Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 6 1888.djvu/180

172 one of them happened to fall into the linn pool, a very deep place indeed. The other pulled him out with the gaff, but in doing so blinded him of one eye. Well, what did this man do, but sue his friend for the loss of the eye. They went before the magistrate, and the magistrate was so foolish as to decide that the one must pay the other damages for the loss of his sight. All the country talked about the sentence, and said that the man had "had a bad justice," and that the next man who fell into the falls of Shin must be left to drown at this rate, as no man could afford to save another's life at the risk of his own, and to pay a fine into the bargain. A few days after the magistrate was out walking, and at his right-hand side was a green mound, on which some little girls were playing. They were ranged in rows, one sat at the top, and two stood before her. "Now," said the little girl, "I am the unjust judge, and you are to be the man that lost his eye," and so on they went, and the magistrate stood to listen to them. They talked for a long time, and at last the judge got up and said, "My sentence is, let the man go into the pool again, and give him his choice there to drown if he can't help himself out, or to lose his eye in being lifted; if he chooses the last, he is never to say another word, but go home and be thankful."

The magistrate was so much struck that he went home, summoned the men, revoked the sentence, and ordered the grumbler a beating for his pains.—(D. K. Stack.)

[There is a legend in H. Hurwitz's Collection of Jewish Tales (1826) which is something like this.]

xx.—, (A legend of the Gissen Brigs).

It is said that the kelpies were tired of crossing the Dornoch Firth at its mouth in cockle-shells, so they resolved to build a bridge. This was a magnificent work, the piers and the piles were all headed with pure gold. Unfortunately a countryman went by, and, lifting up his hands, bade "God bless the workmen and the work." At the sound of the Divine Name the workmen vanished and the work sank beneath the waves. The sand accumulating round it forms a