FW 1.68c --the prankquean arrives--

1.68a: It was of a night, late, lang time agone, in an auldstane eld, when Adam was delvin...
1.68b: and Jarl van Hoother had his burnt head high up in his lamphouse, laying cold hands on himself...
1.68c: And, be dermot, who come to the keep of his inn only the niece-of-his-in-law, the prankquean...
1.68d: And spoke she to the dour in her petty perusienne: Mark the Wans, why do I am alook alike...
1.68e: And Jarl van Hoother warlessed after her with soft dovesgall: Stop deef stop come back to my earin...
1.68f: And the prankquean went for her forty years' walk in Tourlemonde and she washed the blessings...
1.68g: So then she started to rain and to rain and, be redtom, she was back again at Jarl van Hoother's...
1.68h: And Jarl von Hoother had his baretholobruised heels drowned in his cellarmalt, shaking warm hands...
1.68i: And the prankquean nipped a paly one and lit up again and redcocks flew flackering from the hillcombs...
1.68k: So her madesty a forethought set down a jiminy and took up a jiminy and all the lilipath ways...
1.68l: And there was a wild old grannewwail that laurency night of starshootings somewhere in Erio...
1.68m: So then she started raining, raining, and in a pair of changers, be dom ter, she was back again...
1.68n: And Jarl von Hoother had his hurricane hips up to his pantrybox, ruminating in his holdfour stomachs...
1.68o: And the prankquean picked a blank and lit out and the valleys lay twinkling. And she made her wittest...
1.68p: For like the campbells acoming with a fork lance of lightning, Jarl von Hoother Boanerges himself...
1.68q: in his broadginger hat and his civic chollar and his allabuff hemmed and his bullbraggin soxangloves...
1.68r: And he clopped his rude hand to his eacy hitch and he ordurd and his thick spch spck for her to shut...
1.68s: And they all drank free. For one man in his armour was a fat match always for any girls under shurts...
1.68t: Saw fore shalt thou sea. Betoun ye and be. The prankquean was to hold her dummyship and the jimminies...


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FDV: "And who come to the keep of his inn but the prankwench." →
"And who come to the keep of his inn but the niece of his a prankwench. And the prankwench picked a rosy one & made her wit foerenenst the dour."
prankwench/crank-wrench?


And, be dermot, who come to the keep of his inn

Diarmaid (Dermot) and Grania: analogues of Tristan and Isolde in Fenian myth (Finn MacCool is the analogue of King Mark)

come = plural verb
(fdv always 'come' never 'came')

keep: the central and strongest tower of a medieval castle

inn-keeper


only the niece-of-his-in-law, the prankquean.

VI.B1.04: 'niece-in-law' Freeman's Journal 16Feb24: 'Publican's Story': 'Witness then asked his niece-in-law, Mary Maher, to go for the priest'
(so his nephew's wife? or maybe his wife's niece from previous marriage?)

Isolde after marrying Mark's nephew Tristan???

'prank' from flaunt, make-up

archaic quean: woman, prostitute, ill-bred woman(?)
cuckquean = cuckolded wife

longshot: Parnell's great-aunt Sophia built a conspicuously phallic monument to her husband, maybe as a prank


And the prankquean pulled a rosy one

the heroine of the folktale Tam Lin plucks roses at Carterhaugh, thereby summoning Tam Lin

slang to pluck a rose: (of women) to urinate (or defecate)

red rose: Lancaster

the pirate queen's combined with elements from the slightly earlier story of Janet/Margaret and "Tam Lin". The lyrics of Tam Lin tell of a man trapped by a fairy-spell who impregnates a girl, and her love frees him. Each time she visits him she plucks/pulls a rose or two. (Weirdly, 'plucking a rose' was a polite euphemism for going to the bathroom, around that time.) Sandy Denny's voice always makes me weep:




and made her wit forenenst the dour.

phrase make water: to urinate
wet
witticism
Dutch wit: white
wait

AngloIrish forenenst: opposite
against

door


And she lit up and fireland was ablaze.

cigarette?

VI.B3.20: 'S Patrick's vision 1 All I ablaze' IISS 43: 'in prophetic vision he saw at first all Ireland ablaze, and afterwards only the mountains on fire; and at last saw lamps lit in the valleys"'




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