Chapter VIII: The Sprightly Tailor

_Source._--_Notes and Queries_ for December 21, 1861; to which it was communicated by "Cuthbert Bede," the author of _Verdant Green_, who collected it in Cantyre.

_Parallels_.--Miss Dempster gives the same story in her Sutherland Collection, No. vii. (referred to by Campbell in his Gaelic list, at end of vol. iv.); Mrs. John Faed, I am informed by a friend, knows the Gaelic version, as told by her nurse in her youth. Chambers' "Strange Visitor," _Pop. Rhymes of Scotland_, 64, of which I gave an Anglicised version in my _English Fairy Tales_, No. xxxii., is clearly a variant.

_Remarks_.--The Macdonald of Saddell Castle was a very great man indeed. Once, when dining with the Lord-Lieutenant, an apology was made to him for placing him so far away from the head of the table. "Where the Macdonald sits," was the proud response, "there is the head of the table."