The Brown Bear of the Green Glen

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Brown Bear of the Green Glen is a Scottish fairy tale collected by John Francis Campbell in Popular Tales of the West Highlands, listing his informant as Neill Gillies, fisherman, near Inverary.

A king was losing his sight and his ability to walk. His oldest two set out for water to cure him. The youngest son, John, known as a fool, set out too, and found his brothers in the first town. He went on. He climbed a tree to spend the night, but a bear with an ember in its mouth came and got him down by threatening to climb up. The bear caught a deer and fed him the cooked meat. In the morning, it had him ride it. Every night, it had him stay with a giant by saying that the brown bear of the green glen had sent him, but the third giant wrestled with him. As the bear had directed, when the giant had him down, he said that if the brown bear of the green glen were there, it would not go well with him; the bear appeared.

The giant ordered a sheep carcass laid before the door. He told John that an eagle would eat it, and he was to cut the wart from its ear without drawing a drop of blood. The prince did so and the eagle carried him off to the Green Island for the water to cure his father. There, he got the water, and also a whiskey bottle that never emptied, a loaf that grew no smaller when slices were cut off, and a cheese that was the same; he also kissed a sleeping beautiful woman.

The eagle carried him back. He showed the giant the whiskey bottle, and the giant offered him money, a saddle and bridle for it. He agreed, but said the giant must give it to his sweetheart, if she came. The giant agreed. The next two giants, he sold the bread and cheese under the same conditions. He met his brothers in the town and told them to come home, but they set on him to kill him and stole the water. He recovered and called to a smith traveling by, who threw him into his cart. The iron got into his wounds and made him rough-skinned and bald.

The woman John had kissed gave birth to a son. A henwife gave her a bird that would jump to the head of the baby's father on seeing him. She set out, got the whiskey, the cheese, and the bread, and reached the king. She told him what had happened. The king had every man appear before her, but the bird did not jump on any of them. The king demanded if there were anyone else; the smith told of a rough-skinned servant, and John was brought. The bird jumped on him. The king knew him for his son, and asked what should be done to his brothers. John prescribed what they had done to him, and married the princess.

Advanced Search
Included Web Search Engines


Safe Search

close

Top Matching Results

Occasionally Search.com will highlight specialized results that are based on the context of your query. Examples of specialized results include specific links to news, images, or video.

Top Matching Results may highlight information from other Search.com pages, content from the CNET Network of sites, or third party content. The listings are based purely on relevance. Search.com does not receive payment for listings in this section but our partners that provide this data may get paid for listing these products.

Sponsored Links

This section contains paid listings which have been purchased by companies that want to have their sites appear for specific search terms and related content. These listings are administered, sorted and maintained by a third party and are not endorsed by Search.com.

Search Results

Search.com sends your search query to several search engines at one time and integrates the results into one list which has been sorted by relevance using Search.com's proprietary algorithm. You can customize the list of search engines included in your metasearch from the preferences.

The search engines that are used in your metasearch may allow companies to pay to have their Web sites included within the results. To view the Paid Inclusion policy for a specific search engine, please visit their Web site. Search.com does not accept payment or share revenue with any search engine partner for listings in this section.