Superstitions of the Highlands & Islands of Scotland: Collected Entirely from Oral SourcesCampbell, John Gregorson
History
Superstitions of the Highlands & Islands of Scotland: Collected Entirely from Oral Sources
Campbell, John Gregorson
Folklore -- Scotland
A shepherd, living with his wife in a bothy far away among the hills
of Mull, had an addition to his family. He was obliged to go for
assistance to the nearest houses, and his wife asked him, before
leaving her and her babe alone, to place the table beside the bed, and
a portion of the various kinds of food in the house on it, and also to
put the smoothing-iron below the front of the bed and the reaping-hook
(_buanaiche_) in the window. Soon after he had left the wife heard a
suppressed muttering on the floor and a voice urging some one to go up
and steal the child. The other answered that butter from the cow that
ate the pearlwort (_mòthan_) was on the table, that iron was below the
bed, and the ‘reaper’ in the window, how could he get the child away?
As the reward of his wife’s providence and good sense the shepherd
found herself and child safe on his return.
A man in Morvern, known by the nickname of the ‘Marquis’ (_a
mor’aire_), left a band of women watching his wife and infant child.
On returning at night, he found the fire gone out, and the women fast
asleep. By the time he had rekindled the fire he saw a Banshi entering
and making for the bed where his wife and child were. He took a faggot
from the fire and threw it at her. A flame gleamed about his eyes and
he saw the Fairy woman no more. His wife declared that she felt at the
time like one in a nightmare (_trom-a-lidhe_); she heard voices calling
upon her to go out, and felt an irresistible inclination to obey.
A woman from Rahoy (_Ra-thuaith_) on Loch Sunartside was taken with
her babe to Ben Iadain (_Beinn Iadain_), a lofty hill in the parish
of Morvern, rising to a height of above 2000 feet, and at one time of
great note as an abode of the Fairies. Her husband had laid himself
down for a few minutes’ rest in the front of the bed, and fallen
asleep. When he awoke his wife and child were gone. They were taken,
the woman afterwards told, to the ‘Black Door’ (_a chòmhla dhu_), as
the spot forming the Fairy entrance into the interior of the mountain
is called. On entering, they found a large company of men, women, and
children. A fair-haired boy among them came and warned the woman not to
eat any food the Fairies might offer, but to hide it in her clothes. He
said they had got his own mother to eat this food, and in consequence
he could not now get her away. Finding the food offered her was
slighted, the head Fairy sent off a party to bring a certain man’s cow.
They came back saying they could not touch the cow as its right knee
was resting on the plant _bruchorcan_ (dirk grass). They were sent for
another cow, but they came back saying they could not touch it either,
as the dairymaid, after milking it, had struck it with the shackle
or cow-spancel (_burach_). That same night the woman appeared to her
husband in his dreams, telling him where she was, and that by going for
her and taking the black silk handkerchief she wore on her marriage
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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