Folktales - Uirsgeulan
(Note: These have been freely adapted from tales appearing in the book "Stories From South Uist", now sadly out of print, by the late J.L. Campbell as told to him in Gaelic by Angus MacLellan. The oral tradition in the Hebrides was strong for over one thousand years but sadly finished with the generation who died in the 1960s and 1970s. They differ somewhat from the English language tradition of stories in that the telling is all and the endings sometimes mystify. There is a reason for this. Sometimes, though the stories might be anything between one hundred and one thousand years old, many were adapted, with some licence, from factual events).
The Fingalians In The Rowan Mansion
Once the Fingalians were invited to a big feast in the fairy Rowan Mansion. When they arrived, the food was on the table before them. When they sat down at the table, their feet stuck to the floor and their backsides stuck to their seats. They were unable to move. This was a plan that had been made to put an end to the Fingalians.
Diarmaid was not with them. They heard him coming. Fionn mac Cumhail found out - he had the power of divination - that nothing could loosen them but the blood of three children of a king. He called to Diarmaid to stay outside, and go and see if he could catch the three children of a king and kill them and bring their blood, which was the only thing that would loosen them. He was to rub some on his own feet first before he came in.
Diarmaid went and caught the three children of a king, and killed them, and brought their blood with him. He went in and first freed Fionn. Then he started on the others, and freed them all until he came to Conan, who was the worst of all the Fingalians. By then, the blood was used up, and Diarmaid could only leave Conan as he was. When Conan saw he was going to be left, he said to Diarmaid: "Oh yellow-haired, generous Diarmaid, if I were a big plump female, you would not leave me".
"Do you say that?" said Diarmaid. He came back and caught Conan under his armpits and plucked him up, leaving the skin of his backside on his seat and the skin of the soles of his feet on the floor! Diarmaid lifted him up in his arms, and put him down on a mound outside. "Go and walk now" he said. This was the greatest danger the Fingalians were ever in while they were together.
George Buchanan And The Dogs
Once there was a drover in Scotland who used to go at times to England with cattle and sheep and somtimes with pigs. He had a very good dog. An Englishman took a fancy to the dog and wanted to buy it; he was willing to pay anything the drover asked. The drover sold the dog for five pounds; the Englishman would have paid more if he had been asked to.
The drover then regretted he hadn't taken plenty of dogs to England; he thought if he could get five pounds apiece for them there, it would pay him better than dealing in cattle and sheep. He started to collect dogs all over the place, until he had collected five hundred of them. He then got a ship and took them to London. When he arrived he didn't dare to tie up at the quay with them; he anchored offshore. He himself went ashore to see if he could sell the dogs. there was no one there eho would buy a dog, people didn't need them.
But whom did he happen to meet but George Buchanan. The drover told him what had happened to him. 'Well,' said George, 'I don't know how the matter will turn out for you at all, but take it easy, perhaps I can make something of the business.'
George then went off and started shouting, 'Who will buy five hundred dogs at five pounds a dog?'. Two Englishmen were standing near by. One of them said, 'What are you thinking of today, George?'. The other said:
'Isn't he a smarty! It wouldn't take much to send him scurrying! Where can he get five hundred dogs?' The Englishman started towards him. 'Leave him alone.' said the other. 'No,' said the first, 'where can he get five hundred dogs? Even if he collected every dog he could find in England, he wouldn't have five hundred.'
The Englishman went to George Buchanan. 'Have you got the dogs, George?' he said.
'Yes.'
'Well I'll buy them. But you must deliver them to me here at ten o'clock tomorrow morning.'
'All right,' said George. 'You be here then, and I'll deliver them to you.'
The Englishman went off.
'Go on, now,' said George to the drover, 'and have your ship in here at the quay tomorrow at ten o'clock in the morning.'
Next day George Buchanan came at ten o'clock, and the drover's ship was brought in and tied up at the quay. The Englishman arrived. When the ship's hatches were opened, the dogs were out and up the quay and off out of sight through the town; they were ravenous with hunger and had been eating each other! The Englishman had to pay George Buchanan for the five hundred dogs and then send men after them throughout the country to shoot them before they ate every creature in England.
'Off with you now,' said George to the drover, 'and never come here with dogs or cattle again!'
The Norwegians In South Uist
Maoilein, son of the King of Norway, was living at Aird Mhaoile in Bornish; this is why it was called Aird Mhaoile. Mor, daughter of the King of Norway, was drowned and found on the shore; she was the first woman buried at To-Mor (Howmore); this is why is was called To-Mor; i.e. Taigh Moire - Mor's House, is its right name. The daughter of the King of Norway was the first woman buried there.
It was the Norwegians who first made submerged stepping stones to the islands in the lochs here; there is not an island in a loch throughout Uist that has not got submerged stepping stones going to it. That is what the Norwegians undertook, making these stepping stones in the lochs to protect themselves. It was they too who built the barps on the hill ground over there. I think there were graves under the barps, under the stones, because there is not one of them that hasn't got a place made under it like a culvert; that is what the old men used to call tung where the Norwegians used to be buried; put in a tung, with stonework above them, put in without a coffin at all.
How Gille Padra' Dubh Paid His Rent
Clanranald's factor had his house at Loch Eynort and the place has been called Rubha Taigh a'Mhail, 'The Rent House Point' ever since. That is where Clanranald had his rent collector's house.
Gille Padra' Dubh came down to pay his rent there; he was to pay it in grain. The grain used to be weighed by the peck. The last peck measure of his grain wasn't full, and the factor wouldn't accept it, as it was short.
What did Gille Padra' Dubh do but catch hold of the factor and stick his knife at the factor's throat and hold him above the peck measure until he had filled it with his blood. 'It'll be full now,' he said. That's as true as can be. that was the last rent ever collected there!
The Mermaid
There was a man living in Lochboisdale called Donald MacLeod, whose people belonged to the Isle of Mull. He was at the East Coast fishing, and one morning they were coming in from the sea, running before a strong wind with two reefs in their sail, they noticed a mermaid come to the surface aft of them. The boat was running before the wind with two reefs, and the mermaid was keeping up with them. The skipper threw out a herring, and the mermaid remained on the surface. The skipper then asked all the others to throw out a herring, and they all threw out a herring in turn, and she didn't submerge. Donald threw out a herring; as soon as he threw it, the mermaid went under. When the skipper got into port, he took Donald ashore with him and paid his wages and sent him home. He asked him. He asked him to take care of himself, and said that no matter how long a time it would be, Donald would be drowned some day as sure as anybody ever was.
Donald stayed ashore a year. At the end of that time, a merchant in Loch Skipport came to Lochboisdale and bought a boat from the hotelkeeper there, and was going to take it to Loch Skipport. He thought that Donald was the best man he could take with him. Donald, against his judgement, went with him. Unfortunately the day changed and the weather became very bad from the north-east, and the boat was wrecked off Uishnish Point, and neither of them was ever found, Donald or the merchant.
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