Blair Collection > Popular tales of the West Highlands > Volume 2

lyS WEST HIGHLAND TALES.
" Thongli I should give thee food, how shouldst
thou eat it, and thou there and thee bound ?"
He had no way of giving them food, but to make
a hole in the burgh above them, and let the food
down to them.
" "What is there to loose thee from that Ì" said
Diarmid.
" Well, that is hard to get," said Fionn ; " and it
is not every man that will get it ; and it is not to be
-(It at all."
" Tell thou me," said Diarmid, " and I will get it."
" I know that thou wilt subdue the world till thou
gettest it ; and my healing is not to be got, nor my
loosing from this, laut with the one thing."
" "What thing is it that thou shouldst not tell it
t(3 me, and that I might get it V'
" The three daughters of a king, whom they call
King Gil ; the three daughters are in a castle in the
midst of an anchorage, without maid, without sgalag
(servant), without a living man but themselves. To
get them, and to wring every drop of blood that is in
them out on plates and in cups ; to take every drop of
l)lood out of them, and to leave them as white as
linen."
Diarmid went, and he was going till there were
holes in his shoes and black on liis soles, the white
•douds of day going, and the black clouds of night
coming, without finding a place to stay or rest in. He
reached the anchorage, and he put the small end of his
spear under his chest, and he cut a leap, and he was
in the castle that night. On the morrow he returned,
and he took with him two on the one shoulder and one
on the other shoulder ; he put the small end of his
spear under his chest, and at the first spring he was on
shore. He reached Fionn ; he took the girls to him ;