The tribal wisdom of the Dakota Indians passed on from generation to generation, and for that matter replicated in various guises in a host of other ancient cultures, advises as follows:
Flog a dead horse
Proverbs & Sayings
That the dead might rise
When Eddie Maguire first got the job of digging graves and tending the lawns up in the cemetery, he was more than content to be well off-side from snooping Dole men, busybody neighbours and sarcastic so-called ‘mates’.
Local Parlance
In the wake of the culvert explosion near his home, the Cross’ man was admitted to Daisy Hill Hospital for observation.
‘Did your bowels move yet?’ the staff nurse asked solicitously.
‘Bouls, is it?’ he roared.
‘Amn’t I tellin’ ye, the whole effin’ dresser came crashing to the flure?’
He thought she was referring to the breakfast crockery.
…
More wholesome expressions!
A borrowed horse needs hard hooves.
Beauty never boiled the pot.
The burnt child fears the fire.
The old dog for the hard road: the pup for the pad.
‘You know where I got that?’
My late and very beautiful friend Sarah Hagan – who sadly parted this mortal coil just a few days ago – was my distant cousin. So distant, one would not normally mention it at all – except for my pride in being related to such a remarkable lady.
Sayings in everyday use yet 1
..that’s in the hands of The Man Above ..
referring to anticipated weather for a great event, sporting occasion or the likes. Not to be said in the presence of a priest!!
Street Rhymes ‘n Times
“I had a little puppy
His name was Tiny Tim
I put him in the bathtub to see if he could swim.
Is the moon ‘her own colour’?
SIGNS OF GOOD WEATHER TO COME
a red sunset…
Smoke rising straight from the chimney..
Frogs of a ‘good colour’…
Cranes going towards the lake…
Swallows flying high…
A clear, blue sky…
The cuckoo singing loud and clear…
The thrush singing in the evening…
When the moon is not ‘her own colour’…
Strength in Unity
An old poor man was dying and he grieved that he had nothing to leave to his three sons. Still he called them to his bedside. He asked them by name, one at a time, to go out and bring him in a rush – a common rush that would grow in a bog.
He asked the eldest to bring him an extra rush for himself. The rushes were brought to him at the bedside and he handed one to the eldest son and says,
He asked the eldest to bring him an extra rush for himself. The rushes were brought to him at the bedside and he handed one to the eldest son and says,
‘‘Break that.’
Sure the eldest son had no bother in breaking the rush, catching it at the two ends and pulling.
‘You all see that’, says the old man. They said they did.
‘Now’, he says, ‘if yous all go till I call yous.’
They left him to himself and he took the three remaining rushes and he plaited them and when he had that done he called them up again to his bedside. He handed the plaited rushes to the eldest son.
‘Break that’, says he.
Well if he was pulling till yet he couldn’t break the plaited rushes: or the second son couldn’t break it: nor the youngest son when it come his turn.
‘Now then,’ says the father, ‘that’s the way you’ll be when I’m gone. If yous stay together yous can’t be broken’.