DIS-HARMED IMPRECATIONS.
By Rev. J. M. O Reilly,
Surrey Hills, Sydney, New South Wales.
I have already said that drae sgeul must be draoi sgeul—lit. “mage a story,” “druid a story,” or “wizard a story;” and will be a phrase used as euphemistically synonymous with diaḃal sgeul, or ḋeaṁan sgeul. By the way, in West Mayo, the last is always aspirated—pr. “yoon,” and is always used when the same people would say “sorrow a news,” if it were in English they were talking.
For Nár eiriġiḋ an t-acsaḋs leat—language is full of the traces of efforts at softening or wholly annihilating the inherent sentiment of curses.
In Ireland this process is known as “taking the harm out of” them; and the harm is the meaning.
Sometimes the “harm” is not extracted—in the process. But then, the people do the next best thing immediately after. They say, for instance: “bad luck to you”—“and I crass you agin.” Here, “I crass” means “I cross, or unwish your bad luck.” i.e. “I wish to take the harm out of my curse again as far as I can.”
Sometimes they leave the harm within as regards the person cursed, but try and extract their own guilt in reference to it. e.g.: “May the divvle act so and so by you,” “if I'm not sinning:” or, “God forgive me,” or “Christ pardon my mouth,” or “God pardon my sowl for cursing.”
But the rule is to “take the harm out” in the course, or process of the course even when they curse in English. Kins, or Kens, was a popular ending in such disharmed imprecations, both in England and Ireland. But in Ireland Kuns is quite as frequent as kens or kins. Doubtless through the caol le caol and leaṫan le leaṫan instinct.
Instances:—Dickins, for divvle. I have often heard the kens postponed till after the V of div-vle: "The div-kens so-and-so you." Faykins, or fa-kins, or fækins, for faith: "sow kuns" for sowl in Ireland. ’Od’s Body-kins, for God’s Body.
“Cus” in Irish. holds very much the same office as this kins in English. It is constantly at the end of curses; their own ends, of course, being evicted to give it place, except when the central word of the imprecation is so small, that to take a syllable from it would mean removing its whole self, v.g.: áḋ in nár éiriġiḋ an t-áḋ leat. In such a case, the “cus” is just added to the áḋ, and the latter becomes “áḋcus” and all harm, because all meaning, has left it.
Diaḃ-cus is constant for diaḃ-al; “ṫ’anam o’n diaḃ-cus”—it is even shortened to diaḃ-c, pr. “d’yowk” “diaḃ-c a misde liom.” And this, too, is copied, or rather transferred into English—both c and c. By my oak is common for by my oath; thraw-cus. shortened to thrawks, and fai-cios (caol le caol) shortened to faicks, are in constant use for troth and faith. “a leaḃ-cus,” in like manner, for a leaḃara. The meaning of this latter is not to the present purpose, and so I will defer it to another time.
This “cus” is so common a mending of Irish imprecations, that even an English word ending in cus—for instance, hocus-pocus, would sound as an Irish word to genuine Irish ears—and not as a good sort of a word either.
Well, now; let us see. Put “cus” to áḋ and it becomes áḋcus. And this shortened, will be “aḋcs” in a moment; like thawks. Nár éiriġiḋ an “t-áḋ-” leat, would be so horrible to the Christian Celt, that it is only in serious rage he would say it. But nár éirigiḋ an t-“áḋ-cus,” or an t-“aḋcs,” leat, would be perfectly safe, because meaningless. “Acsaḋs” got among the people sometime or another. It was better than áḋ-cus in that it had a finer sound; in that it had some meaning, and yet none in the curse; in that it was a variety, and anyone acquainted with the Irish-speaking districts will see meaning in this last reason—and so it slipped in sometimes, and at last it remained, and its origin was forgotten as the generation that knew it passed away.
Then it was also so very easy a step from either áḋ-cus to áḋ csaḋs (as it was, doubtless, at first pronounced), or from áḋcs, to áḋcs-aḋs, that the passing from one to the other was a matter almost of inevitability, given the word acsaḋs at all.
The nearest English analogy I can think of is Body-kins where Body is left untouched, and kins added, just as áḋ is left whole in Irish, and “csads” added.
But already too much. Let my excuse be that it is much easier to see these things at a glance than set the sight so clearly before others. In such matters a disproportionate preface is sometimes a necessity. For the Irish of one district, and the genius of its methods, are often wholly foreign to people of another Irish district; and “if that be so in the green wood”—saving irreverence. And even when one is from the district of a phrase or word, it may be as mysterious to him as to a stranger, unless he has observed the old people and their ways, and retained the same in his memory. And that is a matter of personal “turn,” and, above all, of deep, natural, unaffected love of his native land.
As to people who start far-fetched theories to explain Irish phrases—they will not explain them. The Irish rarely corrupted a word very far, and the explanation of such corrupted phrases will be found “nearer than the door,” or nowhere. If we go outside the door—i.e., into foreign learning and its ways and methods—to look for them we may travel far and grow weary with honest work; but the journey and the labour will be in vain for our purpose.
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