Fairy Tales, Their Origin and Meaning; With Some Account of Dwellers in FairylandBunce, John Thackray
History
Fairy Tales, Their Origin and Meaning; With Some Account of Dwellers in Fairyland
Bunce, John Thackray
Fairy tales -- History and criticism
One story more, of how a Giant was outwitted by a maiden. It is told
in the island of Islay. There was a widow, who had three daughters, who
went out to seek their fortunes. The two elder ones did not want the
youngest, and they tied her in turns to a rock, a peat-stack, and a
tree, but she got loose and came after them. They got to the house of a
Giant, and had leave to stop for the night, and were put to bed with the
Giant's daughters. The Giant came home and said, "The smell of strange
girls is here," and he ordered his gillie to kill them; and the gillie
was to know them from the Giant's daughters by these having twists
of amber beads round their necks, and the others having twists of
horse-hair. Now Maol o Chliobain, the youngest of the widow's daughters,
heard this, and she changed the necklaces, and so the gillie came and
killed the Giant's daughters, and Maol o Chliobain took the golden cloth
that was on the bed, and ran away with her sisters. But the cloth was
an enchanted cloth, and it cried out to the Giant, who pursued them till
they came to a river, and then Maol plucked out a hair of her head, and
made a bridge of it; but the Giant could not get over; so he called out
to Maol, "And when wilt thou come again?" "I will come when my business
brings me," she said; and then he went home again. They got to a
farmer's house, and told him their history. Said the Farmer, who had
three sons, "I will give my eldest son to thy eldest sister; get for me
the fine comb of gold and the coarse comb of silver that the Giant has."
So she went and fetched the combs, and the Giant followed her till they
came to the river, which the Giant could not get over; so he went back
again. Then the farmer said he would marry his second son to the second
sister, if Maol would get him the sword of light that the Giant had. So
she went to the Giant's house, and got up into a tree that was over the
well; and when the Giant's gillie came to draw water, she came down and
pushed him into the well, and carried away the sword of light that he
had with him. Then the Giant followed her again, and again the river
stopped him; and he went back. Now the farmer said he would give his
youngest son to Maol o Chliobain herself, if she would bring him the
buck the Giant had. So she went, but when she had caught the buck, the
Giant caught her. And he said, "Thou least killed my three daughters,
and stolen my combs of gold and silver; what wouldst thou do to me if
I had done as much harm to thee as thou to me?" She said, "I would make
thee burst thyself with milk porridge, I would then put thee in a sack,
I would hang thee to the roof-tree, I would set fire under thee, and
I would lay on thee with clubs till thou shouldst fall as a faggot
of withered sticks on the floor." So the Giant made milk porridge and
forced her to drink it, and she lay down as if she were dead. Then the
Giant put her in a sack, and hung her to the roof tree, and he went away
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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