What follows, is a scholarly analyses of a particular set of celtic folktales.

Dalriada Celtic Heritage Trust: Traditional Tales

Tales of the Seannachaidh

Continuing our series of traditional tales as told throughout the Western Isles. There follows two stories, both well known in various forms to the Gaels. The first is the story of a woman who does not want her son to leave her, for she has foreseen that terrible things will befall him if he goes away. It illustrates well how the Gaelic people viewed the days of the week as lucky for certain things and unlucky for others. The second tale describes how a mother kept her baby safe from the charms of a fairy woman. The source of both tales is the Carmina Gadelica by Alexander Carmichael. They were recorded in the Gaelic language - only the English translation of the first story is given here for brevity.

The Auspicious Day

There was a youth and he prepared to go away, and to leave his country and his people...The youth was the only son of his mother. The mother's heart was full of grief and sorrow, her only son to be leaving her... The kindly youth said to his mother:

"What day now, mother, shall I go? Which is the auspicious day of the week at all?"

Then the mother of the youth answered and spoke the words that follow:

Thou man who wouldst travel tomorrow

Tarry alittle as thou are

Till I make a shirt of thread for thee

There is waiting and waiting for that

The lint was sown but has not grown

The wool is on the sheep of the wasteland

The loom is in the wood of Patrick

The beam is in the highest tree

The shuttle is with the King of Spain

The bobbin is with the Queen

The weaver is not born to her mother

Thou man who wouldst travel tomorrow

Thou shalt not go on Monday

nor shalt thou go on Tuesday

Wednesday is tormenting, hurtful,

On Thursday are temptation and turbulence

Friday is a day of rest

Saturday is to the Mary Mother

Let Sunday praise the High King

Young man who would travel strongly

You won't go on the quarter day Monday...

The mother, who had the 'Dha Shealladh', the Second Sight, goes on to tell the son what she has foreseen:

Young man who would travel so lightly

There's red blood upon your shirt

Not roe's blood, not deer's blood

But the blood of your body and you full of wounds.

The son stayed with his mother until she died.

The Fairy Woman and the Child

A fairy woman came into the house, and she seized the child in the cradle as though he were her own, and she began to lull him and nurse him and sing a melody to him. Then the fairy woman set the child in the door, and she was going to carry him off, and she said the following words to the child's mother, who answered her in kind:

"Nach dearg do leanabh, a bhein?"

(Is not your child red, woman?)

"Is ann o theine mor a thainig e"

(He has come from a big fire)

"Nach glas do leanabh, a bhein?"

(Is not your child green, woman?)

"Is glas am fiar is fa\saidh e"

(The grass is green, and it grows)

"Nach trom do leanabh, a bhein?"

(Is not your child heavy, woman?)

"Is trom gach saoghlach torrach"

(Every fruitful worldling is heavy)

The mother had answered the three riddles correctly, and so the fairy woman had no power to take her child from her. She said to the woman:

"You had need of that, little woman, that you had the three answers for me, or there is no knowing in the hard shrivelled world of what would befall you and your child", and the fairy woman went home to the knoll.

[(c) Dalriada Celtic Heritage Trust]

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