Ossian Collection > Folk tales and fairy lore in Gaelic and English

FOLK TALES AND FAIRY LORE. 1 37
thou canst tell the secret of our Queen on the Bridge
of Easan Dubh on the evening of next Friday."
The warning, which he thus got the second time,
caused Angus some anxiety, especially as he knew not
what might be the outcome.
He reached the house, and his wife met him at the
door. She noticed that something was troubling his
mind, so she asked him the cause, and he told h'^r
everything he had seen and heard at the Fairy Knoll.
" Angus, dearest of men," said his wife, " let none
of these things make thee anxious. We have married
before the year has run out, so do not let me cause thee
anxiety any longer." " Wife, I do not understand
thee," said Angus. Then she said: "About a year
ago a faintness came over me as I was passing the
Fairy Knoll. I sat down on the Knoll, and, in
a short time, fell asleep. When I awoke I was in the
finest place I ever beheld, and surrounded by men and
women busy dancing. I tried to go out, but whichever
way 1 took, the fairies — for it was they— would be
before me. At last one of them, who seemed to be
chief over the rest, said: ' Brown-haired maiden of the
laughing eyes, thou wilt get out if thou promise to be
my wife, unless thou get thy chosen love in marriage
before the end of the year from this night.' I was so
eager to get away that I gave him my promise. But,
Angus, thou wert my choice of the men of the Uni-
verse; and since I have got thee before the time ran
out, I am free from the promise I gave him."
On Friday evening Angus Mòr was once more re-
turning from the hill, and when he arrived at the
Bridge of Easan Dubh, he remembered it was there he