Blair Collection > Popular tales of the West Highlands > Volume 3

THE STORY OF COX ALL GULBAN. 235
him ; and when he had levelled him, he let the weight
of his knee on his chest.
" Has death ever gone so near thee as that?" said
Conall.
" It has gone nearer than that," said the slender
black man.
He let the weight more on him. " Has he gone
as near as that to thee 1"
" Oh, he has not gone ; let thy knee be lightened,
and I will tell thee the time that he went nearest to
me."
" I will let thee ; stand up so long as thoii art
telling it," said Conall.*] MacNeUi.
Conall loosed the young King of Lochlann and his
men from their bonds and from their fetters, and he
sat himself and the young King of Lochlann at the
board, and they took their feast ; and the big man was
cast in under the board. Again when they were at
supper the king's sister was with them, and every
word she said she was trying to make the friendship
greater and greater between her brother and ConalL
The big man was lying under the board, and Conall
said to him, " Thou man that art beneath, wert thou
ever before in strait or extremity as great as to be
lying under the great board, under the drippings of the
waxen torches of the King of Lochlann and mine Ì "
Said he, " If I were above, a comrade of meat and
cup to thee, I woidd tell thee a tale on that."
At the end of a while after that, when the drink
was taking Conall a little, he was willing to hear the
tale of the man who was beneath the board, and he
* MacNair's versioD is almost the same in different words.
This has some resemblance to the story of Conall, Nos. V. VI.
VII. ; but the adventures of this man are quite different. Mac-
gilvray gives the same story.