The Fox and the Little Bonnach
From Hector Boyd, who learnt it from one John Campbell, who died three years ago, at the age of thirty.—Sept. 20, 1860, THE fox was once going over a loch, and there met
him a little bonnach, and the fox asked him where he was going. The little bonnach told him he was going to such a place.
“And whence camest thou?” said the fox.
“I came from Geeogan, and I came from Cooaigean, and I came from the slab of the bonnach stone, and I came from the eye of the quern, and I will come from thee if I may,” quoth the little bonnach.
“Well, I myself will take thee over on my back,” said the fox.
“Thou’lt eat me, thou’lt eat me,” quoth the little bonnach.
“Come then on the tip of my tail,” said the fox.
Oh I will not; thou wilt eat me,” said the little bonnach.
“Come into my ear,” said the fox.
I will not go; thou wilt eat me,” said the little bonnach.
“Come into my mouth,” said the fox.
“Thou wilt eat me that time at all events,” said the little bonnach.
“Oh, I will not eat thee,” said the fox. ‘At the time when I am swimming I cannot eat anything at all.”
He went into his mouth.
“Oh! ho!” said the fox, “I may do my own pleasure to thee now. It is long since it was heard that a hard morsel is good in the mouth of the stomach.”
The fox ate the little bonnach. Then he went to the house of a gentleman, and he went to a loch, and he caught hold of a duck that was in it, and he ate that.
He went up to a hill side, and he began to stroke his sides on the hill.
“Oh king! how finely the bullet would spank upon my belly just now.”
Who was listening but a hunter.
“It will be tried upon thee directly,” said the hunter.
“Bad luck to the place that is here,” quoth the fox, “in which a creature dares not say a word in fun that is not taken in earnest.”
The hunter put a bullet in his gun, and he fired at him and killed him.
See Chambers’ Popular Rhymes of Scotland, 1858, 231.
See also Wolf’s stories, where a wolf prays to Odin that an axe may fall on his head, and a man throws
one.
The following two stories, LXVII. and LXVIIL, were got in Islay from an old man, whose name has not been sent to me. They were written by Mr. Carmichael, an enthusiastic Highlander, and a good Gaelic scholar, who was stationed in Islay in July 1860, and is now, 1861, at Carbost in Skye.
The main incidents of these stories are quoted in the introduction, as known in the Isle of Man.
The Feinn (Fane) are here found in the spot where the Lay of Diarmaid left them, stationed near the old “Pictish towers,” opposite to the Isle of Skye, and they next appear in Islay, where the forging of Fionn’s sword, “the Son of Luinne,” is a well-known legend. The incidents are told in the Isle of Man of a baron, and the scene is partly Drontheim. Fionn’s patronymic, by a change from the common spelling which hardly changes the sound, here becomes MacDugald, or the son of Black and White; another slight change would make it MacDonald. And thus the most numerous clans of the West Highlands, the MacDonalds, MacDugalds, and Campbells, seem all to have something to do with MacCumhal and his men, who may have been Irish warriors, or Celtic gods, nevertheless; for nearly all these West country traditions point back to Eirinn; and the deeds of the Feinn are not always those of mortal men.
There is a curious poem of twenty-six verses about the smithy “Ceardach MhicLuin,” in Gillie’s Collection, 1787, p. 233. Several of the phrases in the story are in the poem, and the incidents are much the same. I have often heard that a number of poems were collected in Islay by a minister, and published, and verses about the forging of Fionn’s sword are still repeated there. Probably the poem is the one of which I have heard.
Caol Reidhinn. Why the Name Was Given to It
From Mr, Alex. Carmichael, (excise officer), Islay.
ON a certain time, when the Feinn had come home
from the chase to the house of Farabhuil, at the foot of Farabhein in Ardnamurchan, they were much astonished to find their wives so lusty, fair, and comely; for the chase was very scarce at the time with the Feinn.
The Feinn determined that they would know what their wives were getting to make them thus; and when they went away again to the chase, they left Conan, one of themselves, at the house, so that he might find this out.
Conan kept a watch, and the meat that they had was the hazel top boiled, and they were drinking the bree. It is said besides that they used to wash themselves with this.
The women understood that it was to watch them that Conan had been left at the house, and they were in a great fury.
In the night when Conan laid down to sleep, they tied his hair to two stakes which they drove into the earth on either side of his head. Then the women went out to the front of the house, and they struck their palms with a great lament, till they awoke Conan.
Conan sprang on foot with great haste, but he left part of his hair and of the hide of his head fast to the stakes.
When Conan got the women within, he set fire to heather and faggots in front of the house, so that he might kill the women with the smoke.
The Feinn were at this time opposite to the house of Farabheil on the other side of Caol Readhin (Kyle Ray), and when they saw the fire and the smoke rising up, they cried out loudly, striking their left hands on the front of their faces, with their eyes on the sky.
Then they ran to succour their set of wives, but the strait was between them; but with their blades they leaped the strait, (all) but one Mac an Reaidhinn (Ramsay). Mac an Reaidhinn fell in the strait and he was drowned; and since then to this day’s day, (the name of) Reaidhinn’s Strait has stuck to the narrows.
Valour so swiftly for wives of the Feinn,
And each one sprang on the point of his spear;
And they left Mac an Reaidhinn in the strait.
By good fortune the women all came through it but one or two of them, for the Feinn made mighty running to succour them. The Feinn weve in great fury against Conan for what he had done, and they seized him to put him to death. Conan asked as a favour that the head should be taken off him with Mac an Luinne that would not leave a shred behind, the sword of Fionn MacDhuil (MacDuguld), and that his own son Garbh should smite him on the thigh of Fionn.
With earnest entreaty I would; ask it
And my soul’s privation to seek it;
The son of Luinne to reap my soul
Upon the thigh of the sense of the Feinn.
This was allowed him, but first seven gray hides and seven faggots of firewood, and seven “firwin” of gray bark were laid about the thigh of Fionn.
Then the head of Conan was laid on that, and Garbh, his son, struck the head off him with Mac an Luinne—
And folds in the palm were not more plenteous
Than severed thews in the thigh of Fionn.
Then Garbh asked them where were the Feinn, for he had gone mad; and they said to him that they were below beneath him. Then he went down till he reached the sea, and he slashed at it till he drowned himself.
LXVIII
ON a day when Fionn and his set of men were out
hunting in Haslainn, in Gortean Taoit in Ile, they saw coming to meet them an unhandsome man, with a shaggy eye in the front of his face.* He was running with might, and making right for Fionn MacDhuil. When he met them he asked them to follow him to the door of the smithy. Said Fionn, “Where, stripling, is thy smithy? or shall we be the better for seeing it?”
“My smithy,” said the Fairy Smith, “is not to be found; and if it may, ye shall not see it.”
The Fairy Smith and Daor Ghlas stretched out against the mountain breast; and they would but give the one step over each cold desert glen; there could but scarce be seen a glimpse of their clothes on their hips.
On nearing the door of the smithy the heroes neared each other.
“A little opening,” said the Fairy Smith.
“Tear it before thee,” said Daor Ghlas.
Then turned round the Fairy Smith and he said,
“Oh king! that thou hast earned the name oh Caoilte (slenderness), Daorghlas shall not be thy name from this time.”
It was then that they began at Mac an Luinne, and when they were at it the daughter of the Fairy Smith came in to the smithy, and she asked,
“Who is the slender grey fearless man?”
The maiden fell into weighty questions with Daor Ghlas, and she gave him notice that her father would say to him when the sword was ready, ‘ What did it want now?” and that he should say, “It wants one little thing yet;” then that he should seize the sword and thrust it through her father’s body to temper it.