Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 6 1888.djvu/158

 150 amused myself by annotating it with references to parallel superstitions in other lands. I leave the notes, because they would seem to illustrate, without affecting, the folk-lore of the people of Sutherland.

LEGENDS.

i.—The Death of Sweno.

Once upon a time there was a king in Sweden, and his son Sweno sailed on the sea. Upon a certain day Sweno took ship; he had many men on board and red gold too, in heaps. His stepmother was a wise woman, and she bade him beware of Paraff (Cape Wrath), of Pol-dhu, and of Pol-darrachgawn.

He sailed and he sailed, till he anchored in Porst-an-Stuvanaig (Port of Sweno) as it is now called; but he did not know what land he had made. The men of the place armed themselves, and blackened their faces with soot from their pots. They came out to the ship in boats, and they told him this was Pol-Gawn! Then cried the king's son, "The Lord have mercy upon my soul if this be indeed Polgawn!" He weighed anchor and spread his sail; but, though he made as if to stand out to sea, the men of the isles and of Assynt were too strong for him, and they came on board the ship, and cried to Sweno that he should yield; but the Swedes were stout men, and they fought on deck and below. Then the king's son was wounded, and they put him below, and the fighting went on till a man of Pol-dhu, looking through a hole in the door, saw the king's son lying, and he shot him. Then the Swedes lost heart, and they gave up the treasure, and all that was in the ship, so only they might get away with the vessel, and with their lives. So the islanders began to work with the gold, and to lift it out in their plaids. One man held a plaid on the ship's side, and the other end was made fast in a boat; but the gold was heavy, so the plaid tore in two, and that treasure lies still in Pol-gawn. A year later the man from Pol-dhu, who had shot the king's son, said, "I go fishing to-day in Pol-gawn." While he fished a boat came suddenly over the waters, and in it there was a man with gold on his dress, and