The Washer of the Ford: Legendary moralities and barbaric talesSharp, William
General
The Washer of the Ford: Legendary moralities and barbaric tales
Sharp, William
Mythology, Celtic -- Fiction; Scotland -- Social life and customs -- Fiction
"Tell me, O little sun-flower, which way shall I be going?" and as she
spoke a small golden bee flew up from the heart of it, and up the hill
to the left of her. So it is that from that day the dandelion is
called am-Bèarnàn-Bhrighde.
Still she hesitated. Then a sea-bird flew by her with a loud whistling
cry.
"Tell me, O eisireùn," she called, "which way shall I be going?"
And at this the eisireùn swerved in its flight, and followed the
golden bee, crying, "This way, O Bride, Bride, Bride, Bride,
Bri-i-i-ide!"
So it is that from that day the oyster-catcher has been called the
Gille-Brighde, the Servant of St. Bridget.
Then it was that Bride said this sian:
Dia romham;
Moire am dheaghuidh;
'S am Mac a thug Righ nan Dul!
Mis' air do shlios, a Dhia,
Is Dia ma'm luirg.
Mac' 'oire, a's Righ nan Dul,
A shoillseachadh gach ni dheth so,
Le a ghras, mu'm choinneamh.
God before me;
The Virgin Mary after me;
And the Son sent by the King of the Elements.
I am to windward of thee, O God!
And God on my footsteps.
May the Son of Mary, King of the Elements,
Reveal the meaning of each of these things
Before me, through His grace.
And as she ended she saw before her two quicken-trees, of which the
boughs were interwrought so that they made an arch. Deep in the green
foliage was a white merle that sang a wondrous sweet song. Above it
the small branches were twisted into the shape of a wreath or crown,
lovely with the sunlit rowan-clusters, from whose scarlet berries red
drops as of blood fell.
Before her flew a white dove, all aglow as with golden light.
She followed, and passed beneath the quicken arch.
Sweet was the song of the merle, that was then no more; sweet the
green shadow of the rowans, that now grew straight as young pines.
Sweet the far song in the sky, where the white dove flew against the
sun.
Bride looked, and her eyes were glad. Bonnie the blooming of the
heather on the slopes of Dun-I. Iona lay green and gold, isled in her
blue waters. From the sheiling of Dùvach, her father, rose a thin
column of pale blue smoke. The collies, seeing her, barked loudly with
welcoming joy.
The bleating of the sheep, the lowing of the kye, the breath of the
salt wind from the open sea beyond, the song of the flowing tide in
the Sound beneath: dear the homing.
With a strange light in her eyes she moved down through the heather
and among the green bracken: white, wonderful, fair to see.
THE FISHER OF MEN
"But now I have grown nothing, being all,
And the whole world weighs down upon my heart."
Fergus and the Druid.
When old Sine nic Leòid came back to the croft, after she had been to
the burn at the edge of the green airidh, where she had washed the
_claar_ that was for the potatoes at the peeling, she sat down before
the peats.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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