Please activate JavaScript!
Please install Adobe Flash Player, click here for download
ePaper created 2014-04-08, 18:05:31 | version 1.29.01
105 with it that any person coming to it, either to perform stations or otherwise, if the water of the well does not boil while they are there it is not considered a good omen, as some of the family will die before that day 12 months. Even Presbyterians believe this, but this practice is greatly abolished.’ The Devil [Back to Contents] Belfast Newsletter, 28 December 1830, The Devil’s Courtship. The Devil was sick and queasy of late, And his sleep and his appetite fail’d him; His ears they hung down and his tail it was clapp’d, Between his poor hoofs, like a dog that’s been rapp’d None knew what the devil ail’d him He tumbled and toss’d on his mattress o’ nights, That was fit for a fiend’s disportal, For ‘twas made of the finest thistles and thorn, Which Alecto herself had gathered in scorn Of the best down beds that are mortal His giantly chest in earthquakes heaved, With groaning corresponding, And mincing and few were the words he spoke, While a sigh like some delicate whirlwind broke, From a heart that seem’d desponding Now the Devil an Old Wife had for his dam, I think none e’er was older, Her years – old Parr’s were nothing to them; And a chicken to her was Methusalem, You’d say, could you behold her. She remembered Chaos a little child, Strumming upon hand organs, At the birth of Old Night a gossip she sat