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

MAC lATX DIREACH. 359
and in the wink of an eye, what should rise up out of the well,
but the son of the King that was father of the Sun Goddess !
They went on till they reached his father's house, and his
father made a great wedding with joy and gladness that lasted a
day and a year, and there was no word about marrying the hen-
wife's daughter when I parted from them.
There can be no doubt that this is the same legend as the
Golden Bird in Grimm, and it is evident it that is not derived from
the printed story. From the notes in Grimm's third volume, it
appears to be very old and very widely spread. I am told that
even now there is some trace of a veneration for birds amongst
the Turks, who secretly worship parrots even at Constantinople.
The giant of many hea<ls and ornithological tastes is not in
the German version, and the tinker has omitted the horse, which
seems to belong to the story.
On the 2oth of April 1859, John the tinker gave the begin-
ning of this as part of his contribution to the evening's enter-
tainment. He not only told the story, but acted it, dandling a
fancied baby when it came to the adventure of the big women,
and rolling his eyes wildly. The story which he told varied from
that which he dictated in several particulars. It began : —
BhA RiGH ANN AGUS BHA ElGHDEIEE MAR A BHA S MAR, A
BHITHIS S' MAE A CHINNIS AN GHIUTHAS, CUID DHE CAM s' CUID
DHE DIREACH AGUS SE EiGH EiRINN A BH' ANN.
" There was a king and a knight, as there was and will be, and
as grows the fir tree, some of it crooked and some of it straight,
and it was the King of Eirinn, it was ; and the Queen died with
her first son, and the King married another woman. And the
benwife came to her, and she said — A Bhanrigh dhona gholach
CHA NEIL THDSA COSAIL RIS A BlIANRIGH SHONA SHÒLACH A Bh'
again eoimhe so. Oh! bad straddleing Queen, thou art not like
the sonsy, cheery Queen that we had ere now. And here came
a long bit which the tinker put into another story, and which he
seems to have condensed into the first sentence in the version
which I have got and translated. He has also transferred the
scene from Ireland to Greece, perhaps because the latter country
sounds better, and is farther off, or perhaps because he had got
the original form of the story from his old father in the meantime."