The _machair_ (or links) adjoining the hill of Kennavarra, the extreme south-west point of Tiree, is after sunset one of the most solitary and weird places conceivable. The hill on its northern side, facing the Skerryvore lighthouse, twelve miles off, consists of precipices, descending sheer down for upwards of a hundred feet, with frightful chasms, where countless sea-birds make their nests, and at the base of which the Atlantic rolls with an incessant noise, which becomes deafening in bad weather. The hill juts into the sea, and the coast, from each side of its inner end, trends away in beaches, which, like all the beaches in the island, have, after nightfall, from their whiteness and loneliness, a strange and ghostly look. On the landward side, the level country stretches in a low dark line towards the horizon; little is to be seen and the stillness is unbroken, save by the sound of the surf rolling on the beach and thundering in the chasms of the hill. It is not, therefore, wonderful that these links should be haunted by the Fairies, or the timid wayfarer there meet the big black Elfin dog prowling among the sand-banks, hear its unearthly baying in the stormy night-wind, and in the uncertain light and the squattering of wildfowl, hear in wintry pools the Banshi washing the garments of those soon to die. Some seventy or eighty years ago the herdsman who had charge of the cattle on this pasture, went to a marriage in the neighbouring village of Balephuill (mud-town), leaving his mother and a young child alone in the house. The night was wild and stormy; there was heavy rain, and every pool and stream was more than ordinarily swollen. His mother sat waiting his return, and two women, whom she knew to be Fairies, came to steal the child. They stood between the outer and inner doors and were so tall their heads appeared above the partition beam. One was taller than the other. They were accompanied by a dog, and stood one on each side, having a hold of an ear and scratching it. Some say there was a crowd of ‘little people’ behind to assist in taking the child away. For security the woman placed it between herself and the fire, but her precautions were not quite successful. From that night the child was slightly fatuous, ‘a half idiot’ (_leth oinseach_). The old woman, it is said, had the second sight.