The wife of a tenant farmer, who lived with his family in an extremely remote and hilly rough district, was frequently left alone in the house, as she had no daughters, while her husband and sons were away at the labour of the farm, or fishing. It happened one day after they had left, that the housewife having finished her housework, sat as usual at the spinning-wheel to spin thread for cloth (_clò_) for their clothing. She had not long begun her labour, when, happening to look towards the door, she saw a little woman of reddish appearance coming in at the door with a dog before and one after her. “Woman,” she said, “you are spinning.” “I am,” the housewife answered. “Will you give me a drink of water?” she said. “Take it yourself,” the housewife said. “The water is good, where is the well?” she asked. “It is down,” said the one who was in, “in the opening of the hollow of the glen (_aig dorus ’an lag a’ ghlinne_).” The fay woman (_a’ bhean-shìth_) then asked the housewife to lend her a small cauldron, and the other woman believing her to be sister-in-law or some other relative she did not know of the wife of her nearest neighbour, who lived far distant from them and was married to an Ardnamurchan woman, said to her, “There is a table there with several utensils (_caigionn choireachan_) on its shelf; take with you any of them that will answer.” When she brought it, she asked for the suspender (_bùlas_) and lid. The moment she got them she fitted them in and told the dogs that were with her to take that with them. The dogs immediately caught the three-legged pot and took it with them. When her husband came home the housewife said, “I think there is a stranger with our neighbours,” and told him about her visitor. “Perhaps,” her husband said, “she is the sister-in-law; it was time some one came to see the wife, for none of her friends have been since she came here.” “I never saw the sort of dogs she had, ever here,” his wife said, and described to him the dogs and how they were different altogether from sheep-dogs. “Our neighbours have only one dog and it is a sheep-dog,” he said. This day passed and another and the third, but the cauldron was not returned. The housewife then sent one of her sons to ask the neighbours to return the loan. These said that they did not get a loan of anything, as they did not require it, having more cauldrons and kettles than was required by themselves, and that no strangers had come or were with them. The housewife was at her wit’s end and did not know in the world or time to come (_uile bheatha na dìlinn_) what to think about the matter. On the fifth day, however, the self-same one returned with the cauldron. “I am sure,” she said, “that you were missing the cauldron.” “I was,” the housewife replied, “not from any need I had of it at the time, but because I did not know who the one was that took it away.” “I am sure you did not know who took it,” said the one that came in, “but I knew you too well; many a day you