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

LII.
THE KNIGHT OF THE EED SHIELD.
From John MacGilvray, Colonsay.
rpHEEE was before now a king of Eirinn, and he
-*- went himself, and his people, and his warriors,
and his nobles, and his great gentles, to the hill of
hunting and game. They sat on a hillock coloured
green colour, where the sun would rise early, and
where she would set late. Said the one of swifter
mouth than the rest.
" Who now in the four brown* quarters of the
universe would have the heart to put an afiront and
disgrace on the King of Eirinn, and he in the midst
of the people, and the warriors, great gentles, and
nobles of his own realm."
" Are ye not silly." said the king ; " he might
come, one Avho should put an affront and disgrace on
me, and that ye could not pluck the worst hair in his
beard out of it."
It was thus it Avas. They saw the shadoAv of a
shower coming from the western airt, and going to the
eastern airt ;f and a rider of a black filly coming
cheerily after it,
* Probably a corruption, ruadb for rotli, the four quarters of
the wheel or circle of the universe.
f That is against the sun, which is unlucky according to all
popular mythology.