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

THE TALE OP SGIRE MO CHEALAG. 385
A ship was broken on the shore, and it was a cargo of wood
that was on board, and he stole some plancaichen (planks, made
into Gaelic) out of her, and he hid them in the sand. Much of
the wood was stolen and there was eannsachadh, a ransacking
going on. The carlin knew, nam pearachadh eud, if they should
ask her son if he had stolen the planks, that he would say he had
stolen them ; so in the morning before he awoke, she put on a
pot, and she made milk porridge, and she took the porridge with
her, and she sprinkled it on the doors and the door-posts. When
her son got up he went out, and he saw the porridge on the door.
" What is here ? " said he.
"Is it thus thou art?" said his mother; "didst thou not
notice the shower of milk porridge at all?"
" I did not notice it ; this is a marvellous thing. A shower
of milk porridge ! " said the son.
On a day after that, all about the place were called on to be
questioned about the wood. They asked him if he had stolen
much ; and he said that he had.
"When didst thou steal it ? ''
" Have you any knowledge of the day that the porridge
shower was?"
" There is enough ! there need not be any more speaking-
made to thee, be thou gone."
At the end of a while, when all talk was past, he went and he
took the wood and he made innsueabh (?) for the house, and
creadhal, a cradle, so that when he should marry and he should
have children, that the cradle might be ready. He married, and
he was a while married, and he had no children at all.
His wife, and his mother, and his mother-in-law were in with
him. On a day that there was, he was weaving, and what should
SPAL, the shuttle, do, but cast meid (?) a weight into the cradle.
His wife got up, and she belaboured her palms, and she roared
and she cried. His mother got up, and his mother-in-law, and
they belaboured their palms, and they roared and they cried,
"The booby! without reason. If he were there he were dead;
was there ever heard tell of a man gun mohathachadii without
perception, like him !"
He got up at last, when he was searbh, worn out, with the
roaring and the scolding. "There shall not come a stop on my