not, for if you cut him down, it
will take his means of living from him, but make a song in his praise."
And he did so, for he wouldn't like to do him any harm.' I have asked if
he made any love-songs, and was told of one he had made 'about a girl he
met going to a bog. He praised herself first, and then he said he had
information as well that she had fifty gold guineas saved up.'

His having been well off seems to make his poetic merit the greater in
the eyes of farmers; for one says: 'He was as good a poet, for he had a
plough and horses and a good way of living, and never sang in any
public-house; but Raftery had no way of living but to go round and to
mark some house to go to, and then all the neighbours would gather in to
hear him.' Another says: 'Raftery was the best poet, for he had nothing
else to do, and laid his mind to it; but Callinan was a strong farmer,
and had other things to think of;' and another says: 'Callinan was very
apt: it was all Raftery could do to beat him;' and another sums up by
saying: 'The both of them was great.' But a supporter of Raftery says:
'He was the best; he put his words so strong and stiff, following one
another.'

I had been often told, by supporters of either side, that there was one
contest between the two, at which Callinan 'made Raftery cry tears
down;' and I wondered how it was that his wit had so far betrayed him.
It has been explained to me lately. Raftery had made a long poem, 'The
Hunt,' in which he puts 'a Writer' in the place of the fox, and calls on
all the gentlemen of Galway and Mayo, and even on 'Sarsfield from
Limerick,' to come and hunt him through their respective neighbourhoods
with a pack of hounds. It contains many verses; and he seems to have
improvised others in the different places where he sang it. In the
written copy I have seen, Burke is the 'Writer' who is thus hunted. But
he probably put in the name of any other rival from time to time. This
is the story: 'He and the Callinans were sometimes vexed with one
another, but they'd make friends after; but there was one day he was put
down by them. There was a funeral going on at Killeenan, and Raftery was
there; and he was asked into the corpse-house afterwards, and the people
asked him for the song about Callinan, and he began hunting him all
through the country, and the people were laughing and making him go on;
but Callinan's brother had come in, and was listening to him, and
Raftery didn't see him, b