For decades my mother has been muttering, "I hate turkey," as she bastes the bird.

"The mother of all mothers," she muttered as another contraction hit.

"Lord," my mother muttered, as if we didn't have trouble enough.

He did not know, of course, that the mother, chiding her daughter's awkwardness, had muttered: "There you are again, child!

For example, his mother often muttered a phrase in Gaelic that translates, roughly, as "same to you."

At first she'd been a little afraid of this "pagan" her mother had muttered about.

'Only-time mothers,' Byr muttered, making a face into her goblet.

The mother muttered: 'That's no' ma taste, son.

His mother poked and muttered at the stove, ignoring us.

And suddenly he was a boy again, and his mother was bitterly muttering, "Priest's son!"