Consuming Nonsense

"may this great plague pass by me and my friends, and restore us once more to joy and gladness"

It is one thousand three hundred and fifty years tonight since Jesus Christ was born, and in the second year of the coming of the plague to Ireland was this written and I myself am full twenty one years old....and let every reader in pity recite a ‘pater’ for my soul. It is Christmas Eve tonight, and under the protection of the King of Heaven and earth I am on this Eve tonight. May the end of my life be holy and may this great plague pass by me and my friends, and restore us once more to joy and gladness. Amen. Pater Noster. Aed, Mac Concubair mac Gilla na Naem, Mic Duinnslebe Mic Aodhagain wrote this on his father’s book the year of the great plague.

The following year he wrote at the top of the same page:

It is just a year tonight since I wrote the lines on the margin below; and, if it be God’s will, may I reach the anniversary of this night many times. Amen. Pater Noster.

"The cat and the Porridge", 1935