He told me that when he was young he went in the boats. He fished a while with a man who had a boat at the pier below and there were three other men in the boat besides himself and the skipper. One day the son of one of the men called out to him as they were just leaving the pier and the boat had to tie up to the wall again and let the man off and he went home and sent another man in his place because once a man crossed the threshold onto the sea he could not be called from the shore. It was bad luck. It would bring misfortune on the boat to call a man back the same as when a man died you should not call his soul back. The sea was a threshold and death was a threshold and there were others that he could not remember. So that man missed out on that day’s fishing because his son wanted him, and he missed out on his share of the catch, because they were paid in shares. Another time a huge beam of wood as big as a herring trawler came ashore just east of his house in the little bay called Cuaisín and there were five strong men on it and they said they were wanting a sixth to manage the beam properly and undertake adventures with them and they called for volunteers, and there was a young man in the village who would risk anything for the pleasure of it and he jumped onto the beam and the six of them set off again out to sea. The young man could see no means of propulsion. There was no engine and no sail and no oar. He thought that it was very strange but he said nothing. And the five men walked about the beam and seemed to be working the ship, but they had nothing to work with and the young man thought it was very strange but he said nothing. But when they were far enough off the shore that the people looked like specks the other five men vanished and their places were taken by five seagulls. It was at that moment the young man realised that the men were sailors lost at sea in some old war and the beam was an enchanted beam. Now, thought the young man, I’m for it as sure as eggs. He looked around him to see was there any way he could take the beam of wood in charge, but there was nothing on it only an old shirt. He thought long and hard and after a time he picked up the shirt and he tied the sleeves to his belt and held the tail of it up. A wind was just after rising and luckily enough it was a wind towards the land for it was a summer’s day. He made a sail of the shirt and by walking back and forth along the beam he was able to direct it again towards the shore. The seagulls were not pleased at all and they first of all made a terrible racket, and then when they saw what he was at they started to attack him. But this young lad was a mighty dancer and they could no more catch him than Sonny Liston could catch Cassius Clay. By and by he brought the beam ashore and the seagulls flew away and the people took the beam and found that it was the very best of wood from South America, a kind of mahogany that they call ironwood. They turned it into keels and keelsons and king planks and ribs for their boats and it was always said that a boat out of Cuaisín would never drown. That man’s name was Patrick Leahy and he was an old man when I was a boy.