_Ard-meadhonach_ (Middle Height), in Mull, fell in with some St. John’s
wort (_Achlusan Challum-chille_), a plant of magic powers, if found
when neither sought nor wanted. He took some of it with him. He had
_dùcun_ (small swellings below the toes) on his feet, and on coming
to a stream sat down and bathed them in the water. Looking up, he saw
an ugly little woman, having no nostrils, on the other side of the
stream, with her feet resting against his own. She asked him for the
plant he had in his hand, but he refused to give it. She asked him to
make snuff of it then and give her some. He answered, “What could she
want with snuff, when she had no nostril to put it in?” He left her and
went further on. As he did not come home that night his friends and
neighbours next day went in search of him through the hills. He was
found by his father asleep on the side of a _cnoc_, a small hillock,
and when awakened, he thought, from the position of the sun, he had
only slept a few minutes. He had, in fact, slept for twenty-four hours.
His dog lay sleeping in the hollow between his two shoulders, and had
‘neither hair nor fur’ on. It is supposed it had lost the hair in
chasing away the Fairies, and protecting its master.
In what seems to be only another version of this story, a herd-boy was
sitting in the evening by a stream bathing his feet. A beautiful woman
appeared on the other side of the stream, and asked him to pull a plant
she pointed out, and make snuff of it for her. He refused, asking what
need had she of snuff, when she had no nostrils? She asked him to cross
the stream, but he again refused. When he went home his step-mother
gave him his food and milk as usual. He gave the whole of it to his
dog, and the dog died from the effects.
A herdsman at Baile-phuill, in the west end of Tiree, fell asleep on
_Cnoc Ghrianal_, at the eastern base of Heynish Hill, on a fine summer
afternoon. He was awakened by a violent slap on the ear. On rubbing his
eyes, and looking up, he saw a woman, the most beautiful he had ever
seen, in a green dress, with a brooch fastening it at the neck, walking
away from him. She went westward and he followed her for some distance,
but she vanished, he could not tell how.
A person in Mull reported that he saw several Fairy women together
washing at a stream. He went near enough to see that they had only one
nostril each.
The places in Tiree where _cailleacha sìth_ (Fairy hags) were seen were
at streams and pools of water on _Druim-buidhe_ (the Yellow Back), the
links of Kennavara, and the bend of the hill (_lùbadh na beinne_) at
Baile-phendrais. They have long since disappeared, the islanders having
become too busy to attend to them.
A Skyeman was told by one of these weird women never to put the burning
end of a peat outside when making up the fire for the night.
DONALD THRASHED BY THE FAIRY WOMAN.
A man in Mull, watching in the harvest field at night, saw a woman
standing in the middle of a stream that ran past the field. He ran
after her, and seemed sometimes to be close upon her, and again to be
as far from her as ever. Losing temper he swore himself to the devil
that he would follow till he caught her. When he said the words the
object of his pursuit allowed herself to be overtaken, and showed her
true character by giving him a sound thrashing. Every night after he
had to meet her. He was like to fall into a decline through fear of
her, and becoming thoroughly tired of the affair, he consulted an old
woman of the neighbourhood, who advised him to take with him to the
place of appointment the ploughshare and his brother John. This would
keep the Fairy woman from coming near him. The Fairy, however, said
to him in a mumbling voice, “You have taken the ploughshare with you
to-night, Donald, and big, pock-marked, dirty John your brother,” and
catching him she administered a severer thrashing than ever. He went
again to the old woman, and this time she made for his protection a
thread, which he was to wear about his neck. He put it on, and, instead
of going to the place of meeting, remained at the fireside. The Fairy
came, and, taking him out of the house, gave him a still severer
thrashing. Upon this, the wise woman said she would make a chain to
protect him against all the powers of darkness, though they came. He
put this chain about his neck, and remained by the fireside. He heard
a voice calling down the chimney, “I cannot come near you to-night,
Donald, when the pretty smooth-white is about your neck.”
IONA BANSHI.
A man in Iona, thinking daylight was come, rose and went to a rock
to fish. After catching some fish, he observed he had been misled by
the clearness of the moonlight, and set off home. On the way, as the
night was so fine, he sat down to rest himself on a hillock. He fell
asleep, and was awakened by the pulling of the fishing rod, which he
had in his hand. He found the rod was being pulled in one direction
and the fish in another. He secured both, and was making off, when he
heard sounds behind him as of a woman weeping. On his turning round to
her, she said, “Ask news, and you will get news.” He answered, “I put
God between us.” When he said this, she caught him and thrashed him
soundly. Every night after he was compelled to meet her, and on her
repeating the same words and his giving the same answer, was similarly
drubbed. To escape from her persecutions he went to the Lowlands. When
engaged there cutting drains, he saw a raven on the bank above him.
This proved to be his tormentor, and he was compelled to meet her
again at night, and, as usual, she thrashed him. He resolved to go to
America. On the eve of his departure, his Fairy mistress met him and
said, “You are going away to escape from me. If you see a hooded crow
when you land, I am that crow.” On landing in America he saw a crow
sitting on a tree, and knew it to be his old enemy. In the end the
Fairy dame killed him.
TIREE BANSHI.
At the time of the American War of Independence, a native of Tiree,
similarly afflicted and wishing to escape from his Fairy love, enlisted
and was drafted off to the States. On landing he thanked God he was now
where the hag could not reach him. Soon after, however, she met him.
“You have given thanks,” she said, “for getting rid of me, but it is
as easy for me to make my appearance here as in your own country.” She
then told him what fortunes were to befall him, that he would survive
the war and return home, and that she would not then trouble him any
more. “You will marry there and settle. You will have two daughters,
one of whom will marry and settle in Croy-Gortan (_Cruaidh-ghortain_,
stone-field), the other will marry and remain in your own house. The
one away will ask you to stay with herself, as her sister will not be
kind to you. Your death will occur when you are crossing the _Leíge_”
(a winter stream falling into Loch Vasipol). All this in due course
happened.
About four generations ago, a native of Cornaig in Tiree was out
shooting on the Reef plain, and returning home in the evening, at the
streamlet, which falls into Balefetrish Bay, near Kennovay, was met by
a Fairy dame. He did not at first observe anything in her appearance
different from other women, but, on her putting over her head and
kissing him, he saw she had but one nostril. On reaching home he was
unable to articulate one word. By the advice of an old man he composed,
in his mind, a love song to the Fairy. On doing this, his speech came
back.
MACPHIE’S BLACK DOG.
[This tale was taken down in Gaelic from the dictation of Donald
Cameron, Ruaig, Tiree, in 1863, and is here given in his words as
closely as a translation will allow. It is a very good specimen of a
class of tales found in the Highlands, and illustrates many remarkable
traits of the belief regarding the Fairy women, their enmity to the
hunter, their beauty and powers of enchanting men at first, their
changing their shape to that of deer, and the aversion dogs have to
them; also the size and character of the Fairy hound.]
Mac-vic-Allan of Arasaig, lord of Moidart, went out hunting in his own
forest when young and unmarried. He saw a royal stag before him, as
beautiful an animal as he had ever seen. He levelled his gun at it, and
it became a woman as beautiful as he had ever seen at all. He lowered
his gun, and it became a royal stag as before. Every time he raised
the gun to his eye, the figure was that of a woman, and every time he
let it down to the ground, it was a royal stag. Upon this he raised the
gun to his eye and walked up till he was close to the woman’s breast.
He then sprang and caught her in his arms. “You will not be separated
from me at all,” he said, “I will never marry any but you.” “Do not do
that, Mac-vic-Allan,” she said, “you have no business with me, I will
not suit you. There will never be a day, while you have me with you,
but you will need to kill a cow for me.” “You will get that,” said the
lord of Moidart, “though you should ask two a day.”
But Mac-vic-Allan’s herd began to grow thin. He tried to send her
away, but he could not. He then went to an old man, who lived in the
townland, and was his counsellor. He said he would be a broken man, and
he did not know what plan to take to get rid of her. The honest old man
told him, that unless Macphie of Colonsay could send her away, there
was not another living who could. A letter was instantly sent off to
Macphie. He answered the letter, and came to Arasaig.
“What business is this you have with me,” said Macphie, “Mac-vic-Allan?”
Mac-vic-Allan told him how the woman had come upon him, and how he
could not send her away.
“Go you,” said Macphie, “and kill a cow for her to-day as usual; send
her dinner to the room as usual; and give me my dinner on the other
side of the room.”
Mac-vic-Allan did as he was asked. She commenced her dinner, and
Macphie commenced his. When Macphie got his dinner past, he looked over
at her.
“What is your news, Elle-maid?” said he.
“What is that to you, Brian Brugh,” said she.
“I saw you, Elle-maid,” said he,
“When you consorted with the Fingalians,
When you went with Dermid o Duvne
And accompanied him from covert to covert.”
“I saw you, Brian Brugh,” she said,
“When you rode on an old black horse,
The lover of the slim Fairy woman,
Ever chasing her from brugh to brugh.”
“Dogs and men after the wretch,” cried Macphie, “long have I known her.”
Every dog and man in Arasaig was called and sent after her. She fled
away out to the point of Arasaig, and they did not get a second sight
of her.
Upon this Macphie went home to his own Colonsay. One day he was out
hunting, and night came on before he got home. He saw a light and made
straight for it. He saw a number of men sitting in there, and an old
grey-headed man in the midst. The old man spoke and said, “Macphie,
come forward.” Macphie went forward, and what should come in his way
but a bitch, as beautiful an animal as he had ever seen, and a litter
of pups with it. He saw one pup in particular, black in colour, and he
had never seen a pup so black or so beautiful as it.
“This dog will be my own,” said Macphie.
“No,” said the man, “you will get your choice of the pups, but you will
not get that one.”
“I will not take one,” said Macphie, “but this one.”
“Since you are resolved to have it,” said the old man, “it will not do
you but one day’s service, and it will do that well. Come back on such
a night and you will get it.”
Macphie reached the place on the night he promised to come. They gave
him the dog, “and take care of it well,” said the old man, “for it will
never do service for you but the one day.”
The Black Dog began to turn out so handsome a whelp that no one ever
saw a dog so large or so beautiful as it. When Macphie went out hunting
he called the Black Dog, and the Black Dog came to the door and then
turned back and lay where it was before. The gentlemen who visited at
Macphie’s house used to tell him to kill the Black Dog, it was not
worth its food. Macphie would tell them to let the dog alone, that the
Black Dog’s day would come yet.
At one time a number of gentlemen came across from Islay to visit
Macphie and ask him to go with them to Jura to hunt. At that time Jura
was a desert, without anyone staying on it, and without its equal
anywhere as hunting ground for deer and roe. There was a place there
where those who went for sport used to stay, called the Big Cave. A
boat was made ready to cross the sound that same day. Macphie rose to
go, and the sixteen young gentlemen along with him. Each of them called
the Black Dog, and it reached the door, then turned and lay down where
it was before. “Shoot it,” cried the young gentlemen. “No,” said he,
“the Black Dog’s day is not come yet” They reached the shore, but the
wind rose and they did not get across that day.
Next day they made ready to go; the Black Dog was called and reached
the door, but returned where it was before. “Kill it,” said the
gentlemen, “and don’t be feeding it any longer.” “I will not kill
it,” said Macphie, “the Black Dog’s day will come yet.” They failed
to get across this day also from the violence of the weather and
returned. “The dog has foreknowledge,” said the gentlemen. “It has
foreknowledge,” said Macphie, “that its own day will come yet.”
On the third day the weather was beautiful. They took their way to the
harbour, and did not say a syllable this day to the Black Dog. They
launched the boat to go away. One of the gentlemen looked and said the
Black Dog was coming, and he never saw a creature like it, because of
its fierce look. It sprang, and was the first creature in the boat.
“The Black Dog’s day is drawing near us,” said Macphie.
They took with them meat, and provisions, and bedclothes, and went
ashore in Jura. They passed that night in the Big Cave, and next
day went to hunt the deer. Late in the evening they came home. They
prepared supper. They had a fine fire in the cave and light. There was
a big hole in the very roof of the cave through which a man could pass.
When they had taken their supper the young gentlemen lay down, Macphie
rose, and stood warming the back of his legs to the fire. Each of the
young men said he wished his own sweetheart was there that night.
“Well,” said Macphie, “I prefer that my wife should be in her own
house; it is enough for me to be here myself to-night.”
Macphie gave a look from him and saw sixteen women entering the door
of the cave. The light went out and there was no light except what the
fire gave. The women went over to where the gentlemen were. Macphie
could see nothing from the darkness that came over the cave. He was
not hearing a sound from the men. The women stood up and one of them
looked at Macphie. She stood opposite to him as though she were going
to attack him. The Black Dog rose and put on a fierce bristling look
and made a spring at her. The women took to the door, and the Black Dog
followed them to the mouth of the cave. When they went away the Black
Dog returned and lay at Macphie’s feet.
In a little while Macphie heard a horrid noise overhead in the top of
the cave, so that he thought the cave would fall in about his head. He
looked up and saw a man’s hand coming down through the hole, and making
as if to catch himself and take him out through the hole in the roof
of the cave. The Black Dog gave one spring, and between the shoulder
and the elbow caught the Hand, and lay upon it with all its might. Now
began the play between the Hand and the Black Dog. Before the Black
Dog let go its hold, it chewed the arm through till it fell on the
floor. The Thing that was on the top of the cave went away, and Macphie
thought the cave would fall in about his head. The Black Dog rushed out
after the Thing that was outside. This was not the time when Macphie
felt himself most at ease, when the Black Dog left him. When the day
dawned, behold the Black Dog had returned. It lay down at Macphie’s
feet, and in a few minutes was dead.
When the light of day appeared Macphie looked, and he had not a single
man alive of those who were with him in the cave. He took with him the
Hand, and went to the shore to the boat. He went on board and went home
to Colonsay, unaccompanied by dog or man. He took the Hand up with him
that men might see the horror he had met with, the night he was in the
cave. No man in Islay or Colonsay ever at all saw such a hand, nor did
they imagine that such existed.
There only remained to send a boat to Jura and take home the bodies
that were in the cave. That was the end of the Black Dog’s day.
* * * * *
A short tale, similar to the first part of the above legend, is
given in Campbell’s _Tales of the West Highlands_ (ii. 52). A fairy
changeling in Gaolin Castle, Kerrera, is detected by a visitor from
Ireland as the Fairy sweetheart of a countryman—_Brian Mac Braodh_. On
being detected the Elle woman ran into the sea from the point since
called _Rutha na Sirich_. The name _Brian Brugh_ of the one tale and
_Brian Mac Braodh_ of the other renders it probable the two tales had
originally more in common.
The expression, “The Black Dog’s day will come yet” (_Thig latha
choindui fhathast_), has passed into a proverb to denote that a time
will yet come when one now despised will prove of service. The English
proverb, “Every dog has its day,” means that everyone has his own time
of enjoyment.
The Macphies or MacDuffies were Lairds of Colonsay till the middle of
the 17th century. In 1623 the celebrated Colkitto was delated for the
murder of umquhill Malcolm Macphie of Colonsay; and one of the race
lies buried in Iona, with the inscription on his tomb
HIC JACET MALCOLUMBUS MACDUFFIE DE COLONSAY.
If the same Malcolm is referred to in both cases, these traces of his
fame, slight though they be, create some presumption that he may be
the person round whom romance has gathered the incidents of the above
tale. In 1615 Malcolm Macphie joined Sir James Macdonald of Dunyveg, in
Islay, in the last and unsuccessful attempt made by the once powerful
Clandonald of Islay and Cantyre to retain their possessions from the
Campbells. He was one of the principal leaders of the rebels and a
remarkable man. The family was one of the oldest and most esteemed in
the West Highlands.
The following are other versions of the tale in circulation. They are
of interest when compared with each other in showing the growth and
character of a popular tale.
Macphie of Colonsay was kept captive by a mermaid in a cave by the
shore. She supplied him with whatever he needed or desired, but he was
not happy, and took advantage of her absence to make his escape. She
missed him on her return and went in pursuit. He had with him a large
black dog, which he had kept in spite of everyone’s remonstrances. When
the mermaid overtook him he threw it into the water and it fought the
mermaid. The end of the battle was that the dog killed the mermaid and
the mermaid killed the dog.
This version is the one which supplied the ground work of Leyden’s
beautiful ballad “The Mermaid.” Considerable changes must have been
made by him upon the legend as it came to his hand. The dog, which in
all the versions is the principal character, is left out; Macphie’s
name is changed to Macphail; a magic ring (a thing unknown in Highland
lore) is introduced, etc. Leyden fell in with the version, of which he
made use, in his travels in the Highlands in 1801.
Macphie of Colonsay was in an island hunting, and in the course of
his ramblings came to a hut, which he entered. He found no one in,
and threw himself on a bed for a little rest. He was accompanied by
a dog as large as a year old calf. A dark object (_dùthra_) came to
the door and the dog attacked it. The Thing made a hideous screaming.
When Macphie saw the dog’s hair beginning to smoke, he made his escape
to the boat that had come with him to the island. Before long the dog
came rushing after him, like a mad beast, with a green flame issuing
from its jaws. Macphie had prepared himself for this by loading his
double-barrelled gun[41] with two crooked sixpences. He fired the
two shots at the dog, as it rushed to attack him, and killed it. The
Banshi, it had fought with, was left cruelly mauled, and she crawled
or dragged herself to the shore, throwing rocks and stones out of
her way. Her track is still known as the Carlin’s Furrow (_Sgrìob na
Caillich_). The boat left the shore before she reached it. She tried
to bring it back by throwing a ball of thread after it, but without
success. This was in Islay.
Macphie of Colonsay, when he went hunting, was met in a particular glen
by a man who accompanied him during the rest of the excursion. His
companion had a brindled bitch (_galla riabhach_), to which Macphie
took a fancy. He asked the man to sell it. “I will not,” said the man,
“sell it to you or any one else, but as you have rested your eye upon
it, I will give it to you for a while. It will have two pups, one like
itself and one black. The brindled one you can keep, but the black one
must be returned along with its mother. You will meet me at this same
spot on such a day.” Macphie took the brindled bitch home, and in due
time the animal had two pups, both very pretty. When the time came,
Macphie went back, according to promise, to the place appointed, but
instead of taking the black pup, took the brindled one. The man said
to him, “You have not brought the Black Dog; it would have been better
for you if you had; but keep it. It will give you but one night’s
service; you will not gain much by the Black Dog.” After this the
Black Dog began to wither; it grew large and tall but lank and lean.
The servants thrashed and kicked it about, as if it never was likely
to come to any good. Macphie himself seemed to have an unaccountable
regard for it, and was very angry when he saw it abused. Two gentlemen
came to see him, with the intention of taking him with them to hunt in
some neighbouring islet. On the morning of their intended expedition
they rose early, and were getting the guns ready, when the Black Dog
rose and whined and fawned upon Macphie. On reaching the boat the Black
Dog was the first to spring on board. The night became stormy, and the
party were not able to get home that night. They passed the night in
a cave. A noise as of walking was heard overhead, and a Hand appeared
through the roof as if to grasp one of Macphie’s friends. All the dogs
fled into the corners of the cave. Macphie himself had a Jew’s harp
(which is said to be the holiest kind of musical instrument), and when
he played fast upon it the Hand drew back; when he played slow the Hand
came nearer. At last he was almost exhausted. He called upon the Black
Dog, and the Black Dog rose. “My Black Dog,” said Macphie, “if you
cannot do it now, I am undone.” The Dog attacked the Hand, and made it
disappear. It then rushed out and gave chase. It came back, spotted and
speckled, with its hair stripped off. When the hunters got home on the
following night the Dog disappeared.
Macphie from Colonsay was cast ashore at Ormsaig, in the district of
Brolas in Mull, clinging to a log of wood. He stayed for some time
at Ormsaig, and was in the habit of going to the hill with his gun. A
Fairy woman met him there, and from her he received the present of a
young dog, which she said would yet be of service to him, but only for
one day. He had seventeen foster brothers, and, on his return home,
they came and asked him to go with them to shoot cormorants at the Paps
of Jura. The Dog, which had by this time grown very large, and had
never before given any indication of being useful, this day eagerly
accompanied the hunters. Macphie’s wife had often urged him to kill
the dog, but he had insisted on keeping it. When Jura was reached, a
servant was left in charge of the boats, and the company passed the
night in a cave. As they reclined round the cave, each expressed a
wish, that his sweetheart were there. Macphie, who was standing by the
fire, said he had no such wish, it was better for his mistress to be at
home. Before long, seventeen women in green dresses entered the cave,
and went over to the beds of heather where Macphie’s foster brothers
were, and Macphie heard the crackling sound of breaking bones. The
seventeen women then came up, as if to attack himself. Afraid of their
number, he called to the Black Dog, “If you assist me not now, I am a
lost man.” The dog attacked the women, drove them out of the cave, and
went off in pursuit. Macphie fled to the boat, and he and the servant
left in charge quitted the shore with all haste. When they were well
out to sea, the servant said there was a fiery star coming after them.
Macphie said it was the Black Dog, and its heart had taken fire. He
made ready, and when the dog overtook them, cut off its head.
THE CARLIN OF THE SPOTTED HILL (_Cailleach Beinne Bhric_).
The Fairy wife, who owned the deer of Ben Breck, is well known in the
Highlands.
It is told of her that on one occasion, as she milked a hind, the
animal became restive and gave her a kick. In return she struck the
hind with her open palm and expressed a wish that the arrow of Donald,
the son of John (a noted hunter in his day), might come upon it. That
very day the restive hind fell to Dò’il MacJain’s arrow.[42]
It is also told of this Elfin wife that while three hunters were
passing the night in a bothy on Ben Breck, the Carlin wife came to the
door and sought admittance. A dog that accompanied the hunters sprang
up to attack her. She retreated and asked one of the men to tie up his
dog. He refused. She asked him again, and a second time he refused. She
asked a third time, and he replied he had nothing to tie it with. She
pulled a hair out of her head and told him to tie his dog with that, it
was strong enough to hold a four-masted ship at anchor. He pretended to
consent, and the hag, on trying again to enter, found the dog was not
secured. She then went away, saying it was well for the hunter the dog
had not been tied, and threatening to come again. It does not appear,
however, that she ever came back.
She was last seen about twenty years ago in Lochaber. Age had told
severely upon her. Instead of being ‘broad and tall,’ she had become no
bigger than a teapot! She wore a little grey plaid or shawl about her
shoulders.
DONALD, SON OF PATRICK.
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.)