On the skirts of Schiehallion, the steepest and one of the highest hills
in the kingdom, there is a small loch or tarn, near Crossmount, in Lower
Rannoch, the vicinity of which about 50 years ago was the scene of
strange terrors at night. The road leading over the shoulder of the hill
to Weem lay along the shores of this lake, and, where it was crossed
by a small stream that falls into the loch, those who passed the way
after dark were scared by strange sights. After crossing the ford the
traveller was accompanied for about twenty yards by a dog, a he-goat, a
dark moving mass, or some other object, which, from the unaccountable
manner of its appearance and disappearance, could not be deemed earthly.
A native of Kilchonan, in Rannoch, who had been for some time in the
south as a gardener, came on a visit to his friends, and had to pass in
the neighbourhood of the loch. It was ascertained that at Cashieville
(_Cois-a-bhile_), where he left the strath of the Tay to cross the skirts
of Schiehallion, he had taken a drink of porter. It was fourteen days
after before it was ascertained he never reached Kilchonan. A search
was instituted; men gathered from Appin and Athole and Rannoch, and the
whole country round about, and continued the search for three or four
days, even as far as Glenlyon, but without success. One of the exploring
parties when above Crossmount was met by a woman, who advised them to
search round _Lochan Doimeig_, for she had dreamt last night she was
cutting rushes there. Soon after a man met them, who gave them the same
advice, and said he had had the same dream. On going round the loch
they found the dead gardener lying on a green mound on the brink of the
stream, already mentioned as crossing the road, in the attitude in which
he had stretched himself to take a drink.
RETURN OF THE DEAD.
A former minister of East-side, Skye, was in his lifetime addicted to
visiting his cattle fold. His whole heart was given to his herds, and
after his death his ghost was to be seen revisiting his former haunts. An
old man undertook to meet and lay the ghost. The two met and saluted each
other in the usual manner. When shaking hands, however, the man, instead
of his hand, offered the ploughshare. After that the ghost never came
back.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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