He could keep the ship against some say eight, others nine, witches, but “ere a’ the play was play’d” there were sixteen, some say eighteen, on the yards. Their names depend on the fancy of the narrator. All the Mull witches (_na doideagun Muileach_) were there, and the most powerful of the sisterhood from the surrounding districts. _Nic-ill’-Domhnuich_ from Tiree is commonly mentioned.[11] All accounts agree that when Big Blue-eye from Mey (_Gorm-shùil Mhòr bha sa Mheigh_), the powerful Lochaber witch, came, the ship sank. Shortly before this Captain Forrest told a sailor to look up and see how many gulls were on the yards (_seall suas co miad faoileann air an t-shlait_). On being told eighteen, he said, “We are lost.” In the morning Doideag was told her house had been unroofed in the gale, but she was comforted by being told the dreaded ship had gone down opposite Coire-na-theanchoir Bay. “If you are without a house, Captain Forrest is without a ship” (_ma tha thusa gun tigh, tha Captain Forrest gun long_). WITCHES AS SHEEP. A native of Tiree was on his way home to the west end of the island in the evening with a new gun in his hand. When above the beach called Travay, he observed a black sheep running towards him from across the plain of Reef. Alarmed by the animal’s motions, he put a silver sixpence in the gun, and on its coming near enough, took aim. The black sheep instantly became a woman, whom he recognised, with a drugget coat wrapped about her head. The same woman had often persecuted him before, particularly in shape of a cat. She asked him to keep her secret, and he promised to do so, but one day, when drunk in the village to which the woman belonged, he told his adventure and the name of the woman. In less than a fortnight after he was drowned, and the witch (for such the woman was universally reputed to be) was blamed as the cause.