And may I, or any that is of my blood, Behold not the Wave-Haunter who comes in with the Tide; Or the Maighdeann-màra who broods in the shallows, Where the sea-caves are, in the ebb: And fair may my fishing be, and the fishing of those near to me, And good may this Tide be, and good may it bring: And may there be no calling in the Flow, this Srùth-màra, And may there be no burden in the Ebb! _ochone!_ _An ainm an Athar, s’ an Mhic, s’ an Spioraid Naoimh,_ _Biodh an Tri-aon leinn, a la’s a dh’ oidhche,_ _S’ air chul nan tonn, no air thaobh nam beann!_ _Ochone! arone!_ Both men sang the closing lines, with loudly swelling voices, and with a wailing fervour which no words of mine could convey. Runes of this kind prevail all over the isles, from the Butt of Lewis to the Rhinns of Islay: identical in spirit, though varying in lines and phrases, according to the mood and temperament of the _rannaiche_ or singer, the local or peculiar physiognomy of nature, the instinctive yielding to hereditary wonder-words, and other compelling circumstances of the outer and inner life. Almost needless to say, the sea-maid or sea-witch and the Wave-Haunter occur in many of those wild runes, particularly in those that are impromptu. In the Outer Hebrides, the runes are wild natural hymns rather than Pagan chants: though marked distinctions prevail there also,--for in Harris and the Lews the folk are Protestant almost to a man, while in Benbecula and the Southern Hebrides the Catholics are in a like ascendancy. But all are at one in the common Brotherhood of Sorrow. The only lines in Ivor McLean’s wailing song which puzzled me were the two last which came before “the good words,” “in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit,” etc. “Tell me, in English, Ivor,” I said, after a silence, wherein I pondered the Gaelic words, “what is the meaning of “‘And may there be no calling in the Flow, this Srùth-màra, And may there be no burden in the Ebb’?” “Yes, I will be telling you what is the meaning of that. When the great tide that wells out of the hollow of the sea, and sweeps towards all the coasts of the world, first stirs, when she will be knowing that the Ebb is not any more moving at all, she sends out nine long waves. And I will be forgetting what these waves are: but one will be to shepherd the sea-weed that is for the blessing of man; and another is for to wake the fish that sleep in the deeps; and another is for this, and another will be for that; and the seventh is to rouse the Wave-Haunter and all the creatures of the water that fear and hate man; and the eighth no man knows, though the priests say it is to carry the Whisper of Mary; and the ninth----” “And the ninth, Ivor?” “May it be far from us, from you and from me, and from those of us. An’ I will be sayin’ nothing against it, not I; nor against anything that is in the sea. An’ you will be noting that!