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
There is also in the tale an Elfin old woman, the Carlin of the Red
Stream, who is of the same class with the old wife of Ben Breck. She
has a wonderful deer, which she can restore to life if she can get any
of its flesh as juice to taste, and her yells split the iron hoops
the prudent Fin had put round his men’s heads in anticipation of her
outcries.
DEER KILLED AT NIGHT.
Big Hugh, of Ardchyle (_Eòghan mòr àird-a-chaoil_), in the east of
the island of Mull, a noted deer-hunter in his day, killed a deer at
Torness (_Torr-an-Eas_, the eminence by the ravine), some seven miles
away in Glenmore, and conveyed it home at night. He was accompanied
by a man of the name of Sinclair. Sinclair asked him if the deer was
heavy, and Big Hugh said he felt as if he had a house on his back.
Sinclair then stuck his pen-knife in the deer, and asked again if the
burden felt heavy. Big Hugh said it was now so light he could hardly
believe he had a burden on his back at all. The weight had been laid on
by the Fairies.
FAIRIES AND GOATS.
In Breadalbane and the Highlands of Perthshire it is said the Fairies
live on goat’s milk. A goat was taken home by a man in Strathfillan,
in Perthshire, to be killed. In the evening a stranger, dressed in
green, came to the door. He was asked to enter and rest himself. He
said he could not, as he was in a hurry, and on his way to Dunbuck (a
celebrated Fairy haunt near Dunbarton), an urgent message having come
for him. He said that many a day that goat had kept him in milk. He
then disappeared. He could be nothing but a Fairy.
FAIRIES AND COWS.
A strong-minded headstrong woman in Kianish, Tiree, had a cow, the
milk of which strangely failed. Suspecting that the cow was being
milked by someone during the night, she sat up and watched. She saw
a woman dressed in green coming noiselessly and milking the cow. She
came behind and caught her. In explanation the Fairy woman said she
had a child lying in the smallpox, and as a favour asked to be allowed
to milk the cow for one month, till the child got better. This was
allowed, and when the month was out, the cow’s milk became as plentiful
as ever.
That the Fairies took away cows at night in order to milk them, and
sent them back in the morning, was a belief in Craignish, Morvern,
Tiree, Lochaber, and probably in the whole Highlands. When milk lost
its virtue, and yielded neither cream, nor butter, nor cheese, the
work was that of witches and such like diabolical agencies. When the
mischief was done by the Fairies the whole milk disappeared.
FAIRY COWS.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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