Blair Collection > Gille a' bhuidseir

THE WIZARD'S GILLIE
THERE was a farmer in Erin, who had a froward
ne'er-do-well of a son. One day he said to the
boy's mother, " I think I may just as well drown
him; he will never be fit for anything, in any case."
So he took him to the shore. But when he got there,
he felt loath after all to throw him into the sea.
What should he now see but a boat, with a man
sitting in it. The man came ashore and said to the
farmer, " Wert thou really about to drown thy son? "
" Yes, I was indeed."
" If thou wilt let me take him with me for a year,
thou shalt have twenty Saxon pounds for him — better
do that than drown him."
" Very well, I will," quoth the farmer.
" At the end of a year, then, meet me here, and
thy son shall come back, and thou shalt have the
twenty Saxon pounds."
When the farmer came home, " What," quoth the
vdfe, " didst thou do with the lad.? "
He told her how matters stood.
" That is well indeed," quoth she, " much better
than drowning him," and right glad was she that the
lad had not been drowned.*
At the end of the year, the Bodach, or old man,
came, and with him the farmer's son. The farmer met
him and received the twenty Saxon pounds. So hand-
some, so big and so stalwart had his son grown that the
farmer was astonished.
indeed, is followed by " ars esan," quoth he. But the mother seems
by the context to be the person in whose mouth the words would be
more appropriate.