„We saw Shane McGowan. He is short and walks with a gammy leg.“ (posted by a Miss T to her blog)
Z: Hm, hm. Are they sure they saw Shane? Is he "short"?
M: Well, he does walk on bent legs.
Z: So maybe he seems smaller than Vicky... like a bent dwarf.
M: And smaller than Joey. Like their kid...
Z: Kid smuggled to them by mischievous fairies?
M: Aha, sometimes fairy folk take human kids and replace them with nasty dwarfy creatures. Who are small like kids but look like old men.
Z: Very likely, taken into consideration the Irish environment.
M: But fairy folk got drunk that time and brought their kid to a pair that never had their own normal kid... mixed things up a bit. So one pair lost their child forever, another child was miraculously obtained. A dwarfy thing called Shane.
Z: And they never even wondered how come they suddenly had a child - they just took it for granted that wonderful children sometimes appear out of the blue... to very special people.
M: Yeah, they didn't mind as soon as they discovered that their strange gain could sing and perform cute tricks. They decided to make money of him.
Z: I see - it was much easier than to maintain a circus.
M: Yes. So they sold a circus and bought a farm house in Tipperary. And invented the whole story. As they didn't want to bother with illegal child, they began to tell everyone it's a boyfriend of Vicky.
Z: And since the child was a bit, well, unusual, they better kept saying he was born in England. In case he grew up to be a monster, they could blame it on the evil, wicked English country.
M: And to gun him down as a MI5 spy. And blame the IRA.
Z: Yes! But luckily, the boy was a source of joy (and especially of good income), so the scenario never materialized.
M: Aha, and he was a great drinking partner too.
Z: And a person that came in handy when they needed to blame somebody for things gone wrong?
M: Well, they usually blamed daddy Joey if things went wrong. It was a family tradition. Daddy's past was dark too, by the way.
Z: But daddy wasn't a gift from the fairies as well, was he?
M: Nobody knows... But he had some special talents. A bit unusual for a usual human being if you know what I mean.
Z: Special talents, yeah. Even mommy Vicky was careful and better tried not to upset him too much.
M: So maybe it was not a pure coincidence that Joey and Vicky got Shane... maybe fairies who were carrying Shane to his new family paid a visit to their buddy, had some poitín and shrooms and just left their burden there. Next morning nobody remembered a thing, fairies were sure they had delivered Shane, and Joey discovered him under his table...
Z: A result of a wild (and super-important) fairy meeting going a bit, just a little bit, wrong.
M: So of coz Joey kept him for a while, till further clarification... And then he discovered Shane's talents.
Z: So since then fairy daddy Joey had no more intentions to sent the boy away to some unappreciative scoundrels.
M: Yes, and as Shane grew up he resembled his daddy more and more... It softened Joey's heart too.
Z: And daddy resembled Shane.
M: Exactly.
Z: And Vicky... what about her? She was the only non-fairy in the family. Didn't she feel a bit lonely?
M: It was only Joey at first... No Vicky at the moment of delievering. Joey found her later to play the role of Shane's girlfriend. And nah, she didn't feel lonely, she had Shane.
Z: And did she know about her role in the grand scheme of things?
M: Who knows... maybe she suspected something. Especially during fairy parties.
Z: But kept her mouth shut? And enjoyed the shrooms and poitín with others, attributing all strange things she saw to hallucinations?
M: And blamimg Joey for hangover next morning.
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