John Campbell - Iain Og and the Cattle Thief (3)
The robbers made their supper, each
disposing of his share of the goat as he thought proper.
One of the men, studying the shoulder bone of the goat
said:. "Before we have finished the goat, one of us
will be a dead man."
The rest, hearing this, remembered that they had frequently heard of the tradition that there were some men, in every age, who were so favoured as to be able to tell destinies or future events, by their supernatural knowledge. Thereby, they were all agitated.
"Well," saith the foreteller, "Should I myself be the person destined to die ere each can eat his own share of the goat, the events will certainly verify what I said for I have never been wrong since I got the first insight of my supernatural knowledge. And so sure as I have this shoulder bone in my hand, the death of one of our number will happen within the time specified."
There was one of those men, who, after eating his supper had left a remainder which he had hung upon the branches of a deer horn. He got up and said: "I'll make sure to eat my own share and thereby avert the sudden death so certainly said to take place before all the shares of the goat are eaten."
He stepped forward to the wall towards where he had hung his meat. Something caught his feet and he fell towards the wall. A point of the deer antlers struck his face as he fell, piercing through his eye to his brain.
He fell dead on the spot, when all the surviving robbers were astonished at the sure and sudden fulfillment of the prophecy; and some of those men, averred Murdo Dubh, discontinued their former way of life owing to the impression made upon them by the sudden death of their fellow robber.
The rest, hearing this, remembered that they had frequently heard of the tradition that there were some men, in every age, who were so favoured as to be able to tell destinies or future events, by their supernatural knowledge. Thereby, they were all agitated.
"Well," saith the foreteller, "Should I myself be the person destined to die ere each can eat his own share of the goat, the events will certainly verify what I said for I have never been wrong since I got the first insight of my supernatural knowledge. And so sure as I have this shoulder bone in my hand, the death of one of our number will happen within the time specified."
There was one of those men, who, after eating his supper had left a remainder which he had hung upon the branches of a deer horn. He got up and said: "I'll make sure to eat my own share and thereby avert the sudden death so certainly said to take place before all the shares of the goat are eaten."
He stepped forward to the wall towards where he had hung his meat. Something caught his feet and he fell towards the wall. A point of the deer antlers struck his face as he fell, piercing through his eye to his brain.
He fell dead on the spot, when all the surviving robbers were astonished at the sure and sudden fulfillment of the prophecy; and some of those men, averred Murdo Dubh, discontinued their former way of life owing to the impression made upon them by the sudden death of their fellow robber.
