I’ll tell you all a story from a time not long ago,

of a farmer up in north-west Donegal.

It was almost harvest time when he was dealt a body blow,

and I’ll tell it to you just as I recall.

 

He was working on his tractor, and I heard an awful yell,

when his fingers became caught in the machine;

as the blood streamed to the ground I thought this won’t turn out so well,

‘cause his face had turned a shade of sickly green.

 

We rushed him to the doctor who lived not so far away,

to stitch him back together if he could.

Then when he was all bandaged up much later that same day,

he realised that things did not look good.

 

Two fields of corn were ripe, so they were ready to be cut,

and he couldn’t drive the tractor now, you see;

there was a local man who might agree to help him but

the farmer wasn’t sure where he might be.

 

So he got a friend to drive him to a local pub or two,

where the man he sought was sometimes known to go,

and purely for the shock of course, he had a whiskey too,

since his hand was still quite painful, don’t you know.

 

In the second place they went the barman looked at him askance,

and told him alcohol would thin his blood,

so if he carried on with it there really was a chance

that the trickle from his hand would start to flood.

 

He took these words to heart and when they got to the next bar,

a tonic water’s all that he would take,

and his friend tried not to snigger as they went back to the car,

nor in the next few pitstops they would make.

 

They were running out of hostelries, the day was wearing on,

when the farmer said they’d need to change their plan;

“We’d better try his house,” he said, “they might know where he’s gone,”

and sure enough that’s where they found the man.