Sgeulachd - BANRÌGH NAN SÌTHICHEAN AN RIOCHD MUILE-MHAG

[puxill]

Seo stoiridh às an leabhar Folk Tales and Fairy Lore a bha cruinnichte le James MacDougall (1910). Fhuair mi e glè inntinnich airson bha bean an riochd muile-mhag ann an fear de stoiridh agamsa bho chionn ghoirid (Tha mi a' ciallachadh fear de stoiridh a sgrìobh mi).

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[puxill]

THE FAIRY QUEEN IN THE FORM OF A FROG - part 1

At the head of Loch Ransa, in Arran, there once lived a farmer's wife who used to act as midwife to her neighbours. On a fine day in harvest, she and another woman happened to be out in the field cutting oats. Before evening a large yellow frog leaped with difficulty out of the way of her sickle, and when she saw the poor creature dragging itself out of danger, she said : "There you are, poor clumsy thing ; you would be the better of my help soon." "O! The nasty beast," said the other woman, "if she comes my way, I'll put the point of my sickle through her." "No! No!" said the farmer's wife, "the poor creature is only crawling about gathering her portion like ourselves," and the frog was let away with her life.

In a few days a lad, riding on a grey horse, came in haste to the farmer's house, and struck a blow on the door with the switch that was in his hand. The farmer went out, and the lad said to him that he had come for the wife to attend his mistress, who needed her assistance. The farmer told him to go in and take food, while his wife was making ready for the journey. He replied that he was in haste, and that he would wait where he was, until she would be ready. The woman now came out, and said that she would not go a step with him unless he would come in and take a morsel of food. Then he reminded her of what she had said to his mistress when she met her in the form of a frog on the reaping field, and then he said that she dared not go back on her word. She saw that she had put herself in his power by what she had said,and that she must go with him. Before she departed, however, the lad promised to bring her home safely in a few days.

The farmer placed his wife behind the lad, and as soon as she had got seated there, away went the grey horse at full gallop up the face of the hill. In a very short time he reached the summit, and then he turned his face towards the great chasm which lay between the hill he had ascended and another opposite. When the farmer's wife noticed this she cried to the lad : "What do you mean? Do you expect the horse to leap that chasm?" But before the words were out of her mouth the horse went over it like a bird on the wing. "Well done, grey kitten!" said the lad to the steed that was under him. These words made the farmer's wife wonder; but, if so, her wonder was the greater when she looked and saw that the steed which she herself and the lad rode was but a grey cat.