it may half been a missfired brick

"It may half been a misfired brick, as some say, or it mought have been due to a collupses of his back promises, as others looked at it. (There extand by now one thousand and one stories, all told, of the same)." page 5, Finnegans Wake, James Joyce. Penguin 1999.

Tim Finnegan, stonemason, fell off a ladder as he worked on a tower. Maybe somebody threw a brick, which knocked him from the ladder. Or maybe he had too much to drink for lunch. Over a thousand and one stories existed in relation to Finnegan and the circumstances surrounding his rise and fall.