Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 3, 1892.djvu/383



HAVE lately had so many pieces of folk-lore communicated to me, that perhaps it will, on the whole, be best to keep them together. So, in the hope that the Editor will agree with me that they are worth publishing, I undertake to preside over the paste and scissors. I need only premise that some of the communications have been sent to me in writing, while others I have had to jot down myself.

The first thing I have to offer our readers is a translation of a very curious poem published in a collection of Gaelic poetry made by Donald MacMhuirich, and entitled an Duanaire (Maclachlan and Stewart, Edinburgh, 1868). The original of the following piece will be found on pp. 123-6, and the translation is from the pen of Mr. W. A. Craigie, a scholar of Oriel College, and a native of Dundee:—

One night, when the Gille-dubh-mór Mac Cuaraig was going home from the smithy, the Glaistig met him as he was going over Cúrr at Bial-áth Chroisg.

"Hail! big, black-haired lad," said she, "Would you be better of one behind you?" "Yes, and of one before me," said he, And he gave her a little bit lift Off the bare beach, And bound her before him Surely and firmly On the back of his fine horse