Play recording: Butter or Margarine?
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- Teideal (Title): Butter or Margarine?
- Uimhir Chatalóige Ollscoil Washington (University of Washington Catalogue Number): 863809.
- Uimhir Chnuasach Bhéaloideas Éireann (National Folklore of Ireland Number): none.
- Uimhir Roud (Roud Number): none.
- Uimhir Laws (Laws Number): none.
- Uimhir Child (Child Number): none.
- Cnuasach (Collection): Joe Heaney Collection, University of Washington, Seattle.
- Teanga na Croímhíre (Core-Item Language): English.
- Catagóir (Category): story.
- Ainm an té a thug (Name of Informant): Joe Heaney.
- Ainm an té a thóg (Name of Collector): Fredric Lieberman.
- Dáta an taifeadta (Recording Date): unavailable.
- Suíomh an taifeadta (Recording Location): unavailable.
- Ocáid an taifeadta (Recording Occasion): workshop.
- Daoine eile a bhí i láthair (Others present): Lisa Null, Almeida Riddle, Norman Kennedy, Daithí Sproule.
- Stádas chóipcheart an taifeadta (Recording copyright status): unavailable.
According to Lisa Null, Joe made this one up – but he swears he didn’t.
There was a man whose wife loved butter – she had a sweet-tooth (beadaí: a person inclined to sweet flavours), and wanted her husband to eat margarine so that she could have the butter for herself. So she told him that she had been talking to the doctor, and that the doctor had told her that any man over twenty-five who ate butter was asking for trouble – that he was sure to get hardening of the the arteries.
The husband, hearing this, ate nothing but margarine – and died of a heart-attack. The moral of the story is that men shouldn’t believe their wives if they tell them that margarine is better than butter, because they’re only saying that in order to save the butter for themselves!