Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 6 1888.djvu/172

164 xii.—.

The giants, it is hoped, are not all dead, but only sleeping in Tigh Mohr na Alba (the Great House of Albyn). A man once entered a cave, and there found many huge men all asleep on the floor. They rested on their elbows: in the centre of the hall there was a stone table, and on it lay a bugle. The man put the bugle to his lips, and blew once. They all stirred. He blew a second blast, and one of the giants, rubbing his eyes, said, "Do not do that again, or you will wake us!" The intruder, who fled in terror, never could find the mouth of that cave again.

[This touches on the myth of the sleeping king or hero which is so widely distributed through the world.

Jeremy the prophet is expected by the Jews. Barbarossa and Charlemagne are only asleep, the one under a mountain, the other not in his vault, but in the Unterberg. Lost King Sebastian of Portugal is another case in point, to say nothing of Balder and of Arthur, "buried by weeping queens in Ascalon"; all heroes for whom the world is waiting. Marko of Servia retreated into a cavern; there in the forest hangs his sword. His horse is eating the grass; and when the sword falls to the ground, Marko will awake and will come forth.—(See Raube's History of Servia p. 85.)]

xiii.—. Once upon a time a man lived on Loch Shin side. He had flocks and herds in plenty, and he went up with his two sons to the shieling, for it was summer-time, and his cows were in the upland pasture. Well, that was good to him; and in his house by Loch Shin side there was nobody left but a little lassie and a neighbour's son, a bit laddie that played with her all the week long. The lassie had a wild dove's nest in an old tree, and first she would not show the nest, and syne she would. So they two went together, and they climbed to see the eggs that were in it. They were wandering home, their lone, when they saw a man fishing off a stone, with a yellow dog beside him. The man's back was turned to them, and the lassie was