J. F. Campbell Collection > Popular tales of the West Highlands > Volume 2

THE SHARP GKET SHEEP. 287
ter, but the eye that was in tlie back of the head of
the bald black-skinned girl, the hemvife's daughter,
was open, and she saw all that went on, and when she
awoke she went home and told it to her mother, and
the henwife told it to the queen, and when the queen
understood how the girl was getting meat, nothing at
all would serve her but that the sheep should be killed.
The sheep came to the queen's daughter and said
to her —
" They are going to kill me, but steal thou my skin
and gather my bones and roll them in my skin, and I
Avill come alive again, and I will come to thee again."
The sheep was killed, and the queen's daughter
stole her skin, and she gathered her bones and her
hoofs and she rolled them in the skin ; but she forgot
the little hoofs. The sheep came alive again, but she
was lame. She came to the king's daughter with a
halting step, and she said, " Thou didst as I desired
thee, but thou hast forgotten the little hoofs."
And she was keeping her in meat after that.
There was a young prince who was hunting and
coming often past her, and he saw how pretty she was,
and he asked, " Who 's she 1" And they told him,
and he took love for her, and he was often coming the
way ; but the bald black-skinned girl, the henwife's
daughter, took notice of him, and she told it to her
mother, and the henwife told it to the queen.
The queen was wishful to get knowledge what man
it was, and the henwife sought till she found out whom
he (was), and she told the queen. When the queen
heard who it was she was wishful to send her own
daughter in his way, and she brought in the first queen's
daughter, and she set her own daughter to herd in her
place, and she was making the daughter of the first
queen do the cooking and every service about the house.