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

URSGEUL. 233
and went ; the king's son had eight men on each side of the door
to catch her. The same scene went on, and she said she came
from the countiy of Candlesticks— " Tm nan Coilleaean," and
escaped, leaving a glass shoe. Then the king's son fell sick (of
course), and would only marry the woman whom the shoe would
fit ; and all the ladies came and cut off their toes and heels, but
in vain. Then he asked if there was none other. Then a small
creature put his head in at the door and said, " If thou didst but
know, she whom thou seekest is under the cook." Then he got
the history of the basin and candlestick from his mother. The
shoe was tried and fitted, and he was to marry Morag. All were
in despair, and abused her ; but she went out to her chest, shook
the magic bridle, and arrayed herself, and came back on the
filly, with a "powney " behind with the chest. Then all there
that had despised her fell on their knees, and she was married to
the prince. " And I did not get a bit there at the wedding,"
said the girl.
This was told as we walked along the road, and is but a short
outline of what was told me, written from notes made in the
evening. The man said that the girl told it with a great deal of
the queer old language, which he could not remember.
The girl and her chest on the same horse may be seen in the
Highlands. The girl, in her white coats and short gown, may be
seen blowing the fire in highland inns, the queen's likeness might
be found ; and the feast is a highland ball ; the filly and the
magic bridle are common in other stories ; the incidents of the
basin and candlestick have an equivalent in Norse ; and I got
them from a woman at the Sound of Barra afterwards, in another
story. This shows what may be lost by dignified travelling.
While the man was enjoying himself in the kitchen, the employer
was smoking in solitary dignity, up stairs in his bed-room,
writing a journal, and utterly unconscious that the game he
pursued was so near.
I have other versions of this tale from other sources, and may
find room for them hereafter.
The beginning is clearly the same as the French story of
" Peau d' Ane," and the end of it is the same as the Norse " Katie
Wooden Cloak ; " that is the same as Mr. Peter Buchan's
" Rashen Coatie " (MSS. collection) ; and that again has some-
thing of "The Sharp Grey Sheep" in Gaelic ; and that has to
do with half a dozen stories in Grimm ; and this is like " Cinder-