Matheson Collection > Popular tales of the west Highlands > Volume 1

THE TALE OF THE HOODIE. 67
hill of poison, her man was to be married to the daughter
of a great gentleman that was in the town.
There was a race in the town that day, and every
one was to be at the race but the stranger that had
come over to poison hill. The cook came to her, and
he said to her. Would she go in his place to make the
wedding meal, and that he might get to the race.
She said she would go. She was always watching
where the bridegroom would be sitting.
She let fall the ring and the feather in the broth
that was before him. With the first spoon he took up
the ring, with the next he took up the feather. When
the minister came to the fore to make the marriage, he
would not marry till he should find out who had made
ready the meal. They brought up the cook of the
gentleman, and he said that this was not the cook who
mad.' ready the meal.
They brought up now the one who had made
ready the meal. He said, "That now was his married
wife." The spells went off him. They turned back
over the hill of poison, she throwing the horse shoes
behind her to him, as she went a little bit forward, and
he following her. When they came back over the
hill, they went to the three houses in which she had
been. These were the houses of his sisters, and they
took with them the three sons, and they came home to
their own house, and they were haj)py.
Written down by Hector Maclean, schoolmaster at Ballygiant,
in Islay, from the recitation of "Ann MacGilvray, a C'owal
woman, married to a farmer at Kilmeny, one Angus Macgeachy
from Campbelltown." Sent April 1-4, 1859.
The Gaelic of this tale is the plain everyday Gaelic of Islay
and the West Highlands. Several words are variously spelt, but
they are variously pronounced — falbh, folbh, tigh, taighe, tuigh-