Ireland's Lore and Tales

Ireland is famous as the “Land of Saints and Scholars,” but it is also a land that contains some of the greatest liars and black guards that God had ever put breath into. Now if you were to call these people “liar” to their face, whether it is true or not, they would be very insulted and might respond violently. They would, in all likelihood, insist that they were not liars but simple story tellers who were used to stretching the truth. One infamous stretcher of the truth in this town was a pensioner called Thomas Pepper, who lived alone in his retirement cottage and held ‘court’ in “The Bodhran” public house, where his stories were all well known. Every regular customer to that pub knew that Tom’s stories were far from being factual. Nevertheless, Tom would always reassure his listeners after each tale by telling them, “It’s the God’s honest truth, honest.” It was this habit that in fact caused him to be given the nickname of ‘Honest’ Tom Pepper.

One evening I was having a quiet drink at the bar in the ‘Bodhran’ public house and ‘Honest Tom’ was sitting in his usual seat at the top end of the counter. “I haven’t seen you in a couple of weeks, Jim,” said the barman as he reached my drink to me.

“I have been in hospital this last three weeks,” I told him.

“Must have been serious?” said the barman.

“I had a few moles removed and had some tests done. They thought that it may have been a sign of skin cancer. But it is all clear now,” I told him.

“You’re a lucky man!” replied the barman.

“Och, sure isn’t it only the good that die young?” I laughed.

“Aye, it’s lucky you are,” interrupted ‘Honest’ Tom. “I can remember the time when I was admitted to the cancer hospital, myself. It was to get a spot cut off my lip.”

“What happened Tom?” I asked.

“Well, in those days, there was none of the fancy drugs and equipment that they have now. I was sick, sore, and tired at being prodded and stuck with needles at all those consultations with so-called experts that I had to attend. While I was there those doctors were operating on some poor man whose stomach they had lying out on the table. They were busy scraping and scrubbing at the poor creature’s stomach when a bell rang out loudly to signal that it was dinner time. By Jaysus, didn’t those eejits just up and leave. They didn’t even close and lock the operating theatre’s door. They just left everything lying where it was and went out.“

Every night that I was in that hospital I was kept awake by crying of an old ‘Tom Cat’ who spent its entire time chasing the female cats. Isn’t it terrible, all those things that you see and hear, and you without a gun in your hands? Well, this old ‘Tom Cat’ was fond of stealing little treats for himself when he could, and didn’t he sneak into the operating theatre that same day. As sure as there is an eye in a goat, the cat began to eat that poor man’s stomach. When the doctors returned to their work, after lunch, they soon saw that the man’s stomach was gone.“

“In the name of the good Jesus, Tom, what happened then?” I asked him.

“Now if you would just hold your tongue for a moment, I will tell you all,” he said tersely.

“Now, the doctors were terribly upset by all this, of course, and they sent to the ward for me to give them some advice on the situation. “What can we do now, Tommy?” says they to me. “What is your recommendation?” “Now, me buckos” says I to them. “I am no surgeon but, it seems to me that you should go the local slaughterhouse and get yourselves the stomach of young heifer or bullock and put that into the poor man as soon as possible. If you can do this as quickly as you can I think that old stomach you all spent so much time scraping will never be missed, boys.” Now, in a flash the head doctor ran out of the building and, following my advice, managed to obtain a nice, young, tender stomach. With the rest of the team and with great dexterity they quickly grafted the new stomach into the patient, and nobody suspected a thing.”

” Did nobody catch on, at all?” I asked.

“Well, to tell you the truth, the ruse remained hidden for a while until, finally, the patient was able to take food again. In the beginning the doctors put him on milk foods, because they felt that this would be much easier on the stomach. This only lasted a while, of course, until they started giving him soup, cooked meats, and a variety of food that he had always been used to eating before he came into hospital. But no matter how much food the man ate, the discomfort of hunger pains never seemed to leave him. When the doctors began wonder what they could do to help, didn’t they once again turn to me for advice. “Now, boys,” says I. “I might be wrong, but in my opinion the man is not getting the right sort of diet.” Then, as I looked out of the window, I could see a man cutting the grass on the lawn and the answer to the problem suddenly came to me. “It would be a good thing,” says I to the doctors, “if you would go outside now and bring that poor man a few handfuls of that fresh cut grass and see if that helps him.” Sure, when they did that, didn’t the man stick his head in the middle of the cut grass and began munching away until there was not a blade of grass left!“

“That’s a tall one, Tom,” I laughed.

“Wait ’til I tell you that on the day that I left the hospital, I saw that man lying on his bed relaxing and chewing his cud. That’s the God’s honest truth I am telling you; honest“