Houlcroft’s Reviews > The Poor Mouth > Status Update

“There was no one in Ireland comparable to O’Sanassa in the excellence of his poverty; the amount of famine which had delineated in his person […] in the depths of winter I often saw him on the hillside fighting and competing with a stray dog, both contending for a narrow hard bone and the same snorting and angry barking issuing from them both”

One time when I returned from Galway in the black of night, what do you think I noticed but that we had acquired a new piglet in the end of the house. […] I took it carefully and allowed it to drop from my hand with amazement when I realised precisely what I had. It had a small bald head, a face as large as a duck-egg and legs like my own. I had a baby-child.

“-There was always good hunting in that house, said he to me. He opened his hand and what might one imagine was there but five shillings in silver, a fine elegant lady's necklace and a small golden ring. He placed these objects in some inside pocket with satisfaction and hurried me away with him onwards.”

“With regard to hunting, the Old-Grey-Fellow [..] leaped suddenly over the fence. I followed him. Before us in a little field stood a strong stone-built house. In the twinkling of an eye the Old-Fellow had opened a window and had disappeared out of sight into the building. I stood for a moment pondering the wonders of life and then, as I was about to follow him through the window, he came out as precipitately.

“I was very young when I was born and had not aged even a single day”

“I cannot truly remember either the day I was born or the first six months I spent here in the world. Doubtless, however, I was alive at that time although I have no memory of it, because I should not exist now if I were not there then and to the human being, as well as to every other living creature, sense comes gradually.”