XPost: alt.fan.potato, rec.music.folk, uk.music.folk
XPost: nf.general, alt.music.canada

Today (August 19, 2023) is National Potato Day, which last year
I called Poet-ato Day in memory of Seamus Heaney and his
poem Digging, which he reads in this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNRkPU1LSUg

and which brings to mind

THE MOBILE GOAT (Newfoundland folk song)
written by Tom Cahill, made famous by Joan Morrissey
also sung by the Tom Morrissey Band on "Island Man”

also sung by my friend Colleen Power in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wl_0FrwxIDk

Have you heard the story of the Mobile goat on the grand old southern shore,
In the lovely isle of Newfoundland, where goats don't roam no more?
It's about a man named Dillon whose cursin' was of note,
And how he was diggin' for spuds one day, when he spoke to the Mobile goat.

Now the goat was stealin' Dillon's spuds for twenty years or more,
And every time he saw him, Dillon cursed and raged and swore.
He was diggin' hard in his field this time and the goat was chewin' a-way
Near a great big six-foot granite rock, when Dillon heard him say:

CHORUS:
Are you diggin' 'em, Dillon? - - - - Are you diggin' 'em deep? - - - -
Are you pilin' 'em, Dillon, - - - - in a great big heap?
"Oh, I'm diggin' 'em," says Dillon, "but not enough to fill a boat,
But I'd be diggin' 'em more if it wasn't for you, you rotten, stinkin' goat! Oh, I'd be diggin' 'em more if it wasn't for you, you rotten, stinkin'
goat!”

Now Dillon got the fright of his life when he knew what just took place,
And he said to the good Lord, "'Tis the devil himself come [to] snatch me
from your grace,
Come take me for my sacrilege and my rotten life of sin!"
And he ran like mad down the hill to home and the goat just pitched right in.

But they say it was a priest just passin' by when he heard old Dillon curse
On the goat and the spuds and the Lord above for makin' all things worse.
Just to hush the roars of the heavens above, he thought he'd bid good day,
And as he passed that garden fence, the good priest he did say: CHORUS

You could never tell Dillon 'twas the priest who spoke to stop his curses
free,
Passin' quietly behind the rock so Dillon couldn't see.
And to this day in Mobile on that grand old southern shore,
There's a thousand who believe the goat spoke out when Dillon swore! CHORUS

(and I have been at my “digging” for more than twenty years
and am still plugging away on alt.religion.druid).

--
https://www.nfld.com/~dalton/dtales.html Salmon on the Thorns (mystic page) "This could be the final breath; This is life and death;
This is hard rock and water; Out here between wind and flame;
Between tears and elation; Lies a secret nation" (Ron Hynes)

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