The book Arran; - Cook Clan

FOLK LORE 263
neighbours, what came across her but a big, ugly frog, heavy with
young. ' I pray and beseech you,' said the old wife, as she put the
frog aside with the point of the sickle, ' that you will not part with
your burden until my two hands be about you.' There was nothing
further at the time, but a night or two thereafter who should oome
to her door but a youth on the back of a horse in hot haste, and
calling to her to arise quickly to give assistance and succour to a
woman in childbed. She hastened and mounted the horse at the
back of the youth, but instead of keeping to the crown of the road,
he kept out and out by way of Aird-bheinn. ' Where, under the bend
of the sky,' said the old wife, ' do you mean to go, or what distance
is before you ? ' ' It is the quickness of your tongue that moved
your feet to-night ; you put the queen of the fairies under a spell
and she was in the form of a frog, and she will get neither help nor
deliverance until your two hands be about her, but on the soul in
your body see that you take neither food nor drink nor hire, or else
you will be as I am, under the dripping of the torches, without the
power to return to house or family.'
They reached the cave of Aird-bheinn, and they entered a room
so grand that the like could not be seen on earth. The queen of the
fairies was in bed, and many of the little fairies waiting and serving
her. The old wife did all that was necessary, and it was not long
until a big, strong son was born. When the infant was washed and
clothed they gave an ointment to the midwife to anoint his eyes
so that he would get the view of the two worlds. But it happened
that the old wife scratched her eyebrow, with the ointment on her
fingers, and no sooner had she done so than she got a sight of the two
worlds with her one eye ;
and now, the room which she would see
so grand with the one eye, she would see it with the other eye a dark
hole full of cobwebs. Since everything was in readiness, food and
drink were set before her, but she refused it out and out. They
must needs, then, that she would accept a hire for her labour, and
they offered her a handful of gold ; but the gold that was so yellow
and beautiful to the one eye, it was but like dung to the other, and
she would not take it at all. When the fairies saw they could not
prevail on her, they set her on the horse's back, and it was then she
knew the youth—that he was the son of a neighbour who was stolen
by the fairies, and his people thinking he had died. The old wife