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Mulross,” said he. “’Tis on my way to Mulross I am myself. I’ll just be taking it along with me and save you the trouble of the journey.”
    â€œA goose for my poor kin indeed!” the old wife cried with scorn. “If my kin were as careful and thrifty as me they’d have a goose of their own.”
    â€œOch, well! Maybe so, maybe so,” the good saint agreed. “But what of the one that I hear you’ve been setting by for the poor? We’ve a wheen of poor folk over at Mulross. How about me taking yon fat one along with me for them? Then you’ll have done with that.” And he pointed his finger at the best goose of the lot.
    The old woman flew into a rage. “Not my kin nor the poor nor anyone else shall ever have one of my geese,” she shouted. “As sure as I stand in this place. So be on your way, you blethering old man!” And she raised the stick she was driving the geese with and made as if to rush at the saint to drive him away.
    St. Cuddy raised his hand and thundered out in a mighty voice. “As sure as you stand in this place, old wife? Then stand in this place you shall! And the geese you would not part with, for love of kin or charity to the poor, shall keep you company!”
    And true it was. For where she stood she stayed. She and her twelve fat gray geese had all turned into great gray stones.
    And if you should be coming along from Mulross toward the sea, you can see them for yourself. Twelve round gray stones in a line and a bigger one behind them just where the road makes a bend to get around them.
    When the auld wife didn’t come back, the poor relations got her farm. Now that they had a bit of gear of their own, they were as thrifty as anybody needs to be. But they were always good to the poor, for they remembered what it was like when they were poor themselves.
    If you are thinking ’twas a hard thing that the gray geese should share the old wife’s fate, remember they were all headed for market and if she’d got them there, they’d all soon have been roasted and eaten up. So no doubt the geese were well content with the way things turned out, and St. Cuddy had done the very best thing for them after all.

The Stolen Bairn
and the Sìdh
    T HERE WAS A PATH THAT RAN ALONG NEAR THE EDGE OF a cliff above the sea, and along this path in the gloaming of a misty day, came two fairy women of the Sìdh. All of a sudden both of them stopped and fixed their eyes on the path before them. There in the middle of the path lay a bundle. Though naught could be seen of what was in it, whatever it was, moved feebly and made sounds of an odd, mewling sort.
    The two women of the Sìdh leaned over and pushed away the wrappings of the bundle to see what they had found. When they laid their eyes upon it, they both stood up and looked at each other.
    â€œâ€™Tis a bairn,” said the first of them.
    â€œâ€™Tis a mortal bairn,” said the other.
    Then they looked behind them and there was nothing there but the empty moor with the empty path running through it. They turned about and looked before them and saw no more than they had seen behind them. They looked to the left and there was the rising moor again with nothing there but the heather and gorse running up to the rim of the sky. And on their right was the edge of the cliff with the sea roaring below.
    Then the first woman of the Sìdh spoke and she said, “What no one comes to be claiming is our own.” And the second woman picked up the bairn and happed it close under her shawl. Then the two of them made off along the path faster than they had come and were soon out of sight.
    About the same time, two fishermen came sailing in from the sea with their boat skirling along easy and safe away from the rocks. One of them looked up at the face of the black steep cliff and let out a shout.
    â€œWhat’s amiss?” asked the other.
    â€œI’m thinking