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

MAC-A-RUSGAICH. 3 I 5
" "Wliat art thou doing so Ì " said the giant.
" I " said Mac-a-Eusgaich, " am for that we should
mow the park at one cut instead of turning back every
time we cut the swathe, and we shall have no time lost
at aU.
The giant saw that his cut would be much longer
than the cut of Mac-a-Eusgaich, and he said, " We are
long enough at this work, we A\-ill go to another work.
We will go and we will thresh the corn."
And they went to thresh the corn, and they got the
flails, and they began to work. And when the giant
would strike the sheaf, he would make it spring over
the baulk (rafter), and when Mac-a-Eusgaich would
strike it it would He down on the floor.
He would strike, and Mac-a-Eusgaich woidd say to
the giant,
" Thou art not half hitting it. Wilt thou not
make it crouch as I am doing ?"
But the stronger the giant struck, the higher leaped
the sheaf, and Mac-a-Eusgaich was laughing at him ;
and the giant said,
" We are long enough at this work ; I will try thee
in another way. We mil go and try which of us can
cast a stone strongest in the face of a crag that is be-
yond the fall"
" I am willing," said Mac-a-Eusgaich ; and the
giant went and he gathered the hardest stones he
coidd find. And Mac-a-Eusgaich went and he got
clay, and he rolled it into Httle round balls, and they
went to the side of the fall
The giant threw a stone at the face of the crag, and
the stone went in splinters, and he said to Mac-a-Eus-
gaich,
" Do that, boy."
Mac-a-Eusgaich threw a dudan lump of the clay.