Blair Collection > Carmina gadelica > Volume 2

NOTES 237
pleased with his appearance, and charmed with his manner, she kept shy of him,
and tried to evade him. He asked her to lift some of the sheep droppings
rolHng down towards them, and to satisfy liira she did so, and lo ! they became
balls of glittering gold, shining and sparkling in the bright light of the sun, like
the fireflies of night. The youtli told the maiden that this was only a small part
of what he could do for her ; and, pressing his suit the harder, asked her to
meet him again.
But through her long downcast eyelashes the girl thought tliat she could
discern what seemed like hoofs instead of feet, with clay in their crevices and earth
on their edges, and there appeared also to be fragments of ' rabhagach,' water-
reeds, in his moist hair, and she feared in her heart that he might be the ' each-
uisge,' water-horse, of which her mother had warned her. The maiden was sore
afraid, and, fearing to say 'No,' tremblingly promised to meet the man again.
On getting home the girl told her mother, and her mother told her father,
and her father told the ' pears-eaglais,' priest. ' It is the devil with his lures,'
said the good priest, 'and we must meet him stoutly. I myself will go with
thee and with thy daughter, and I will bring the Book, and we will make the
blessed sanctuarj-.'
They went, and the priest took the Book, and made the ' cairn ' in Name of
the Sacred Three, and of the sanctified saints, and of the sinless angels.
Presently the young man arrived, clothed from head to heel in finest garb
and gaudiest array, and right full of seductive smiles and enticing words. He
tried to come near them, and went round and round three successive times, but
could not come through the ' caim Chriosda chaoimh ' — sanctuary of Christ
the kindly.
And again, and again, and yet again the prideful young man tried to come
near, but again, and again, and yet again failed because of the blessed ' caim.'
Then the big cock crowed, and the young man, defeated, fled with a roar,
flames of forkling fire more deadly than the fongs of the serpent issuing from
his ears, eyes, nostrils, and heels, and showing his form anew.
The affrighted girl, trembling like the leaf of the aspen tree, looked in her
hand, and lo ! the erstwhile pellets of glittering gold were become filth, and in
disgust she threw them away.
' Is e'n tarbh baoidhre bh'ann a ghraidh mo chridhe, agus caim losa Mhic
Mhoire mhin bhi eadar sinne agus e agus gach gniomh graineil agus gach bair
duaichnidh.' — 'It was the bull of lust, thou love of my heart, and may the
sanctuary of Jesus the Son of the gentle Mary be between us and him and each
unsightly thing and unseemly strife.'
' Cam ' and its inflections occur in the names of many places widely apart,
as ' Caim,' a bay, and also a stream, in Arasaig, and the hamlet of ' Bun-na-caime ' ;
'Caim,' a river in Rannoch ; 'Cam,' the river upon which Cambridge stands;
and ' Camel,' ' cam-thuil,' crooked flood, a river in Cornwall.
From ' cam ' comes ' cambar,' a place of burial.
VOL. II. 2 H