MYTHOLOGICAL TALES | FAIRY TALES | FOLKTALES

The First Mirror

Michael McCanny Co. Tyrone
Seamas O Cathain, 1976

Well, before it leaves my head now, I'll tell you something about a pair that lived up thonder. You know in them days, everybody, every man, especially, was out, well, out, anyday he could stay out — and some days he couldn't — he was out digging. Naturally enough, some people's hands was harder than others and the harder the hand the worse it was, for it cracked up, you know, hacked, bleeding. So mirrors was never used then, they were hardly known, you know, and you were above the ordinary if you had a mirror in the house.

But then this Vaseline box came out then to the relief of the country — Vaseline they got for sore hands. So these old pair got a box and Paddy used to put it on when his hands would be sore. So he come in this day and there were one of his hands bleeding and he says: "Where's that Vaseline?" So Rosie got him the Vaseline and she says: "All's in it, take it with you, and if your hands be sore, put it on. They're not much in it now anyway."

So Paddy took it with him to the field and after a while he got it and from the first time when he was born, he seen himself in this wee mirror — there was a wee mirror in the lid of the box. I'm sure you seen one of them.

So, this was his father! After all these years he was dead — and that was him! So every now and again when he was smoking, he admired this, admired himself and he thought it was his father in this little mirror.

But Rosie called him in to his tea and he was interested in this and she thought she would see what he was looking at. So that night — she forgot all about it then — they were going to bed. Paddy was away to bed anyway, he was tired and she was ready to go to bed. There were very few nightgowns at that time, you know. But she minded about this, and she went to Paddy's purse and she got the Vaseline box.

She was like Paddy — she seen herself for the first time ever. So she left it down and she reached for the tongs and she till Paddy in the bed. She says: "If that's the sort of an old dame you're interested in, in soul I'm long enough here!"

So Paddy parleyed with here and said everything would be all right, and he says: "We'll see in the morning what we're going to do about it."

So she got up in the morning and made breakfast and she produced the Vaseline lid. "I think in God's name," she says, "we'll put it in the fire and be done with it."

"Oh," he says, "that wouldn't be right at all, that's my father."

"It's not a bit odds," she says, "I never seen your father," says she, "and I suppose I never will. But I'm sure," she says, "he never had hair and diddies like what I seen on that old dame last night."

And naturally enough, when the glass got the heat, it sparked out. "Now," she says, "didn't I tell you! Thanks be to God," she says, "there it is, I told you it was bad from the start."

BUY THE BOOK | DOWNLOAD SAMPLE PDF | SIGN UP FOR NEWSLETTER