Two sisters were living in the same township on the south side of Mull. One of them who was known as Lovely _Mairearad_[24] had a fairy sweetheart, who came where she was, unknown to anyone, until one day she confided the secret to her sister, who was called Ailsa[25] (_Ealasaid_), and told her how she dearly loved her fairy sweetheart. “And now, sister,” she said, “you will not tell any one.” “No,” her sister answered, “I will not tell any one; that story will as soon pass from my lips as it will from my knee (_o’m ghlùn_)”; but she did not keep her promise; she told the secret of the fairy sweetheart to others, and when he came again, he found that he was observed, and he went away and never returned, nor was he seen or heard of ever after by any one in the place. When the lovely sister came to know this, she left her home and became a wanderer among the hills and hollows, and never afterwards came inside of a house door, to stand or sit down, while she lived. Those who herded cattle (_ag uallach threud_) tried frequently to get near her and persuade her to return home, but they never succeeded further than to hear her crooning a melancholy song in which she told how her sister had been false to her, and that the wrong done to her would be avenged on the sister or her descendants, if a fairy (_neach sìth_) has power. On hearing that Ailsa was married, she repeated, “Dun Ailsa is married and has a son Torquil, and the evil will be avenged on her or on him (_phòs, phòs Ealasaid Odhar,[26] &c._).” What she hummed in her mournful song was:-- My mother’s place is deserted, empty and cold, My father, who loved me, is asleep in the tomb, Friendless and solitary I wander through the fields, Since there is none in the world of my kindred But a sister without pity. She asked, and I told, out of the fulness of my joy; There was none nearer of kin to know my secret; But I felt, and this brought the tears to my eyes, (_lit._, raindrip on my sight), That a story comes sooner from the lip than from the knee. She was then heard to utter these wishes-- May nothing on which you have set your expectations ever grow, Nor dew ever fall on your ground. May no smoke rise from your dwelling, In the depth of the hardest winter,[27] May the worm be in your store, And the moth under the lid of your chests. If a fay-being has power, Revenge will be taken though it may be on your descendants. Tha suidheag mo mhàthar gu fàs, falamh, fuar, Tha m’ athair ’thug luaidh dhomh ’n a shuain fo ’n lic. Gun daoine gun duine na raoin tha mi ’siubhal, ’S gun ’s an t-saoghal do ’m chuideachd Ach piuthar gun iochd. Dh’ iarr ise ’s thug mise do mheud mo thoil-inntinn; ’S mi gun neach ’bu disle g’ an innsinn mo rùn; Ach dh’ fhairich mi sid ’s thug e snidh’ air mo léirsinn Gur luaithe ’thig sgeul o ’n bheul na o ’n ghlùn. An sin thuirt i na guidheachan so:--