A hundred welcomes wait you, cat, Since in my lap you’ve chanced to be; And, though I do not much liberty allow, Many have you greatly loved. Are you the untamed cat that Fionn had, That hunted wild from glen to glen? Had Oscar you at the battle of Bla-sguinn, And left you heroes wounded there? You drank the milk Catherine had, For entertaining minstrel and meeting; And why should I praise you? You ought to be, like any kitten, On the hillside seeking mice, ’Neath greyish grassy stems and bramble bushes. On hearing this the cat ran away and was never again seen. A Tiree boat was tacking out of a loch in the north. A man met it at a point of land near which it came, and asked to be taken to the other side. One of the boatmen was willing, but the rest were not, as they would thereby lose time. Next tack back, the man met the boat again, with the same result. “Well, then,” he said, “perhaps you will repent it.” At the mouth of the loch the boatmen heard a howling as of innumerable cats. A storm arose, and with difficulty they reached shelter at the island of Eigg. WITCHES AS RATS. A Tiree boatman, bringing a load of peats from the Ross of Mull, was met at the Treshinish Isles by two rats sailing along on dry cowsherds. As good luck did not direct him, he threw a piece of peat at the rats, and upset their frail barks. A storm sprang up, and with difficulty he got to land. The rats were witches, and he should not have meddled with them. WITCHES AS GULLS. A witch assumed the shape of a gull, delighting in storms, not only to bring danger or safety to a boat, as already told, but also for payment to bring back news of fishing boats driven away in a storm. A boat from Tiree, going for a cargo of wood, was caught in a violent gale and driven north past Ardnamurchan Point. With difficulty the boatmen, four in number, secured her in a creek. They remained in a cave for four days, till the storm abated. The suddenness and violence of the gale caused much anxiety to their friends, and two women, one of whom had two sons and a son-in-law in the boat, and the other, a widow, her youngest and only surviving son, consulted a famous witch, _Nic-ill’-Dòmhnuich_, in Caolas, as to their fate. The witch told them to come next day, and she would tell them. Early next morning the widow went. “Yea,” said the witch, “they live, and they had no little amusement last night fighting for the _Fallaid_ bannock, and your son had his own share of it.” When the young men came home, they were questioned as to their seeing anything the night the witch was sent for news. They said a grey gull was seen by them sitting on the edge of the rocks that overhang their place of shelter and peering down at them. One was for throwing stones at it, but the rest dissuaded him. It was only seen that night and next morning. WITCH AS CORMORANT.