all carefully compiled books for the use of young persons.—(D. Murray, Skibo.)
[The opening of the tale, and the deaths of Comoran and Blunderbore, as told in our children's books, are all unknown here, and the whole thing as found in Sutherland more nearly resembles the Scandinavian story of "The Giant and the Herd Boy," given in Thorpe's Yule Tide Stories (Bohn's library edition), but, as will be seen, it incorporates with that some of the features of our Jack.]
xxiv.—The Herds of Glen Guar.
A wild and romantic glen in Strath Carron is called Glen Craig. It was through this that a woman was once passing, carrying an infant wrapped in her plaid. Below the path, overhung with weeping birches, and nearly opposite, ran a very deep ravine known as Glen Ouar, or the Dun Glen. The child, not yet a year old, and which had not yet spoken, or attempted to speak, suddenly addressed her thus:—
"I' leanvar vo mhoal ouar
(Le lavidh na ghoul)
Himig meish a che bloau
An's a gleana ouar ad palla,
Gun chu, gun duinie
Gun chain, gun gillie,
Ach aon duinie
Ajus e lea"——
Or—
"(Many is the dun hummel cow, each having a calf.)
I have seen milked
In the opposite dun glen
Without the aid of dog,
Or man, or woman, or gillie,
One man excepted,
And he grey"——
The good woman, terrified and grieved, flung down child and plaid, and ran home, where, to her great joy, her baby lay smiling in his cradle. Some frolicsome spirit had j)laycd her the trick, and returned the infant to the cottage.—(D. Murray, Skibo.)
