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

THE KNIGHT OF THE RED SHIELD. 437
As it were a warrior on the mountain shore,
As a star over sparklings,*
As a great sea over little pools,
As a smith's smithy coal
Being quenched at the river side ;
So would seem the men and women of the world beside him,
In figure, in shape, in form, and in visage.
Then he spoke to them in the understanding,
quieting, truly wise words of real knowledge ; and be-
fore there was any more talk between them, he put
over the fist and he struck the king between the mouth
and the nose, and he drove out three of his teeth, and
he caught them, in his fist, and he put them in his
pouch, and he went away.
" Did not I say to you," said the king, " that one
might come who should put an affront and disgrace on
me, and that you could not pluck the worst hair in his
beard out of it ! "
Then his big son, the Knight of the Cairn, swore
that he would n't eat meat, and that he would n't drink
draught, and that he would not hearken to music, until
he should take off the warrior that struck the fist on
the king, the head that designed to do it.
" Well," said the Knight of the Sword, " the very
same for me, until I take the hand that struck the fist
on the king from off the shoulder.
There was one man with them there in the coni-
l^any, whose name was Mac an Earraich uaine ri
Gaisge, The Son of the Green Spring by Valour.
" The very same for me," said he, " until I take out of
the warrior who struck the fist on the king, the heart
that thought on doing it."
"Thou nasty creature!" said the Knight of the
Cairn, " what should bring thee with us ! When we
* Roineagan, small stars, minute points of light.