In these desolate far isles where life is so hard, where the grey winds from the north and east prevail for weeks at a time on the grey tempestuous seas, and where so much depends on such small things--a little drift-wood, a few heaps of peat, a few shoal of fish now of one kind now of another, a few cartloads of seaweed, a rejoicing sound is that in truth when the _Gille-Bhride_ is heard crying along the shores. Who that has heard its rapid whirling cry as it darts from haunt to haunt but will recognise its own testimony to being ‘Servant of Breed’ (the common pronunciation of the Gaelic Brighid or Bride)--for does it not cry over and over again with swift incessant iterance, _Gilly-breed, gilly-breed, gilly-breed, gilly-breed, gilly-breed_. “White may my milking be, White as thee; Thy face is white, thy neck is white, Thy hands are white, thy feet are white, For thy sweet soul is shining bright-- O dear to me, O dear to see, St. Bridget White! Yellow may my butter be, Firm, and round: Thy breasts are sweet, Firm, round, and sweet, So may my butter be: So may my butter be, O Bridget Sweet! Safe thy way is, safe, O Safe, St. Bride: May my kye come home at even, None be fallin’, none be leavin’, Dusky even, breath-sweet even, Here, as there, where O St. Bride thou Keepest tryst with God in heav’n, Seest the angels bow And souls be shriven-- Here, as there, ’tis breath-sweet even Far and wide-- Singeth thy little maid Safe in thy shade Bridget, Bride!” When the first lambs appear, many are the invocations among the Irish and Hebridean Gaels to good St. Bride. At the hearth-side, too, the women, carding wool, knitting, telling tales, singing songs, dreaming--these know her whether they name her in thought, or have forgotten what was dear wisdom to their mothers of old. She leans over cradles, and when babies smile they have seen her face. When the _cra’thull_ swings in the twilight, the slow rhythm, which is music in the mother’s ear, is the quiet clapping of her hushing hands. St Bride, too, loves the byres or the pastures when the kye are milked, though now she is no longer ‘the Woman of February,’ but simply ‘good St. Bride of the yellow hair.’ THE HERALDS OF MARCH Under this heading I had meant to deal with the return of the Plover and Lapwing, having in mind a Galloway rhyme, “Whaup, Whimbrel, an’ Plover, Whan these whustle the worst o’ t’s over!” But on consideration it was evident that March has so complicated an orchestral prelude that the name could hardly be given to any one group of birds. Does not another rhyme go, “The Lavrock, the Mavis, The Woodlark, the Plover, March brings them back Because Winter is over.” But March brings back so many birds! There is another bird-rhyme ... “When the Song-Thrush is ready to laugh, Ye’ll hear the Woodlark an’ the Wheatear an’ the Chaff.”