Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 6 1888.djvu/176

 168 linger here." And after bidding good evening, the gigantic officer strode on, rejoined his company, and along with it vanished into the swift-running liver. Then the vision ended. The crestfallen young boaster had to stand at his charmed post till the sun rose in the sky —till the kine began to low in the meadows, and faint cock-crows came from the distant cottages. He was so vexed that he threatened to have the wizard burnt for his unholy practices; but as the story made against himself, he thought better of it. The result of his moonlight expedition could only, if made known, raise a laugh at his expense, so young Ross never put his threat against the wise man into execution; and, what was better, he never boasted any more among the beaux and belles of Ross-shire of his strength or of his stature.— (W. Graham, Cuthil.)

xvi.—.

The Assynt man's wife once asked him to take her spinning-wheel to be mended. The wind catching the wheel set it turning, so he threw it down, and said, "Go home, then, and welcome!" He then struck across the hill, and on arriving asked his wife if her wheel had got home yet? "No," she replied. "Well, I thought not, for I took care to take the short cut. It will be here presently."

A traveller stopping one day at his house asked the hour. The Assyindach, lifting a large sun-dial from its stand, put it in the stranger's lap that he might see for himself.

Seeing a four-wheeled carriage, he exclaimed, "Well done the little wheels! the two big ones wont overtake them to-day."

He took his child to be baptised. The minister, who knew him, said he doubted if he were fit to hold the child for baptism. "Oh, to be sure I am, tho' he is as heavy as a stirk." This answer showing but little wit, the minister then asked him how many commandments there wore? The Assynt man boldly replied twenty. "Oh, that will never do. Go home first, and learn your questions" (catechism). On his way back the Assynt man fell in with a neighbour. "But how many commandments are there? There must be a great many, for the minister would not be content with twenty." When set right