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

XX.
THE THEEE WISE ]\IEK
From Donald Maclntyre, Benbecula.
THEEE was once a farmer, and lie was very well off,
but lie had never cast an eye on the women,
though he was old enough to be mr.rried. So one day
he took the horse and saddle, and rode to the house of
another farmer, who had a daughter, to see if she
would suit liim for a wife, and when he got there the
farmer asked him to come in, and gave him food and
drink, and he saw the daughter, and he thought she
would suit him well. So he said to the father, " I am
thinking it is time for me to be married, I am going
to look for a wife " — (here there was a long conversa-
tion, which I forget). So the man told his wife what
the other had said, and she told her daughter to make
haste and set the house in order, for that such a man
was come and he was looking for a wife, and she had
better show how handy she was. Well never mind,
the daughter was wilhng enough, so she began to set
the house in order, and the first tiling she thought of
was to make up the fire, so she ran out of the house to
the peat-stack. Well, while she was bent down filling
her apron with peats, what should fall but a great heap
from the top of the stack on her head and shoulders.
So she thought to herself, " Oh, now, if I were mar-
ried to that man, and about to be a mother, and all