Eala, the stag of Orrery,

  the mad stag of Loch Lein.

  Stag of Shevna, stag of Lame,

  the stag of Leena of the panoplies

  stag of Cualna, stag of Conachail,

  the stag of two-peaked Bairenn.

  Oh mother of this herd,

  thy coat has greyed,

  no stag is following after thee

  without twice twenty points.

  Greater-than-the-material-for-a-little-cloak,

  thy head has greyed;

  if I were on each little p
oint

  littler points would there be on every pointed point.

  The stag that marches trumpeting

  across the glen to me,

  pleasant the place for seats

  on his antler top.

  After that song, the long one, Sweeny came from Fiodh Gaibhle to Bean Boghaine, from there to Benn Faibhne and thence to Rath Murbuilg, attaining no refuge from the attention of the hag till he came to Dun Sobhairce in Ulster. Here he went before the hag and threw a leap from the precise summit of the dun. She followed him in swift course and dropped on the precipice of Dun Sobhairce till fine-pulp and small-bits were made of her, falling lastly into the sea, so that it was thus that she found death in her chase of Sweeny.

  He then travelled and tarried in many places for a month and a fortnight, on smooth clean delightful hills and on delicate chill-breezed peaks for a fortnight and a month, making his abode in the hiding of tree-dumps. And in leaving Carrick Alaisdar, he delayed there till he had fashioned these staves as a farewell address, a valediction on the subject of his manifold sorrow.

  Cheerless is existence

  without a downy bed,

  abode of the shrivelling frost,

  gusts of the snowy wind.

  Chill icy wind,

  shadow of a feeble sun

  the shelter of a sole tree

  on a mountain-plain.

  The bell-belling of the stag

  through the woodland,

  the climb to the deer-pass,

  the voice of white seas.

  Forgive me Oh Great Lord,

  mortal is this great sorrow,

  worse than the black grief –

  Sweeny the thin-groined.

  Carraig Alasdair

  resort of sea-gulls,

  sad Oh Creator,

  chilly for its guests.

  Sad our meeting

  two hard-shanked cranes –

  myself hard and ragged

  she hard-beaked.

  Thereafter Sweeny departed and fared till he had crossed the encompassing gullet of the storm-wracked sea till he reached the kingdom of the Britons and fell in with another of a like frenzy, a madman of Briton.

  If you are a madman, said Sweeny, tell me your family name.

  Fer Caille is my name, he answered.

  And the pair of them made a peace and a compact together, talking with each other in a lay of generous staves.

  Oh Sweeny, said Fer Caille, let the each watch the other since we love and trust in each; that is, he who shall first hear the cry of a heron from the blue-watered green-watered water, or the clear call of a cormorant, or leap of a woodcock from a tree, the note or the sound of a waking plover, or the crack-crackle of withered branches, or he who shall first see the shadow of a bird in the air above the wood, let him call warning and tell the other, so that the two of us can fly away quickly.

  At the butt-end of a year’s wandering in the company of each other, the madman of Briton had a message for Sweeny’s ear.

  It is true that we must part today, he said, for the end of my life has come and I must go to where I am to die.

  What class of a death will you die? asked Sweeny.

  Not difficult to relate, said the other, I go now to Eas Dubhthaigh and a gust of wind will get under me until it slams me into the waterfall for drowning, and I shall be interred in the churchyard of a saint, and afterwards I shall attain Heaven. That is my end.

  Thereafter, on the recital of valedictory staves, Sweeny fared again in the upper air on his path across sky-fear and rain-squalls to Erin, dwelling here and there in the high places and in the low nestling in the heart of enduring oaks, never restful till he had again attained ever-delightful Glen Bolcain. There he encountered a demented woman till he fled before her, rising stealthily nimbly lightly from the summit of the peaks till he reached Glen Boirche. in the south and committed himself to these ranns.

  Chill chill is my bed at dark

  on the peak of Glen Boirche,

  I am weakly, no mantle on me,

  lodged in a sharp-stirked holly.

  Glen Bolcaln of the twinkle spring

  it is my rest-place to abide in;

  when Samhain conies, when summer comes,

  it is my rest-place where I abide.

  For my sustenance at night,

  the whole that my hands can glean

  from the gloom of the oak-gloomed oaks –

  the herbs and the plenteous fruits.

  Fine hazel-nuts and apples, berries,

  blackberries and oak-tree acorns,

  generous raspberries, they are my due,

  haws of the prickle-hawy hawthorn.

  Wild sorrels, wild garlic faultless,

  clean-topped cress,

  they expel from me my hunger,

  acorns from the mountain, melle-root

  After a prolonged travel and a searching in the skies, Sweeny arrived at nightfall at the shore of the widespread Loch Ree, his resting-place being the fork of the tree of Tiobradan for that night It snowed on his tree that night, the snow being the worst of all the other snows he had endured since the feathers grew on his body, and he was constrained to the recital of these following verses.

  Terrible is my plight this night

  the pure air has pierced my body,

  lacerated feet, my cheek is green –

  O Mighty God, it is my due.

  It is bad living without a house,

  Peerless Christ, it is a piteous life!

  a filling of green-tufted fine cresses

  a drink of cold water from a clear rill.

  Stumbling out of the withered tree-tops

  walking the furze – it is truth –

  wolves for company, man-shunning,

  running with the red stag through fields.

  If the evil hag had not invoked Christ against me that I should perform leaps for her amusement, I would not have relapsed into madness, said Sweeny.

  Come here, said Lamont, what’s this about jumps?

  Hopping around, you know, said Furriskey.

  The story, said learned Shanahan in a learned explanatory manner, is about this fellow Sweeny that argued the toss with the clergy and came off second-best at the wind-up. There was a curse – a malediction – put down in the book against him. The upshot is that your man becomes a bloody bird.

  I see, said Lamont.

  Do you see it, Mr Furriskey, said Shanahan. What happens? He is changed into a bird for his pains and he could go from here to Carlow in one hop. Do you see it, Mr Lamont?

  Oh I see that much all right, said Lamont, but the man that I’m thinking of is a man by the name of Sergeant Craddock, the first man in Ireland at the long jump in the time that’s gone.

  Craddock?

  That was always one thing, said Shanahan wisely, that the Irish race was always noted for, one place where the world had to give us best. With all his faults and by God he has plenty, the Irishman can jump. By God he can jump. That’s one thing the Irish race is honoured for no matter where it goes or where you find it – jumping. The world looks up to us there.

  We were good jumpers from the start, said Furriskey.

  It was in the early days of the Gaelic League, said Lamont. This Sergeant Craddock was an ordinary bloody bobby on the beat, down the country somewhere. A bit of a bags, too, from what I heard. One fine morning he wakes up and is ordered to proceed if you don’t mind to the Gaelic League Sports or whatever it was that was being held in the town that fine spring Sunday. To keep his eye open for sedition do you know and all the rest of it. All right. In he marches to do his duty, getting the back of the bloody hand from the women and plenty of guff from the young fellows. Maybe he was poking around too much and sticking his nose where It wasn’t wanted…

  I know what you mean, said Shanahan.

  Anyway, didn’t he raise the dander of the head of the house, the big man, the head bottle-washer. Up he came to my cool sergeant with his feathers ruffled and his
comb as red as a turkeycock and read out a long rigmarole in Irish to your man’s face.

  That’ll do you, said the sergeant, keep that stuff for them that wants it. I don’t know what you’re saying, man.

  So you don’t know your own language, says the head man.

  I do, says the sergeant, I know plenty of English.

  Your man then asks the sergeant his business in Irish and what he’s doing there in the field at all.

  Speak English, says the sergeant.

  So be damned but your man gets his rag out and calls the sergeant a bloody English spy.

  Well maybe he was right, said Furriskey.

  Shh, said Shanahan.

  But wait till I tell you. The sergeant just looked at him as cool as blazes.

  You’re wrong, says he, and I’m as good a man as you or any other man, says he.

  You’re a bloody English bags, says your man in Irish.

  And I’ll prove it, says the sergeant.

  And with that your man gets black in the face and turns his back and walks to the bloody platform where all the lads were doing the Irish dancing with their girls, competitions of one kind and another, you know. Oh it was all the fashion at one time, you were bloody nothing if you couldn’t do your Walls of Limerick. And here too were my men with the fiddles and the pipes playing away there at the reels and jigs for further orders. Do you know what I mean?

  Oh I know what you’re talking about all right, said Shanahan, the national music of our country, Rodney’s Glory, the Star of Munster and the Rights of Man.

  The Flogging Reel and Drive the Donkey, you can’t beat them, said Furriskey.

  That’s the ticket, said Lamont. Anyway, didn’t your man get into a dark corner with his butties till they hatched out a plan to best the sergeant. All right. Back went your man to the sergeant, who was taking it easy in the shade of a tree.

  You said a while ago, says your man, that you were a better man than any man here. Can you jump?

  I can not, says the sergeant, but I’m no worse than the next man.

  We’ll see, says your man.

  Now be damned but hadn’t they a man in the tent there from the county Cork, a bloody dandy at the long jump, a man that had a name, a man that was known in the whole country. A party by the name of Bagenal, the champion of all Ireland.

  Gob that was a cute one, said Furriskey.

  A very cute one. But wait till I tell you. The two of them lined up and a hell of a big crowd gathering there to watch. Here was my nice Bagenal as proud as a bloody turkey in his green pants, showing off the legs. Beside him stands another man, a man called Craddock, a member of the polis. His tunic is off him on the grass but the rest of his clothes is still on. He is standing as you find him with his blue pants and his big canal-barges on his two feet. I’m telling you it was something to look at. It was a sight to see.