AN OLD GOAT!

AN OLD GOAT!

Source: Speak Up

Standard: Justin Ratcliffe

Language level: C1 Advanced

Killorglin is a small market town in Country Kerry in the south-west of Ireland. And yet every August 100.000 visitors go there for its remarkable festival: the Puck Fair. Puck is the name of a mischievous fairy in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer’s Night Dream and the Puck Fair seems to date back to Shakespeare’s day, even though its origins aren’t entirely clear. There is certainly a Pagan element and the highlight of the Fair is when Queen Puck, a young schoolgirl, crowns King Puck, a goat. As the Fair’s organizer, Declan Mangan, explains, this involves a lot of planning:

Declan Mangan

(Irish/Kerry accent)

The goats, they live in herds on the mountain, and I have a goatcatcher named Frank Joy, and he’s been doing this now for 20 years or more. And maybe a month before the Fair he’ll go on the mountains and spot a good looking goat, and the goat, it depends on the size of the horns of the goat as well, and when he has identified the goat the wants to get, he goes up with a few men, and they chase the herd down into a kind of a gully, and they capture the goat, with some difficulty, and then Frank brings the goat to his own farm, so that he becomes domesticated very quickly; three or four days, and he becomes quite time. And then Frank brings him into the fair and he’s carried out on parade through the town, on the evening of the first day, the Gathering Day of Puck, and he is lifted up onto a platform, which is about maybe 40 feet high in the air, and he presides over his subjects for three days. He’s Ireland’s only king!

BRAVE GOAT!

But the goat’s reign doesn’t last for ever:

Declan Mangan

And then, during the three days that he’s there, Frank Joy goes up and feeds him with greenery and ivy and drinks of water and all that, and then, on the last day, he’s taken down from the stand and brought on parade again through the town, and then within two or three hours of the festival is back in the mountains again. But, before the goat is accepted, he’s checked by the local vet as well, before and after the festival, just to make sure we’re not doing and damage to his Lordship!

BRAVE GOAT!

Puck Fair also attracts celebrity guests. One year Mel Gibson appeared. Gibson often seems to be in trouble these days. Perhaps it isn’t hard to understand stand why:

Declan Mangan

Mel Gibson, the actor, was here when he was filming Braveheart, they did some of the scenes of that in Ireland. And Mel came to Puck Fair away, and he was feeling thirsty. And at some times the pubs get so full inside that there’s a bouncer standing at the door, and he won’t allow anybody into the pub, unless somebody from inside comes out. And Mel was waiting to get into a pub, and he went up to the bouncer, and he said, “Look, can I get in there for a drink?” and your man says, “No, we’re full!” And it was going on for a while, and eventually Mel says, “Do you not know me?” He said, “I’m Mel Gibson, the actor! And the reply he got was: “I’m John Nagle, the bouncer. No!”