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Mar a fhuair agus a chaill Oisean a bhean, mar a fhuair e a...

Date 1958
Track ID 36597
Part 1

Track Information

Original Track ID

SA1958.73.A11

Original Tape ID

SA1958.073

Summary

How Ossian got and lost his wife, how he regained his strength when living with Para Naomh Clèireach, and how he died.

A woman came to the Fingalian's three sheiling bothies and asked for shelter. She was turned away from the first two bothies, but Ossian, in the third bothy, took her in. They ate and slept together, but Ossian put his unsheathed sword between them. In the morning she had turned into the most beautiful woman Ossian had ever seen and he removed the sword. They married.

One day Ossian was going out to the hill and his bitch was due to have pups. He told his wife to mark the first-born and not to give it to a man who would come to the door. She told him that if he ever mentioned her appearance on the night she arrived she wouldn't stay with him. The pups were born and the man came and made Ossian's wife give him the first one. Ossian mentioned how she looked on her arrival and she turned into a magpie and left.

Ossian followed her and when he grew old she gave him a ring, saying he would remain alive as long he wore it. Ossian returned and came to Para Naomh Clèireach's house.

One day Para Naomh Clèireach threw a large deer on the table and asked if the Fingalians had ever killed one so big. Ossian said he had seen a blackbird's foot that was bigger. He took a boy with him to a place where the Fingalian 's dogs were kept and took the best one.

Ossian put an iron hoop round the boy's head and shouted so loud that he split the rocks until a deer appeared that was big enough to satisfy him. The Fingalian's dog brought it down and they killed it. The boy cooked it. Ossian ate it and he was restored to full health, except for a blemish on his eye where the boy had eaten a little piece of the meat.

They went to the birch wood and Ossian killed a blackbird and gave it to the boy to eat. He took its foot and threw it on Para Naomh Clèireach's table. The table legs broke and Para Naomh Clèireach knew he had been telling the truth [about how big the Fingalian's deer were]. They removed Ossian's books from the fire [where they had been burning them].

Ossian grew weak again and one day he went out to the loch with the boy to wash himself. He took the ring from his finger and the magpie came and took it. He killed the boy so that he wouldn't tell anybody of the places they had been and then he fell dead.

The contributor heard the story from his maternal uncle Jock, who died 45 years ago [c.1913]. His mother and paternal uncle, Alasdair, also had it.

Language

Gaelic

Genre

Story

Collection

SoSS

Source Type

Reel to reel

Audio Quality

Good