The English and Scottish popular ballads, volume 1 (of 5)
General
The English and Scottish popular ballads, volume 1 (of 5)
Ballads, English -- England -- Texts; Ballads, Scots -- Scotland -- Texts
The Graidhne whom we have seen winning Fionn for husband by guessing his
riddles, p. 3, afterwards became enamored of Diarmaid, Fionn's nephew,
in consequence of her accidentally seeing a beauty spot on Diarmaid's
forehead. This had the power of infecting with love any woman whose eye
should light upon it: wherefore Diarmaid used to wear his cap well down.
Graidhne tried to make Diarmaid run away with her. But he said, "I will
not go with thee. I will not take thee in softness, and I will not take
thee in hardness; I will not take thee without, and I will not take thee
within; I will not take thee on horseback, and I will not take thee on
foot." Then he went and built himself a house where he thought he should
be out of her way. But Graidhne found him out. She took up a position
between the two sides of the door, on a buck goat, and called to him to
go with her. For, said she, "I am not without, I am not within; I am not
on foot, and I am not on a horse; and thou must go with me." After this
Diarmaid had no choice. 'Diarmaid and Grainne,' Tales of the West
Highlands, III, 39-49; 'How Fingal got Graine to be his wife, and she
went away with Diarmaid,' Heroic Gaelic Ballads, p. 153; 'The Death of
Diarmaid,' ib., p. 154. The last two were written down c. 1774.
In all stories of the kind, the person upon whom a task is imposed
stands acquitted, if another of no less difficulty is devised which must
be performed first. This preliminary may be something that is essential
for the execution of the other, as in the German ballads, or equally
well something that has no kind of relation to the original requisition,
as in the English ballads.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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