Post by Cameronian on Sept 8, 2006 4:54:28 GMT -6
Well let us not delay in filling in this sub-board.
The first is pure Mary MacKellar taken from the Celtic Magazine of 1883
“SIN CNAIMH IS CNAIM E”
This is an old Gaelic proverb which may be translated thus-
“That is a bone for you to pick”
This proverb, like most others, has a history. It originated in a woman’s revenge administered most effectually.
She had married that happily rare individual – a selfish man – and she seems to have borne her fate through the years without murmuring. It had been her husband’s daily habit to help himself to all the meat on the dinner table, whilst he placed an occasional bone on her plate, saying in the words that have become proverbial, “ Sin cnaimh is cnaim e”
She took her daily bone quietly. Possessed her soul in patience, but under a clam exterior she hid a deeply rankling sense of wrong, whether from being denied her due portion of the food, or from the effects that her hidden sense of injury had upon her, I know not, but at length she lay upon her death -bed after becoming the mother of six children. She knew that she was dying and she determined then to have her pound of flesh and leave a bone to pick for her husband.
Calling him to her bedside, she told him gravely that she had something of great importance to tell him, whilst yet she could speak. He asked anxiously what it was, when she told him that one of the children did not belong to him. Which of them? Which of them? he cried wildly ; and in broken accents she whispered, “Sin cnaimh is cnaim e” She never spoke again although he was urging her to speak when she was breathing her last.
She verily left him a bone to pick, and he sat from day to day gazing critically at the children, one and all. He could not ill-use any of them, not knowing which of them was not really his. Donald had his own eyes and red hair, Morag had his sister’s very face, and Ewen had the family formation of teeth and jaws. Thus found traces of his own race in each, and he knew not whom to turn out of his home.
The neighbours believed that all the children were his, and this impression has been handed down traditionally to the present day; but there was great satisfaction among all in the terrible punishment that fell upon this selfish man; for the bone given him to pick, by his dying wife set his teeth on edge, filled him with unrest through all the years of his after life
(signed) Mary MacKellar
The first is pure Mary MacKellar taken from the Celtic Magazine of 1883
“SIN CNAIMH IS CNAIM E”
This is an old Gaelic proverb which may be translated thus-
“That is a bone for you to pick”
This proverb, like most others, has a history. It originated in a woman’s revenge administered most effectually.
She had married that happily rare individual – a selfish man – and she seems to have borne her fate through the years without murmuring. It had been her husband’s daily habit to help himself to all the meat on the dinner table, whilst he placed an occasional bone on her plate, saying in the words that have become proverbial, “ Sin cnaimh is cnaim e”
She took her daily bone quietly. Possessed her soul in patience, but under a clam exterior she hid a deeply rankling sense of wrong, whether from being denied her due portion of the food, or from the effects that her hidden sense of injury had upon her, I know not, but at length she lay upon her death -bed after becoming the mother of six children. She knew that she was dying and she determined then to have her pound of flesh and leave a bone to pick for her husband.
Calling him to her bedside, she told him gravely that she had something of great importance to tell him, whilst yet she could speak. He asked anxiously what it was, when she told him that one of the children did not belong to him. Which of them? Which of them? he cried wildly ; and in broken accents she whispered, “Sin cnaimh is cnaim e” She never spoke again although he was urging her to speak when she was breathing her last.
She verily left him a bone to pick, and he sat from day to day gazing critically at the children, one and all. He could not ill-use any of them, not knowing which of them was not really his. Donald had his own eyes and red hair, Morag had his sister’s very face, and Ewen had the family formation of teeth and jaws. Thus found traces of his own race in each, and he knew not whom to turn out of his home.
The neighbours believed that all the children were his, and this impression has been handed down traditionally to the present day; but there was great satisfaction among all in the terrible punishment that fell upon this selfish man; for the bone given him to pick, by his dying wife set his teeth on edge, filled him with unrest through all the years of his after life
(signed) Mary MacKellar