The wean looked terrified, and ran under the bed, but she pulled it out and tied his legs and arms together with some red clouts she had in her pouch, and threw't into the riddle, and lifting it up went towards the fire, the wean twining and kicking and swearing most viciously. Mally had previously breeked her petticoats, and as soon as a thick reek rose from the burning rowan-tree, she held the wean amang the thickest o't, and riddled it in the riddle till ye wud hae thocht it wud hae been chokit. The wean cursed and yelled, and spat at her, and called her a' that was bad, but she took nae notice; then it begged and fleech't with the father and mother to save't, for it was chokin', and went on pitiful, and then it begood and cursed them, and abused them terribly. Then there came knockings to the door, and cries and noisings all over the house; but she riddled away, and nobody ever heeded them, till at last the wean gave a great scraich, and rase out of the riddle, and gaed whirling up amang the reek like a corkscrew, and out at the lumhead, out of sight. Everything was then quiet for a minute or two, and at last a gentle knocking came to the door, and Mally asked who was there, and a voice cried-- 'Let me in, I'm wee Tammie M'K----.'"(53) The district of Dalry seems to have been particularly favoured by the beings of supernatural power. Witchcraft abounded, and now we shall see that Fairyland was represented. The place, above all, of fairy association was the Holm Glen, with which is associated a legend of the abduction of a youth, and an abortive attempt to win freedom after serving seven years. Round this vestige of fairy-lore Dr Robert Trotter has woven a well-told mantle of narrative, from which an extract is well worth quoting:-- "I rose early upon the morning of Hallowe'en, and having dressed myself, I went out to the harvest field, just as the minute hand of my watch pointed to half-past five. I began busily to arrange and set up the stooks, which a storm of wind and rain the preceding evening had blown down. I had not been long occupied in this manner when I heard the tramping of horses' feet, the giggling and laughing of the riders, and the jingling of their bridle bits. I instantly turned round to see what this troop of early travellers could be; but my eye rested not then on the broad holm of Dalarran and the grey turrets of Kenmure Castle, of which there was a goodly prospect from the place where I stood--but it fell upon the tall form of a young man standing close by my side, dressed in a riding-cloak of the lightest Lincoln green ever worn by a Nottingham Archer. By his side hung a hunting-horn of the purest silver, whilst his spurs and the diamond chased scabbard of his sword glanced clear and bright in the rays of the rising sun.