Chapter II (3)

Donald, the son of Patrick (_Dòmhnull Mac Phàruig_), or, as others say, the son of Lachlan, was a _brocair_, that is, a foxhunter or destroyer of ground vermin, in Lorn. Persons following this profession were employed by the hill farmers, and had generally long tracts of country to travel over. Their companions were their gun, a pack of terriers, and perhaps a wiry deer-hound. With these they led as lonely a life as anyone who had at all to descend to the strath and men’s houses could do. Many a lonely night they watched by the fox’s cairn in some remote corrie for an opportunity ‘to put a hole in the red rogue’s hide,’ and they often passed the night in bothies and shielings far from the haunts of men. One day Donald, the son of Patrick, killed a roe, and took it to a bothy in the hills. He kindled a fire with the flint of his gun, and having cut up the roe, roasted pieces of the flesh by a large fire. As he helped himself, he threw now and then a piece to his dogs. Before long he observed, the night being moonlit, a large dark shadow coming about the door, and then a woman snatching at the pieces of flesh he threw to the dogs. She had one tooth as big as a distaff projecting from her upper gum. The dogs prevented her entering the hut, so that she got but little of the food. She asked Donald to leash up his dogs, and on his refusing, cried out, “This is poor hospitality for the night, Donald, son of Patrick.” Donald answered, “It will be no better and no worse than that.” “You proved expert at raising a fire,” she said. “How do you know?” he asked. “I was,” she said, “on the top of the Cruach of Rannoch (a hill far away) the first click you gave to the flint, and this is poor hospitality for the night, Donald, son of Patrick.” “It will,” he said, “be no better and no worse than that.” In a while again she said, “This is poor hospitality for the night, Donald, son of Patrick.” “Take,” he said, “as you are able to win.” She remained all night, and repeatedly asked him to leash up his dogs, which he refused to do. The dogs kept her at bay till she left.

Another version says that the foxhunter’s name was _Iain Mac Phàruig_, that he was accompanied by sixteen dogs, that his strange visitant disappeared at the cock-crowing, and that she then told she was ‘the wife of Fe-chiarain’ (_Cailleach Fe-chiarain_). Some identify her with the Carlin of Ben Breck.

THE WIFE OF BEN-Y-GHLOE.

Donald and Big John (_Dòmhnull ’s Iain mòr_) were out deer-hunting on the lofty mountain of Ben-y-ghloe, in Athol in Perthshire, when a heavy snowstorm came on, and they lost their way. They came to a hut in a hollow and entered. The only one in was an old woman, the like of whom they said they had never seen. Her two arms were bare, of great length, and grizzled and sallow to look at. She neither asked them to come in nor go out, and being much in need of shelter, they went in and sat at the fire. There was a look in her eye that might ‘terrify a coward,’ and she hummed a surly song, the words of which were unintelligible to them. They asked for meat, and she set before them a fresh salmon trout, saying, “Little you thought I would give you your dinner to-day.” She also said she could do more, that it was she who clothed the hill with mist to make them come to her house. They stayed with her all night. She was very kind and hospitable. She told her name to them when leaving, that she was ‘the wife of Ben-y-Ghloe.’ They could not say whether she was _sìth_ or _saoghalta_ (Elfin or human), but they never visited her again.

FAIRY WOMEN AND DEER.

On the lands of Scalasdal in Mull, a deer was killed, which turned out afterwards to be a woman.

It is perhaps this belief in the metamorphosis of Fairy women and deer that was the origin of the tradition that Oisian’s mother was a deer. In Skye it is said that after the poet’s birth his mother could touch him but once with her tongue on the temple. On that corner (_air an Oisinn sin_) a tuft of fur like that of a deer grew, hence the poet’s name. An informant in the centre of Argyllshire said he did not hear Oisian’s mother was a deer, but he had heard the poet was nurtured by a deer. In the Northern Hebrides, a song is sometimes heard which Oisian is said to have composed to the deer.[43]

O’CRONICERT’S FAIRY WIFE.[44]

There was a man in Ireland, whose name was O’Cronicert, and his dwelling place was Corr-water, and he spent all he had on the great nobles of Ireland, bringing them for days’ entertainment and for nights’ entertainment, till he had nothing left but an old tumble-down black house, and an old wife, and an old lame white horse. The thought that came into his head was, to go to the King of Ireland for assistance, to see what he would give. He cut a cudgel of grey oak in the outskirt of the wood, and sat on the back of the old lame white horse, and set off at speed through wood, and through moss, and through rugged ground, till he reached the King’s house. The custom was, that a man should be a year and a day in the King’s house before being asked the object of his journey. After being there a year and a day, the King said, “O’Cronicert, it is not without a cause for your journey you have come here.” “It is not,” said O’Cronicert, “it is for assistance I have come here. You know it was for yourself and your great nobles I spent my property entirely.” “You will wait,” said the King, “till I bring in the children”; and they were there as men called them Murdoch Mac Brian, and Duncan Mac Brian, and Torgill Mac Brian, and Brian Borr Mac Cimi, and his sixteen foster brothers with every one of them.

“I will give,” said Murdoch Mac Brian, “a hundred milch cows to him.”

“I will give,” said Duncan Mac Brian, “a hundred farrow cows to him, in case they should be in calf all in one year.”

“I will give him,” said Torgill Mac Brian, “a hundred brood mares.”

“I will give him,” said Brian Borr Mac Cimi, “a hundred sheep.”

After O’Cronicert got this, he was not going away. The King told him to go away, that it was difficult to keep his herd separate from the King’s own, and to take it away. He said to the King that he had one thing in view, and if he got it from the King, he would prefer it to all he had already got.

“It is certain,” said the King, “it must be some bad thing or other; you had better tell it, that I may let you away.”

“It is,” he said, “the lap-dog, that is out and in after the Queen, that I wish for”; and the King gave him permission to take it with him.

He took the lap-dog, leapt on the back of the old lame white horse, and went off at speed, without one look at the herd, through wood, and through moss, and through rugged ground. After he had gone some distance through the wood, a roe-buck leapt out of the wood, and the lap-dog went after it, and in an instant they were out of sight.

Close upon the evening, he saw the lap-dog coming, and a royal stag before it, and the deer started up as a woman behind O’Cronicert, the handsomest that eye had ever seen from the beginning of the universe till the end of eternity. O’Cronicert caught her, and she asked him to let her go, and he said there would be no separation in life between them.

“Well,” said she, “before I go with you, you must come under three conditions to me”; and he promised to come under the conditions.

“The first condition is, that you will not go to ask the King of Ireland or his great nobles for a day’s or a night’s entertainment without telling me. The next condition is, that you will not go to a change-house without putting it in my option; and the third thing, that you will never cast up to me that you found me an unwise animal (_beathach mi-chéillidh_) in the wood.”

They reached the old tumble-down black house, and the wife he had left there was a faggot-bundle of bones in a pool of rain-drip in the middle of the floor. They cut grass in clefts and ledges of the rocks, and made a bed, and laid down.

O’Cronicert’s wakening from sleep was the lowing of cattle, and the bleating of sheep, and the neighing of mares, while he himself was in a bed of gold on wheels of silver, going from end to end of the Tower of Castle Town, the finest eye had ever seen from the beginning of the universe till the end of eternity.

“It is no wonder,” he said, “the like of this should happen to me, when I found you an unwise animal in the wood.”

“As well as you broke that condition you will break the rest; rise, and drive the cattle away to pasture.”

When he went out, there was no number to the multitude of his flock, and on a day of the days after that, while looking at the flock, he thought he would go to ask the King of Ireland for a day and night’s entertainment. He sat on the back of the old lame white horse, and went through wood, and moss, and rugged ground, till he reached the King’s house.

The King said to him, “Do you at all intend, O’Cronicert, to take your flock with you? They are to-day so numerous that the herdsmen do not know them from my own.”

“No, I have no need of them. I have a larger stock than yourself, and what has brought me is to ask yourself and nobles for a day and night’s entertainment.”

The King said to him, “We are ready, my good fellow, to go”; and there were there, as men called them, Murdoch Mac Brian, and Duncan Mac Brian, and Torgill Mac Brian, and Brian Borr Mac Cimi, and his sixteen foster-brothers with every one of them. It was when they were near the house O’Cronicert remembered he had left without telling her. He told them to make their way slowly, and he himself would go before to tell they were coming.

“You did not need, I knew very well that you went; let them come on, everything is ready.”

When the King thought he had been seven days and seven nights drinking there, he said to Murdoch, his son, that it was time for them to be going. She then said to the King that it was high time for him—“You have been seven days and seven years in this place.”

“If I am,” said he, “I need not go back; there is not a man or living creature awaiting me.”

Murdoch had a foster-brother, whose name was Keyn, the son of Loy (_Kian Mac an Luaimh_), and he fell in love with O’Cronicert’s wife. He pretended to be ill and remained behind the rest. She made a drink for him and went with it to him, but instead of taking the drink he laid hold of herself. She suddenly became a filly, and gave him a kick and broke his leg. She took with her the tower of Castle Town as an armful on her shoulder and a light burden on her back, and left him in the old tumble-down black house, in a pool of rain-drip, in the middle of the floor.

In the parting O’Cronicert went to the change-house to bid the party good-bye, and it was then Murdoch Mac Brian remembered he had left his own foster-brother, Keyn, the son of Loy, behind, and said there would be no separation in life between them, and he would go back for him. He found Keyn in the old tumble-down black house, in the middle of the floor, in a pool of rain-water, with his leg broken; and he said the earth would make a nest in his sole, and the sky a nest in his head, if he did not find a man who would cure Keyn’s leg.

The rest of the tale consists principally of _true_ tales, necessary to be told, before Keyn will consent to stretch his leg for a salve to be applied to it. The King of Lochlin, or, according to others, the King of Ireland, who is bound not to allow any one to remain in distress, when he can relieve, tells a series of marvellous adventures that befell himself, all jointing into one another, before Keyn stretches his foot. The composition is of a kindred character with the _Arabian Nights’ Entertainment_.

The reader will observe that in this tale, as in that of “Macphie’s Black Dog,” the Fairy wife is first encountered in the shape of a deer, that (as is alleged of her race in other tales) she dislikes being reproached with not being of mortal race, and calls up in one night a palace of enchanting magnificence, in which time passes unobserved, and in the end disappears, leaving matters worse than at the beginning.

THE GRUAGACH BAN.

In Campbell’s _West Highland Tales_ (ii. 410) will be found a tale also highly illustrative of this part of the superstition. The hero of the tale, the Fair Long-haired One, son of the King of Ireland, encounters a woman with a narrow green kirtle (the Fairy dress), and after playing cards with her, is placed under the following spell:—“I place thee under enchantments and crosses, under the nine shackles of the roaming, wandering Fairy dame, that the most stunted and weakliest little calf take off your head, and your ears, and your livelihood, if you rest night or day, where you take your breakfast, that you will not take your dinner, and where you take your dinner, you will not take your supper, till you find out the place I am in, under the four red divisions of the world.”[45]

There is also in the tale an Elfin old woman, the Carlin of the Red Stream, who is of the same class with the old wife of Ben Breck. She has a wonderful deer, which she can restore to life if she can get any of its flesh as juice to taste, and her yells split the iron hoops the prudent Fin had put round his men’s heads in anticipation of her outcries.

DEER KILLED AT NIGHT.

Big Hugh, of Ardchyle (_Eòghan mòr àird-a-chaoil_), in the east of the island of Mull, a noted deer-hunter in his day, killed a deer at Torness (_Torr-an-Eas_, the eminence by the ravine), some seven miles away in Glenmore, and conveyed it home at night. He was accompanied by a man of the name of Sinclair. Sinclair asked him if the deer was heavy, and Big Hugh said he felt as if he had a house on his back. Sinclair then stuck his pen-knife in the deer, and asked again if the burden felt heavy. Big Hugh said it was now so light he could hardly believe he had a burden on his back at all. The weight had been laid on by the Fairies.

FAIRIES AND GOATS.

In Breadalbane and the Highlands of Perthshire it is said the Fairies live on goat’s milk. A goat was taken home by a man in Strathfillan, in Perthshire, to be killed. In the evening a stranger, dressed in green, came to the door. He was asked to enter and rest himself. He said he could not, as he was in a hurry, and on his way to Dunbuck (a celebrated Fairy haunt near Dunbarton), an urgent message having come for him. He said that many a day that goat had kept him in milk. He then disappeared. He could be nothing but a Fairy.

FAIRIES AND COWS.

A strong-minded headstrong woman in Kianish, Tiree, had a cow, the milk of which strangely failed. Suspecting that the cow was being milked by someone during the night, she sat up and watched. She saw a woman dressed in green coming noiselessly and milking the cow. She came behind and caught her. In explanation the Fairy woman said she had a child lying in the smallpox, and as a favour asked to be allowed to milk the cow for one month, till the child got better. This was allowed, and when the month was out, the cow’s milk became as plentiful as ever.

That the Fairies took away cows at night in order to milk them, and sent them back in the morning, was a belief in Craignish, Morvern, Tiree, Lochaber, and probably in the whole Highlands. When milk lost its virtue, and yielded neither cream, nor butter, nor cheese, the work was that of witches and such like diabolical agencies. When the mischief was done by the Fairies the whole milk disappeared.

FAIRY COWS.

A strong man named Dugald Campbell was one night, about the end of last century, watching the cattle on the farm of Baile-phuill, in the west of Tiree. A little red cow came among the herd and was attacked by the other cows. It fled and they followed. Dugald also set off in pursuit. Sometimes the little red cow seemed near, sometimes far away. At last it entered the face of a rock, and one of the other cows followed and was never again seen. The whole herd would have followed had not Dugald intercepted them.

A poor person’s cow, in Skye, was by some act of oppression taken from him. That night the Fairies brought him another cow, remarkable only in having green water weeds upon it. This cow throve.

Some four generations ago cows came ashore on Nisibost beach, on the farm of Loscantire (_Losg-an-tìr_), in Harris. The people got between them and the shore, with such weapons as they could get, and kept them from returning to the sea again. Even handfuls of sand thrown between the cows and the shore kept them back. These sea-cows were in all respects like ordinary highland cattle but were supposed to live under the sea on the sea-weed called _meillich_. They were called Fairy cows (_Cro sìth_), and the superiority of the Loscantire cattle was said to have originated from them. It is more probable the superiority of the stock was the origin of the Fairy cattle.

Cows of the same kind were also said to have come ashore in Bernera, in Uist, and at MacNicol’s Big Rock (_Creag mhòr mhic Neacail_), on the farm of Scorrybreck, in Skye. In the latter place they were kept from returning by tossing earth between them and the sea. Earth from a burying-ground was thought to be the most effective in such cases. On the evening of the day on which the cows came ashore a voice was heard from the sea calling them by name. From the rhyme in which this was done we learn the cows were of different colours, one black, another brown, brindled, red, white-faced, etc.:

Sisgein, Brisgein,
Meangan, Meodhran,
Bo dhu, bo dhonn
Bo chrom riabhach
Sliochd na h-aona bhà maoile ruaidhe,
Nach d’ fhàg buaile riasnh na h-aonar;
Bo chionnan Thonn,
È bhlàrag.

THE THIRSTY PLOUGHMAN.

A ploughman while engaged at his work heard, or fancied he heard, a sound of churning, and said he wished his thirst “was on the dairymaid.” In a short time after a woman appeared and offered him a drink of buttermilk. Her green dress and sudden appearance made him refuse the offer, and she said that next year he would not need the drink. When the twelve months were nearly out the man died.[46]

THE FAIRY CHURNING.

A woman, near Portree, in Skye, was coming home in the evening with her milk pails from the cattle fold, accompanied by a dog, which went trotting along before her. Suddenly the dog was observed to run to a green hillock, fall down on its knees, and hold its ear to the ground. The woman went up to see what the matter was, and on listening heard a woman inside the hillock churning milk, and singing at her work. At the end of every verse there was a chorus or exclamation of _hŭ_. The song was learnt by the listener, and became known as the “Song of the Hillock” (_Òran a chnuic_). The writer has not been able to fall in with a copy of it. The incident occurred three generations ago.

MILK SPILT.

There was a Fairy hillock near Dowart, in Mull, close to the road which led from the cattle fold to the village. If any milk was spilt by the dairymaids on their way home with the milk pails, it was a common saying that the Fairies would get its benefit.

FAIRY MUSIC.

Two children, a brother and sister, went on a moonlight winter’s night to Kennavarra Hill, to look after a snare they had set for little birds in a hollow near a stream. The ground was covered with snow, and when the two had descended into the hollow, they heard most beautiful music coming from under ground, close to where they were standing. In the extremity of terror both fled. The boy went fastest, and never looked behind him. The girl was at first encumbered by her father’s big shoes, which she had put on for the occasion, but, throwing them off, she reached home with a panting heart, not long after her brother. The story was told by her when an old woman. She had never forgot the fright the Fairy music gave her in childhood.

In the Braes of Portree there is a hillock called “The Fairy Dwelling of the Pretty Hill” (_Sìthein Beinne Bòidhich_). A man passing near it in the evening heard from underground the most delightful music ever heard. He could not, however, tell the exact spot from which the sound emanated.

Sounds of exquisite music, as if played by a piper marching at the head of a procession, used to be heard going underground from the Harp Hillock to the top of the Dùn of Caolis, in the east end of Tiree. Many tunes, of little poetical, whatever be their musical merit, said to have been learned from the Fairies, are to be heard. One of these, which the writer heard, seemed to consist entirely of variations upon the word ‘do-leedl’em.’

MACCRIMMON.

The MacCrimmons were pipers to Macleod, of Macleod, and the most celebrated musicians among the Scottish Gaël. The founder of the family is said to have been an Italian harper from Cremona, who came with Macleod to Dunvegan, and took the surname from his native town. There are several versions of the story, which ascribes the excellence of the MacCrimmons in music to the Fairies. The following two will suffice.

The first of the MacCrimmons, when a young lad, was sent to a music master to learn bagpipe playing. There was to be a competition of pipers at a wedding in the neighbourhood, and MacCrimmon asked from his master permission to attend, but was refused. He resolved to go notwithstanding, and set off alone, taking a short cut across the hills. On the way he fell in with a Fairy dwelling, which he entered. He found no person in but an old woman, who spoke kindly to him, saying she knew the object of his journey, and, on his promising to go half loss and gain with her, gave him a black chanter, which, placed in his pipes, would enable him to excel his master, and every other performer. She added that she and her people were about to remove from their present dwelling, but, if he came on a certain night (naming one near at hand), they would have time to give him some lessons. To this one night’s instruction, and the magic chanter, which remained in the family as an heirloom, the MacCrimmons were indebted for their acknowledged superiority as pipers. Their fame will last “while wind is blown into sheepskin.”

‘The Blind Piper’ (_am Piobaire dall_) was the first of the MacCrimmons who acquired fame as a piper. Two Banshis found him sleeping in the open air, and one of them blinded one of his eyes. The second Banshi asked that the other eye might be spared. It, however, was blinded also. The benevolent Fairy then suggested that some gift should be given that would enable the poor man to earn his living. On this the Fairy Carlin gave MacCrimmon a brindled chanter, which, placed in the bagpipes, enabled the player to outrival all pipers. When the Laird of Dungallon obtained the brindled chanter for his own piper Macintyre, the MacCrimmons never did well after. The chanter was last known to be at Callart.

Mac-an-sgialaiche, pipers at Taymouth Castle, were also said to have got their pipes from the Fairies.

FAIRY DOGS (‘CU SITH’).

A large black dog, passing by with a noiseless and gliding motion, was a common object of terror in the Hebrides on winter nights. The coil in the animal’s tail was alone sufficiently alarming. Much of its shape depended, no doubt, on how his own hair hung over the eyes of the frightened spectator.

A man, coming across the links near Kennavara Hill in Tiree, came upon a large black dog, resting on the side of a sandbank. On observing it, he turned aside, and took another road home. Next day he recovered courage, and went to examine the spot. He found on the sand the marks of a dog’s paw, as large as the spread of his palm. He followed these huge footmarks till he lost them on the plain. The dog had taken no notice of him, and he felt assured, from its size, it could be no earthly hound.

On the north shore of Tiree there is a beach of more than a mile in length, called _Cladach a Chrògain_, well calculated to be the scene of strange terrors. The extensive plain (about 1500 acres in extent), of which it forms the northern fringe, is almost a dead level, and in instances of very high flood-tides, with north-west gales of wind, the sea has been known to overflow it, and join the sea on the south side, three miles away, dividing Tiree into two islands. The upper part of the beach consists of loose round stones, a little larger than a goose’s egg, which make, when the tide is in, and under the influence of the restless surf, a hoarse rumbling sound, sufficiently calculated, with the accompaniment of strange scenery, to awaken the imagination. An old woman, half-a-century ago, asserted that, when a young girl, she had heard on this beach the bark of the Fairy hound. Her father’s house was at a place called Fidden, of which no trace now remains beyond the name of the Fidden Gate (_Cachla nam Fidean_), given to a spot where there is no gate. It was after night-fall, and she was playing out about the doors, when she was suddenly startled by a loud sound, like the baying of a dog, only much louder, from the other end of the shore. She remembered her father having come and taken hold of her hand, and running with her to the house, for if the dog was heard to bark thrice, it would overtake them. It made a noise like a horse galloping.

At the foot of Heynish Hill, in the extreme south-west of Tiree, there is one of those small forts to be found in great numbers in the Hebrides (and said to have been intended, by fires lighted upon them, to give warning of the approach of the Danes), called Shiadar Fort. In former days a family resided, or was out at the summer shielings, near this fort. The byre, in which the milch cows were kept, was some distance from the dwelling-house, and two boys of the family slept there to take care of the cows. One night a voice came to the mother of the family that the two best calves in the byre were at the point of death, and as a proof of the warning, she would find the big yellow cow dead at the end of the house. This proved to be the case, and on reaching the byre the anxious woman found her two boys nearly frightened to death. They said they heard Fairy dogs trampling and baying on the top of the house.

There is a natural recess in the rocks of the shore at Baluaig in Tiree, to which tradition has given the name of the Bed of the Fairy Dog. It is not far from Crogan beach, already mentioned as a place where the Fairy dog was heard, and opposite the _Gràdor_, a low-water rock over which the sea breaks with terrible violence in stormy weather. The loneliness and wildness of the spot might well cause it to be associated with tales of superstition.

A shepherd in Lorn came to the top of a rock, and in a nest or lair below him he saw two pups about two months old with green backs and sides. They were larger and longer than his own dogs. He got afraid and fled before the old hound made her appearance. His dogs also were afraid. So the tradition says.

DOGS CHASING FAIRIES.

Two men from Mull were engaged building a march dyke across the hills in Kintail. To be near their work, they took up their residence by themselves in a hut among the hills. One night, before retiring to rest, they heard a horrible screaming coming in the direction of the hut. They went out with sticks of firewood in their hands. Though they could see nothing, they knew something was approaching. The shrieks came nearer and nearer, and at last a large dark object passed. A little dog, ‘Dun-foot’ by name, which accompanied the men, gave chase. When it returned there was no hair on any part of it but on its ears, and no hair ever grew after but a sort of down.

A number of young men were out at night on the moorlands of Cornaigbeg farm in Tiree watching the cattle, to keep them from wandering into the crop lands. They went to the moss about a mile away for peats, which at the time (some sixty years ago) were plentiful in Tiree, but becoming in some way alarmed they turned back on the road. When returning they heard strange noises coming towards them, and a dog that accompanied them began to course round and round between them and the noise. At last the noise passed, with sounds like the trampling of a herd of sheep, and the dog went off in pursuit. On its return its hair was found scraped off, as if by long sharp nails, and the whole skin was left bare and white, except where here and there it was torn and bloody. It died in a short time after.

A man in Mull was sent on a journey after nightfall, and about midnight, when crossing the hills from Loch Tuath (the North Loch) and Loch Cuän (_Loch Cumhan_, the narrow loch), saw a light in the face of a hillock. He was accompanied by his dog, and before long he heard the noise of dogs fighting, mixed with sounds of lovely music. He made off as fast as he could, and, on arriving at the house to which he had been sent, was offered supper. He was unable to take any. Before bed-time his dog came with every hair on its body pulled off. It smelt its master’s clothes all over, lay down at his feet, and was dead in a few minutes.

A gentleman of the name of Evan Cameron (it does not appear where) on his way home across the hills was overtaken by nightfall and lost his way. He was accompanied by a greyhound and three terriers. He saw a light in a bothy or hut, used in summer, when the cattle were at pasture among the hills, but deserted during the greater part of the year. He made towards it, and on looking in at the door, saw a woman sitting by the fire, all wet, and combing her hair. She looked towards him, and said, “Will you not come after your eye, Evan?” (_Nach d’thig thu ’n déigh do shùil, Eoghain_). “Not just now” (_Cha d’thig an dràsd_), he replied. After some further conversation he was obliged to allow his dogs to attack the strange creature. He himself held on his way, and in a few hours reached home. The greyhound found its way home, but without any hair upon its body. None of the terriers was ever heard of more.[47]

FAIRIES AND HORSES.

At Ruig, at the foot of the Storr Rock, in Skye, at the time it was occupied by small farmers (sixteen in number), all the horses on the farm, numbering as many as a hundred, were seen ridden by the Fairies, sitting with their faces to the tail, on Hallowmas night. The shore line of the farm consists of frightful precipices, and the horses, as if very madness (_an cuthach dearg_) had taken possession of them, went off at their utmost speed towards the shore. Every one thought they would be lost, but no harm arose after all from the stampede.

Near Killin in Perthshire, a man entered a Fairy Knowe, and found inside a woman making porridge. The dish boiled so fiercely that a spark from the porridge flew and struck him in the eye. He saw the Fairies ever after with that eye. At the St. Fillan market (_Feill Fhaolain_) at Killin, he saw them in great numbers riding about the market on white horses. Meeting one, whom he recognized, he remarked, “What a number of you are here to-day.” The Fairy asked which eye he saw ‘the folk’ with, and on being told put it out.

* * * * *

A young wife had not, as was customary at that time, learned to spin and weave. She tried in every way to learn, but try as she might she made no progress, till one noon-day she wished some one would come to help her. She then saw a woman standing in the door, who said she would help her on condition that she would give her her first child when born, but if she could tell the _shi_ woman’s name when she came to take away the child she would be free from her promise. The young woman rashly agreed to this, and in a short time could make _clò_ (cloth) better than any one around her. After some time, however, she began to be afraid her visitor would return, and she went about eagerly listening to hear the name, when suddenly one day she saw an opening in a grassy hillock beside her, and on looking in saw the same woman standing inside, and heard another one calling to her. She went home joyously repeating the name all the way, and told her husband how she heard it. When the _Bean shi_ came again, the mother of the child called out to her by the name she had heard, and invited her to come in, but she only said, “A blessing on the name, but banning on the mouth that taught you,” and she never afterwards darkened the door.

On another day the husband was with his wife in the fields working and looking about, when they saw a great company of riders on white horses coming where they were, and as they came near one of the riders caught hold of her and took her away. Her husband did not know what to do. He went wandering about looking for her, but never finding her, till one day, to his great wonderment, he saw a glimmer of light on the side of the hill. He reached it, and saw an opening. He put a pin in the side and went in, and saw a great company feasting and dancing, with his lost wife in the middle of the dancers. She saw him also, and began to sing loudly:

“Take no food here Ialai o horro horro,
Ask no drink here Ialai o horro hee.”

No one took any notice of him. He got near her, and putting his arm around her, whisked her out of the circle of dancers. He took her home, but she became discontented, and was never the same being as she had been before. At last it happened when they were again out together that the riders on white horses came their way. On parting with him this time she said, “If at any time he wished her to come back, he was to throw her marriage dress, which had _craobh uaine_, _i.e._ green tracery on the right shoulder, after her when he saw her passing in the company, and she would return home.” Thinking she did not belong to this world, he did nothing, and she passed and never returned to him.

FAIRIES AND THE HANDMILL.

The invention of the handmill or quern, in the infancy of the arts, must have formed an era in the history of human progress. Whoever first found out a handy way of reducing the solid grain into meal bestowed an inestimable blessing on the human race. The instrument is still to be occasionally met with in the Hebrides, in houses not convenient to mill or market. It is usually worked by two women, like the mills in use in the East.

“A pair of thick-set hussies
Winding round a quern.”[48]

It is a common practice with women to sing at their work, as indeed they did in the Highlands in olden times at most of their labours, such as reaping, sowing, milking.

Old Archibald, for half a century servant to the ministers of Tiree, would insist to his dying day that, coming home at night with a cart from the parish mill, he heard the handmill at work inside the Red Knolls (_na Cnocana ruadha_) near the road. He could put his foot on the very spot where he heard the noise. To ask him if he was naturally troubled with singing in the ears, or show any other symptom of unbelief, was resented as an affront, and neither minister nor elder, nor a whole synod, would persuade him there were no Fairies. He had heard them himself “with his own ears.”

The man who first got the loan of a quern from the Fairies never sent it home. In revenge, the elves took away all substance from his crop that year, and he derived no benefit from grain or fodder. His is the fate of many inventors. The benefit is not immediate. It seems the elves had no power but over the year’s crop.

FAIRIES AND OATMEAL.

A man in Islay got a loan of oatmeal from the Fairies, and when returning it, he, out of gratitude, left at the hole, which led to the Fairy residence, and where he had been in the habit of getting and leaving such loans, more meal than he had borrowed. The Fairies are a just race; they take no more than their exact due; they were offended by more being offered, and never after gave that man a loan of meal.

A kind-hearted woman, the wife of a well-to-do farmer in the rugged district of Kingairloch, was one day visited by a young woman, a stranger to her, who asked for, and got a loan of meal. In answer to the housewife’s inquiries, the visitor said she came from the hillock above the house, on which a rowan-tree, or mountain ash, was growing. She wore an upper dress like a grey tippet. This event took place shortly before Beltane, when ploughing and other farm operations were being proceeded with. In a week after Grey Tippet came back with the meal, _but it was barley-meal_, and told the good-wife to bless this every time she took any of it. This direction was carefully attended to, and the meal never got less. One day a scatter-brain member of the family asked if that cursed barley-meal was never to be done. The next time the mistress went to the chest there was no more barley-meal.

The house of one M‘Millan, at the foot of Ben Iadain in Morvern, a high hill already mentioned for its reputation as a Fairy residence, was visited by a stranger, a woman, who asked for a loan of meal. She said she stayed in that same neigbourhood, that the men were away just now in Lismore, and that the meal would be sent back on their return. This was done in due course, as promised, and M‘Millan’s wife was told never to allow any one but herself to bend over the chest, in which the meal was kept, and the meal would prove inexhaustible. At last, however, when Mrs. M‘Millan was ill, another opened the chest, and the meal disappeared.

Hector, son of Ferchar, in the Ross of Mull, was an easy-going, kind-hearted man, a weaver by trade, who would give away the last of his goods to any one he saw in distress. So weak was he in this respect, that his wife did not care to trust him with anything—he was sure to give it away to the first poor man that came his way. Having occasion to go to the summer pastures in the hill, and leave Hector alone in charge of the house, she measured out enough meal to last him for the fifteen days she expected to be away, and gave it to him in a skin bag. When returning, she met a beggar, who said he had got a handful of meal from her husband, and Hector himself, when questioned, said he had given away sixteen such handfuls. Yet the bag was found to be quite full.

FAIRIES AND IRON.

In Mull, a person, encountered by a _Bean shìth_, was told by her that she was kept from doing him harm by the iron he had about him. The only iron he had was a ring round the point of his walking stick.

In the North of Ireland, an iron poker, laid across the cradle, kept away the Fairies till the child was baptized.

The writer remembers well that, when a school-boy, great confidence was put in a knife, of which he was the envied possessor, and in a nail, which another boy had, to protect us from a Fairy (_sìthche_), which was said to have made its appearance at a spot near which the road to school passed the Hawthorn Bush between the Black Nose and the Pass of the Dead (_An Crògan Sgithich eadar an t-Sròn du ’s Bealach nam Marbh_). This was in Appin, Argyllshire.

The efficacy of iron, in warding off Fairy attacks, has already been illustrated.

NAME OF THE DEITY.

The Fairies were building a bridge across Loch Rannoch, between Camaghouran and Innis-droighinn, when a passer-by wished them God-speed. Instantly the work stopped, and was never resumed. (Cf. page 64.)

FAIRY GIFTS.

A smith, the poorest workman in his trade, from his inferior skill, only got coarse work to do, and was known as the “Smith of Ploughshares” (_Gobhainn nan Soc_). He was, besides, the ugliest man, and the rudest speaker. One day he fell asleep on a hillock, and three Fairy women, coming that way, left him each a parting gift (_fàgail_). After that he became the best workman, the best looking man, and the best speaker in the place, and became known as the “Smith of Tales” (_Gobhainn nan sgial_).

A man, out hunting, fell asleep in a dangerous place, near the brink of a precipice. When he awoke a Fairy woman was sitting at his head, singing gently.

STRUCK BY THE FAIRY ARROW SPADE.

Donald, who lived in Gortan du in Lorn, was working in a drain with a pointed spade. One evening, having left the spade standing in the drain, he was startled by something striking it with a loud knock. He found the noise was made by the blow of a smooth, polished, flint-like stone. He put this in his pocket and took it home. Some evenings after, “Callum Clever,” already mentioned as frequently carried about by the Fairies, was shown the stone. He declared that it had been thrown by himself at the instigation of the Fairies, who wanted to take Donald himself. Donald of Gortan du was a cooper, and was wanted to make a barrel for a cow the elves had just killed. (Cf. page 26.)