Wellerisms in Ireland: Towards a Corpus from Oral and Literary Sources

Folklore, April, 2005 by J.D.A. Widdowson

Wellerisms in Ireland: Towards a Corpus from Oral and Literary Sources. By Fionnuala Carson Williams. Supplement Series of Proverbium: Yearbook of international Proverb Scholarship, Volume 12. Edited by Wolfgang Mieder. Burlington, Vt.: The University of Vermont, 2002. 321 pp. $10.00 (pbk). ISBN 0-9710223-2-1

In the extensive essay on "Wellerisms in Ireland," which together with the Preface serves as an excellent introduction to this volume, and indeed to the topic as a whole, the author points out that wellerisms are "a comparatively rare genre, compounded by being tricky to collect" (p. 11). All the more reason, therefore, to applaud this new catalogue of examples of these traditional sayings from both oral and written sources in Ireland. The Preface and introductory essay provide detailed background information on the genre, particularly as manifested in Ireland, including a synopsis of historical and contemporary sources and scholarship, a summary of the typical features of the wellerism, a categorisation of the various groups featured as the actual or purported speakers of these utterances, a discussion of variation, and an account of the circumstances in which such utterances usually take place. The essay builds on and supersedes the author's earlier article, "Quotation Proverbs in Ireland" (Northern Lights. 9-21. Dublin, 2001), and her lecture on the subject at the Folklore Society's colloquium on "Verbal Wit and Verbal Wisdom" in March 2001. Attention is also drawn to the importance of humour, irony, wordplay, and punning, and to the use of stylistic devices such as alliteration, repetition, rhyme, and contrast, which are frequently employed to heighten the witty nature of the sayings. The text is admirably supported by detailed footnotes.

Named after Sam Weller and his family in Dickens's Pickwick Papers, although not easily subject to precise definition, the genre has attracted significant scholarly attention in recent years (e.g. Mieder and Kingsbury, Dictionary of Wellerisms, 1994). However, earlier scholars suggested that such sayings were comparatively rare in Celtic tradition--a misconception that the present volume resoundingly refutes. The alternative designation, "quotation proverb," highlights an essential feature of the genre; namely the witty remark, often incorporating a proverb, apparently from the lips of a particular speaker, which comments both aptly and humorously on a given situation. The author identifies four categories of speaker: actual people, animals, supernatural or fictitious characters (particularly the devil), and inanimate objects (p. 14). Stock speakers such as "the man," "the poet," "Confucius," and so on, "can be added to fixed expressions as a way of imbuing them with reliability" (p. 14). Phrases such as "as the actress said to the bishop" (or, in my school-days, "as the art mistress said to the gardener") "are often added by a second person to make an otherwise innocuous saying noticeable" (p. 15). Indeed, in my experience, some people are extraordinarily (and often irritatingly) adept at tagging such stock phrases on to any otherwise innocuous utterance, thereby imparting a risque double meaning through the underlying innuendo. The use of the linguistic frame "as A said to B" is therefore potentially infinitely productive, even if examples are ephemeral, singular, and difficult to collect, which explains the decision to exclude most such forms from the present catalogue (p. 15). The author deals very well with the perennial problem of crudity in wellerisms, and rightly notes that the vulgarity is often ameliorated when the sayings are set in their full context (p. 5). The introductory essay includes trenchant and accessible discussion of cataloguing, macaronic wellerisms, performance, and the relationship of wellerisms to literature, proverbs, riddles, and folk narrative, as well as examining the frequency of individual examples.

Building on her extensive research on proverbs and traditional sayings in Ireland (e.g. Irish Proverbs: Traditional Wit and Wisdom, 2000), Fionnuala Carson Williams is ideally placed to document the full range of wellerisms from a culture that is renowned for the study and preservation of its heritage. The catalogue comprises over 530 types in some 930 versions, more than ninety per cent of which have not been previously noted outside Ireland. Only forty or so versions are from literature, the vast majority being from oral tradition. The coverage is commendably wide, both geographically and historically, although the map at the beginning of the book merely assists the reader to identify counties and cities where wellerisms are found, rather than indicating or quantifying the proportional distribution of examples in specific regions. The items listed in the catalogue (those in English in Part A, pp. 57-191, and those in Irish, pp. 193-277) are a veritable treasure hoard of types of wellerisms and their variants, each easily identified by reference number, and accompanied by specific information on the source. Even casual browsers will immediately be reminded of similar examples known to them. Unsurprisingly, in these days of political correctness, overt references to aspects of disadvantage, which are not infrequent in wellerisms, may be unacceptable and even more difficult to collect, but nevertheless continue underground in the oral tradition, like other forms of subversive folklore. What shines out from so many of the wellerisms listed here, however, is their humour, ingenuity, economy, and memorability, not to mention their importance as a vehicle for the continued use of proverbs, and their encapsulation of worldly wisdom.