A young man was sent for the loan of a sieve, and, mistaking his way, entered a brugh, which was that evening open. He found there two women grinding at a handmill, two women baking, and a mixed party dancing on the floor. He was invited to sit down, “Farquhar MacNeill, be seated” (_Fhearchair ’ie Neill, bi ’d shuidhe_). He thought he would first have a reel with the dancers. He forgot all about the sieve, and lost all desire to leave the company he was in. One night he accompanied the band among whom he had fallen on one of its expeditions, and after careering through the skies, stuck in the roof of a house. Looking down the chimney (_fàr-leus_), he saw a woman dandling a child, and, struck with the sight, exclaimed, “God bless you” (_Dia gu d’bheannachadh_). Whenever he pronounced the Holy Name he was disenchanted, and tumbled down the chimney! On coming to himself he went in search of his relatives. No one could tell him anything about them. At last he saw, thatching a house, an old man, so grey and thin he took him for a patch of mist resting on the house-top. He went and made inquiries of him. The old man knew nothing of the parties asked for, but said perhaps his father did. Amazed, the young man asked him if his father was alive, and on being told he was, and where to find him, entered the house. He there found a very venerable man sitting in a chair by the fire, twisting a straw-rope for the thatching of the house (_snìomh sìomain_). This man also, on being questioned, said he knew nothing of the people, but perhaps his father did. The father referred to was lying in bed, a little shrunken man, and he in like manner referred to his father. This remote ancestor, being too weak to stand, was found in a purse (_sporran_) suspended at the end of the bed. On being taken out and questioned, the wizened creature said, “I did not know the people myself, but I often heard my father speaking of them.” On hearing this the young man crumbled in pieces, and fell down a bundle of bones (_cual chnàmh_). The incident of the very aged people forms part of some versions of the story, “How the Great Description (a man’s name) was put to Death” (_Mar a chaidh an Tuairisgeul mòr a chur gu bàs_). Another form is that a stranger came to a house, and at the door found an old man crying, because his father had thrashed him. He went in, and asking the father why he had thrashed his aged son, was told it was because the grandfather had been there the day before, and the fellow had not the manners to put his hand in his bonnet to him! BLACK WILLIAM THE PIPER.