{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_17071/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_17071","id":"gutenberg_17071","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/17071","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Folklore","Folklore -- Scotland","Legends -- Scotland"],"text":"Transcribed from the 1889 W. W. Gibbings edition by David Price, email\nccx074@coventry.ac.uk\n\n\n\n\n\nFOLK-LORE AND LEGENDS\nSCOTLAND\n\n\nW. W. GIBBINGS\n18 BURY ST., LONDON, W.C.\n1889\n\nContents:\n\n   Prefatory Note\n   Canobie Dick and Thomas of Ercildoun.\n   Coinnach Oer.\n   Elphin Irving.\n   The Ghosts of Craig-Aulnaic.\n   The Doomed Rider.\n   Whippety Stourie.\n   The Weird of the Three Arrows.\n   The Laird of Balmachie's Wife.\n   Michael Scott.\n   The Minister and the Fairy.\n   The Fisherman and the Merman.\n   The Laird O' Co'.\n   Ewen of the Little Head.\n   Jock and his Mother.\n   Saint Columba.\n   The Mermaid Wife.\n   The Fiddler and the Bogle of Bogandoran.\n   Thomas the Rhymer.\n   Fairy Friends.\n   The Seal-Catcher's Adventure.\n   The Fairies of Merlin's Craig.\n   Rory Macgillivray.\n   The Haunted Ships.\n   The Brownie.\n   Mauns' Stane.\n   \"Horse and Hattock.\"\n   Secret Commonwealth.\n   The Fairy Boy of Leith.\n   The Dracae.\n   Lord Tarbat's Relations.\n   The Bogle.\n   Daoine Shie, or the Men of Peace.\n   The Death \"Bree.\"\n\n\n\n\nPREFATORY NOTE\n\n\nThe distinctive features of Scotch Folk-lore are such as might have been\nexpected from a consideration of the characteristics of Scotch scenery.\nThe rugged grandeur of the mountain, the solemn influence of the\nwidespreading moor, the dark face of the deep mountain loch, the babbling\nof the little stream, seem all to be reflected in the popular tales and\nsuperstitions.  The acquaintance with nature in a severe, grand, and\nsomewhat terrible form must necessarily have its effect on the human\nmind, and the Scotch mind and character bear the impress of their natural\nsurroundings.  The fairies, the brownies, the bogles of Scotland are the\nsame beings as those with whom the Irish have peopled the hills, the\nnooks, and the streams of their land, yet how different, how\ndistinguished from their counterparts, how clothed, as it were, in the\nnational dress!\n\n\n\n\nCANOBIE DICK AND THOMAS OF ERCILDOUN.\n\n\nNow it chanced many years since that there lived on the Borders a jolly\nrattling horse-cowper, who was remarkable for a reckless and fearless\ntemper, which made him much admired and a little dreaded amongst his\nneighbours.  One moonlight night, as he rode over Bowden Moor, on the\nwest side of the Eildon Hills, the scene of Thomas the Rhymer's\nprophecies, and often mentioned in his history, having a brace of horses\nalong with him, which he had not been able to dispose of, he met a man of\nvenerable appearance and singularly antique dress, who, to his great\nsurprise, asked the price of his horses, and began to chaffer with him on\nthe subject.  To Canobie Dick, for so shall we call our Border dealer, a\nchap was a chap, and he would have sold a horse to the devil himself,\nwithout minding his cloven hoof, and would have probably cheated Old Nick\ninto the bargain.  The stranger paid the price they agreed on, and all\nthat puzzled Dick in the transaction was, that the gold which he received\nwas in unicorns, bonnet-pieces, and other ancient coins, which would have\nbeen invaluable to collectors, but were rather troublesome in modern\ncurrency.  It was gold, however, and therefore Dick contrived to get\nbetter value for the coin than he perhaps gave to his customer.  By the\ncommand of so good a merchant, he brought horses to the same spot more\nthan once; the purchaser only stipulating that he should always come by\nnight and alone.  I do not know whether it was from mere curiosity, or\nwhether some hope of gain mixed with it, but after Dick had sold several\nhorses in this way, he began to complain that dry bargains were unlucky,\nand to hint, that since his chap must live in the neighbourhood, he\nought, in the courtesy of dealing, to treat him to half a mutchkin.\n\n\"You may see my dwelling if you will,\" said the stranger; \"but if you\nlose courage at what you see there, you will rue it all your life.\"\n\nDickon, however, laughed the warning to scorn, and having alighted to\nsecure his horse, he followed the stranger up a narrow footpath, which\nled them up the hills to the singular eminence stuck betwixt the most\nsouthern and the centre peaks, and called, from its resemblance to such\nan animal in its form, the Lucken Hare.  At the foot of this eminence,\nwhich is almost as famous for witch-meetings as the neighbouring windmill\nof Kippilaw, Dick was somewhat startled to observe that his conductor\nentered the hillside by a passage or cavern, of which he himself, though\nwell acquainted with the spot, had never seen nor heard.\n\n\"You may still return,\" said his guide, looking ominously back upon him;\nbut Dick scorned to show the white feather, and on they went.  They\nentered a very long range of stables; in every stall stood a coal-black\nhorse; by every horse lay a knight in coal-black armour, with a drawn\nsword in his hand; but all were as silent, hoof and limb, as if they had\nbeen cut out of marble.  A great number of torches lent a gloomy lustre\nto the hall, which, like those of the Caliph Vathek, was of large\ndimensions.  At the upper end, however, they at length arrived, where a\nsword and horn lay on an antique table.\n\n\"He that shall sound that horn and draw that sword,\" said the stranger,\nwho now intimated that he was the famous Thomas of Ercildoun, \"shall, if\nhis heart fail him not, be king over all broad Britain.  So speaks the\ntongue that cannot lie.  But all depends on courage, and much on your\ntaking the sword or horn first.\"\n\nDick was much disposed to take the sword, but his bold spirit was quailed\nby the supernatural terrors of the hall, and he thought to unsheathe the\nsword first might be construed into defiance, and give offence to the\npowers of the mountain.  He took the bugle with a trembling hand, and\nblew a feeble note, but loud enough to produce a terrible answer.  Thunder\nrolled in stunning peals through the immense hall; horses and men started\nto life; the steeds snorted, stamped, ground their bits, and tossed their\nheads; the warriors sprang to their feet, clashed their armour, and\nbrandished their swords.  Dick's terror was extreme at seeing the whole\narmy, which had been so lately silent as the grave, in uproar, and about\nto rush on him.  He dropped the horn, and made a feeble attempt to seize\nthe enchanted sword; but at the same moment a voice pronounced aloud the\nmysterious words--\n\n   \"Woe to the coward, that ever he was born,\n   Who did not draw the sword before he blew the horn!\"\n\nAt the same time a whirlwind of irresistible fury howled through the long\nhall, bore the unfortunate horse-jockey clear out of the mouth of the\ncavern, and precipitated him over a steep bank of loose stones, where the\nshepherds found him the next morning, with just breath sufficient to tell\nhis fearful tale, after concluding which he expired.\n\n\n\n\nCOINNACH OER.\n\n\nCoinnach Oer, which means Dun Kenneth, was a celebrated man in his\ngeneration.  He has been called the Isaiah of the North.  The prophecies\nof this man are very frequently alluded to and quoted in various parts of\nthe Highlands; although little is known of the man himself, except in\nRoss-shire.  He was a small farmer in Strathpeffer, near Dingwall, and\nfor many years of his life neither exhibited any talents, nor claimed any\nintelligence above his fellows.  The manner in which he obtained the\nprophetic gift was told by himself in the following manner:--\n\nAs he was one day at work in the hill casting (digging) peats, he heard a\nvoice which seemed to call to him out of the air.  It commanded him to\ndig under a little green knoll which was near, and to gather up the small\nwhite stones which he would discover beneath the turf.  The voice\ninformed him, at the same time, that while he kept these stones in his\npossession, he should be endued with the power of supernatural\nforeknowledge.\n\nKenneth, though greatly alarmed at this aerial conversation, followed the\ndirections of his invisible instructor, and turning up the turf on the\nhillock, in a little time discovered the talismans.  From that day\nforward, the mind of Kenneth was illuminated by gleams of unearthly\nlight; and he made many predictions, of which the credulity of the\npeople, and the coincidence of accident, often supplied confirmation; and\nhe certainly became the most notable of the Highland prophets.  The most\nremarkable and well known of his vaticinations is the\nfollowing:--\"Whenever a M'Lean with long hands, a Fraser with a black\nspot on his face, a M'Gregor with a black knee, and a club-footed M'Leod\nof Raga, shall have existed; whenever there shall have been successively\nthree M'Donalds of the name of John, and three M'Kinnons of the same\nChristian name,--oppressors will appear in the country, and the people\nwill change their own land for a strange one.\"  All these personages have\nappeared since; and it is the common opinion of the peasantry, that the\nconsummation of the prophecy was fulfilled, when the exaction of the\nexorbitant rents reduced the Highlanders to poverty, and the introduction\nof the sheep banished the people to America.\n\nWhatever might have been the gift of Kenneth Oer, he does not appear to\nhave used it with an extraordinary degree of discretion; and the last\ntime he exercised it, he was very near paying dear for his divination.\n\nOn this occasion he happened to be at some high festival of the M'Kenzies\nat Castle Braan.  One of the guests was so exhilarated by the scene of\ngaiety, that he could not forbear an eulogium on the gallantry of the\nfeast, and the nobleness of the guests.  Kenneth, it appears, had no\nregard for the M'Kenzies, and was so provoked by this sally in their\npraise, that he not only broke out into a severe satire against their\nwhole race, but gave vent to the prophetic denunciation of wrath and\nconfusion upon their posterity.  The guests being informed (or having\noverheard a part) of this rhapsody, instantly rose up with one accord to\npunish the contumely of the prophet.  Kenneth, though he foretold the\nfate of others, did not in any manner look into that of himself; for this\nreason, being doubtful of debating the propriety of his prediction upon\nsuch unequal terms, he fled with the greatest precipitation.  The\nM'Kenzies followed with infinite zeal; and more than one ball had\nwhistled over the head of the seer before he reached Loch Ousie.  The\nconsequences of this prediction so disgusted Kenneth with any further\nexercise of his prophetic calling, that, in the anguish of his flight, he\nsolemnly renounced all communication with its power; and, as he ran along\nthe margin of Loch Ousie, he took out the wonderful pebbles, and cast\nthem in a fury into the water.  Whether his evil genius had now forsaken\nhim, or his condition was better than that of his pursuers, is unknown,\nbut certain it is, Kenneth, after the sacrifice of the pebbles,\noutstripped his enraged enemies, and never, so far as I have heard, made\nany attempt at prophecy from the hour of his escape.\n\nKenneth Oer had a son, who was called Ian Dubh Mac Coinnach (Black John,\nthe son of Kenneth), and lived in the village of Miltoun, near Dingwall.\nHis chief occupation was brewing whisky; and he was killed in a fray at\nMiltoun, early in the present century.  His exit would not have formed\nthe catastrophe of an epic poem, and appears to have been one of those\nevents of which his father had no intelligence, for it happened in the\nfollowing manner:--\n\nHaving fallen into a dispute with a man with whom he had previously been\non friendly terms, they proceeded to blows; in the scuffle, the boy, the\nson of Ian's adversary, observing the two combatants locked in a close\nand firm gripe of eager contention, and being doubtful of the event, ran\ninto the house and brought out the iron pot-crook, with which he saluted\nthe head of the unfortunate Ian so severely, that he not only\nrelinquished his combat, but departed this life on the ensuing morning.\n\n\n\n\nELPHIN IRVING.\n\n\n   THE FAIRIES' CUPBEARER.\n\n   \"The lady kilted her kirtle green\n      A little aboon her knee,\n   The lady snooded her yellow hair\n      A little aboon her bree,\n   And she's gane to the good greenwood\n      As fast as she could hie.\n\n   And first she let the black steed pass,\n      And syne she let the brown,\n   And then she flew to the milk-white steed,\n      And pulled the rider down:\n   Syne out then sang the queen o' the fairies,\n      Frae midst a bank of broom,\n   She that has won him, young Tamlane,\n      Has gotten a gallant groom.\"\n\n   _Old Ballad_.\n\n\"The romantic vale of Corriewater, in Annandale, is regarded by the\ninhabitants, a pastoral and unmingled people, as the last border refuge\nof those beautiful and capricious beings, the fairies.  Many old people\nyet living imagine they have had intercourse of good words and good deeds\nwith the 'good folk'; and continue to tell that in the ancient days the\nfairies danced on the hill, and revelled in the glen, and showed\nthemselves, like the mysterious children of the deity of old, among the\nsons and daughters of men.  Their visits to the earth were periods of joy\nand mirth to mankind, rather than of sorrow and apprehension.  They\nplayed on musical instruments of wonderful sweetness and variety of note,\nspread unexpected feasts, the supernatural flavour of which overpowered\non many occasions the religious scruples of the Presbyterian shepherds,\nperformed wonderful deeds of horsemanship, and marched in midnight\nprocessions, when the sound of their elfin minstrelsy charmed youths and\nmaidens into love for their persons and pursuits; and more than one\nfamily of Corriewater have the fame of augmenting the numbers of the\nelfin chivalry.  Faces of friends and relatives, long since doomed to the\nbattle-trench or the deep sea, have been recognised by those who dared to\ngaze on the fairy march.  The maid has seen her lost lover, and the\nmother her stolen child; and the courage to plan and achieve their\ndeliverance has been possessed by, at least, one border maiden.  In the\nlegends of the people of Corrievale, there is a singular mixture of elfin\nand human adventure, and the traditional story of the Cupbearer to the\nQueen of the Fairies appeals alike to our domestic feelings and\nimagination.\n\n\"In one of the little green loops or bends on the banks of Corriewater,\nmouldered walls, and a few stunted wild plum-trees and vagrant roses,\nstill point out the site of a cottage and garden.  A well of pure spring-\nwater leaps out from an old tree-root before the door; and here the\nshepherds, shading themselves in summer from the influence of the sun,\ntell to their children the wild tale of Elphin Irving and his sister\nPhemie; and, singular as the story seems, it has gained full credence\namong the people where the scene is laid.\"\n\n\"I ken the tale and the place weel,\" interrupted an old Scottish woman,\nwho, from the predominance of scarlet in her apparel, seemed to have been\na follower of the camp,--\"I ken them weel, and the tale's as true as a\nbullet to its aim and a spark to powder.  O bonnie Corriewater, a\nthousand times have I pulled gowans on its banks wi' ane that lies stiff\nand stark on a foreign shore in a bloody grave;\" and, sobbing audibly,\nshe drew the remains of a military cloak over her face, and allowed the\nstory to proceed.\n\n\"When Elphin Irving and his sister Phemie were in their sixteenth year,\nfor tradition says they were twins, their father was drowned in\nCorriewater, attempting to save his sheep from a sudden swell, to which\nall mountain streams are liable; and their mother, on the day of her\nhusband's burial, laid down her head on the pillow, from which, on the\nseventh day, it was lifted to be dressed for the same grave.  The\ninheritance left to the orphans may be briefly described: seventeen acres\nof plough and pasture land, seven milk cows, and seven pet sheep (many\nold people take delight in odd numbers); and to this may be added seven\nbonnet-pieces of Scottish gold, and a broadsword and spear, which their\nancestor had wielded with such strength and courage in the battle of\nDryfe Sands, that the minstrel who sang of that deed of arms ranked him\nonly second to the Scotts and Johnstones.\n\n\"The youth and his sister grew in stature and in beauty.  The brent\nbright brow, the clear blue eye, and frank and blithe deportment of the\nformer gave him some influence among the young women of the valley; while\nthe latter was no less the admiration of the young men, and at fair and\ndance, and at bridal, happy was he who touched but her hand, or received\nthe benediction of her eye.  Like all other Scottish beauties, she was\nthe theme of many a song; and while tradition is yet busy with the\nsingular history of her brother, song has taken all the care that rustic\nminstrelsy can of the gentleness of her spirit and the charms of her\nperson.\"\n\n\"Now I vow,\" exclaimed a wandering piper, \"by mine own honoured\ninstrument, and by all other instruments that ever yielded music for the\njoy and delight of mankind, that there are more bonnie songs made about\nfair Phemie Irving than about all other dames of Annandale, and many of\nthem are both high and bonnie.  A proud lass maun she be if her spirit\nhears; and men say the dust lies not insensible of beautiful verse; for\nher charms are breathed through a thousand sweet lips, and no further\ngone than yestermorn I heard a lass singing on a green hillside what I\nshall not readily forget.  If ye like to listen, ye shall judge; and it\nwill not stay the story long, nor mar it much, for it is short, and about\nPhemie Irving.\"  And, accordingly, he chanted the following rude verses,\nnot unaccompanied by his honoured instrument, as he called his pipe,\nwhich chimed in with great effect, and gave richness to a voice which\nfelt better than it could express:--\n\n   FAIR PHEMIE IRVING.\n\n   Gay is thy glen, Corrie,\n      With all thy groves flowering;\n   Green is thy glen, Corrie,\n      When July is showering;\n   And sweet is yon wood where\n      The small birds are bowering,\n   And there dwells the sweet one\n      Whom I am adoring.\n\n   Her round neck is whiter\n      Than winter when snowing;\n   Her meek voice is milder\n      Than Ae in its flowing;\n   The glad ground yields music\n      Where she goes by the river;\n   One kind glance would charm me\n      For ever and ever.\n\n   The proud and the wealthy\n      To Phemie are bowing;\n   No looks of love win they\n      With sighing or suing;\n   Far away maun I stand\n      With my rude wooing,\n   She's a flow'ret too lovely\n      Too bloom for my pu'ing.\n\n   Oh were I yon violet\n      On which she is walking;\n   Oh were I yon small bird\n      To which she is talking;\n   Or yon rose in her hand,\n      With its ripe ruddy blossom;\n   Or some pure gentle thought\n      To be blest with her bosom.\n\nThis minstrel interruption, while it established Phemie Irving's claim to\ngrace and to beauty, gave me additional confidence to pursue the story.\n\n\"But minstrel skill and true love-tale seemed to want their usual\ninfluence when they sought to win her attention; she was only observed to\npay most respect to those youths who were most beloved by her brother;\nand the same hour that brought these twins to the world seemed to have\nbreathed through them a sweetness and an affection of heart and mind\nwhich nothing could divide.  If, like the virgin queen of the immortal\npoet, she walked 'in maiden meditation fancy free,' her brother Elphin\nseemed alike untouched with the charms of the fairest virgins in Corrie.\nHe ploughed his field, he reaped his grain, he leaped, he ran, and\nwrestled, and danced, and sang, with more skill and life and grace than\nall other youths of the district; but he had no twilight and stolen\ninterviews; when all other young men had their loves by their side, he\nwas single, though not unsought, and his joy seemed never perfect save\nwhen his sister was near him.  If he loved to share his time with her,\nshe loved to share her time with him alone, or with the beasts of the\nfield, or the birds of the air.  She watched her little flock late, and\nshe tended it early; not for the sordid love of the fleece, unless it was\nto make mantles for her brother, but with the look of one who had joy in\nits company.  The very wild creatures, the deer and the hares, seldom\nsought to shun her approach, and the bird forsook not its nest, nor\nstinted its song, when she drew nigh; such is the confidence which maiden\ninnocence and beauty inspire.\n\n\"It happened one summer, about three years after they became orphans,\nthat rain had been for a while withheld from the earth, the hillsides\nbegan to parch, the grass in the vales to wither, and the stream of\nCorrie was diminished between its banks to the size of an ordinary rill.\nThe shepherds drove their flocks to moorlands, and marsh and tarn had\ntheir reeds invaded by the scythe to supply the cattle with food.  The\nsheep of his sister were Elphin's constant care; he drove them to the\nmoistest pastures during the day, and he often watched them at midnight,\nwhen flocks, tempted by the sweet dewy grass, are known to browse\neagerly, that he might guard them from the fox, and lead them to the\nchoicest herbage.  In these nocturnal watchings he sometimes drove his\nlittle flock over the water of Corrie, for the fords were hardly ankle-\ndeep; or permitted his sheep to cool themselves in the stream, and taste\nthe grass which grew along the brink.  All this time not a drop of rain\nfell, nor did a cloud appear in the sky.\n\n\"One evening, during her brother's absence with the flock, Phemie sat at\nher cottage-door, listening to the bleatings of the distant folds and the\nlessened murmur of the water of Corrie, now scarcely audible beyond its\nbanks.  Her eyes, weary with watching along the accustomed line of road\nfor the return of Elphin, were turned on the pool beside her, in which\nthe stars were glimmering fitful and faint.  As she looked she imagined\nthe water grew brighter and brighter; a wild illumination presently shone\nupon the pool, and leaped from bank to bank, and suddenly changing into a\nhuman form, ascended the margin, and, passing her, glided swiftly into\nthe cottage.  The visionary form was so like her brother in shape and\nair, that, starting up, she flew into the house, with the hope of finding\nhim in his customary seat.  She found him not, and, impressed with the\nterror which a wraith or apparition seldom fails to inspire, she uttered\na shriek so loud and so piercing as to be heard at Johnstone Bank, on the\nother side of the vale of Corrie.\"\n\nAn old woman now rose suddenly from her seat in the window-sill, the\nliving dread of shepherds, for she travelled the country with a brilliant\nreputation for witchcraft, and thus she broke in upon the narrative: \"I\nvow, young man, ye tell us the truth upset and down-thrust.  I heard my\ndouce grandmother say that on the night when Elphin Irving\ndisappeared--disappeared I shall call it, for the bairn can but be gone\nfor a season, to return to us in his own appointed time--she was seated\nat the fireside at Johnstone Bank; the laird had laid aside his bonnet to\ntake the Book, when a shriek mair loud, believe me, than a mere woman's\nshriek--and they can shriek loud enough, else they're sair wranged--came\nover the water of Corrie, so sharp and shrilling, that the pewter plates\ndinneled on the wall; such a shriek, my douce grandmother said, as rang\nin her ear till the hour of her death, and she lived till she was aughty-\nand-aught, forty full ripe years after the event.  But there is another\nmatter, which, doubtless, I cannot compel ye to believe: it was the\ncommon rumour that Elphin Irving came not into the world like the other\nsinful creatures of the earth, but was one of the kane-bairns of the\nfairies, whilk they had to pay to the enemy of man's salvation every\nseventh year.  The poor lady-fairy--a mother's aye a mother, be she\nelves' flesh or Eve's flesh--hid her elf son beside the christened flesh\nin Marion Irving's cradle, and the auld enemy lost his prey for a time.\nNow, hasten on with your story, which is not a bodle the waur for me.  The\nmaiden saw the shape of her brother, fell into a faint, or a trance, and\nthe neighbours came flocking in--gang on with your tale, young man, and\ndinna be affronted because an auld woman helped ye wi 't.\"\n\n\"It is hardly known,\" I resumed, \"how long Phemie Irving continued in a\nstate of insensibility.  The morning was far advanced, when a\nneighbouring maiden found her seated in an old chair, as white as\nmonumental marble; her hair, about which she had always been solicitous,\nloosened from its curls, and hanging disordered over her neck and bosom,\nher hands and forehead.  The maiden touched the one, and kissed the\nother; they were as cold as snow; and her eyes, wide open, were fixed on\nher brother's empty chair, with the intensity of gaze of one who had\nwitnessed the appearance of a spirit.  She seemed insensible of any one's\npresence, and sat fixed and still and motionless.  The maiden, alarmed at\nher looks, thus addressed her:--'Phemie, lass, Phemie Irving!  Dear me,\nbut this be awful!  I have come to tell ye that seven of your pet sheep\nhave escaped drowning in the water; for Corrie, sae quiet and sae gentle\nyestreen, is rolling and dashing frae bank to bank this morning.  Dear\nme, woman, dinna let the loss of the world's gear bereave ye of your\nsenses.  I would rather make ye a present of a dozen mug-ewes of the\nTinwald brood myself; and now I think on 't, if ye'll send over Elphin, I\nwill help him hame with them in the gloaming myself.  So, Phemie, woman,\nbe comforted.'\n\n\"At the mention of her brother's name she cried out, 'Where is he?  Oh,\nwhere is he?' gazed wildly round, and, shuddering from head to foot, fell\nsenseless on the floor.  Other inhabitants of the valley, alarmed by the\nsudden swell of the river, which had augmented to a torrent, deep and\nimpassable, now came in to inquire if any loss had been sustained, for\nnumbers of sheep and teds of hay had been observed floating down about\nthe dawn of the morning.  They assisted in reclaiming the unhappy maiden\nfrom her swoon; but insensibility was joy compared to the sorrow to which\nshe awakened.  'They have ta'en him away, they have ta'en him away,' she\nchanted, in a tone of delirious pathos; 'him that was whiter and fairer\nthan the lily on Lyddal Lee.  They have long sought, and they have long\nsued, and they had the power to prevail against my prayers at last.  They\nhave ta'en him away; the flower is plucked from among the weeds, and the\ndove is slain amid a flock of ravens.  They came with shout, and they\ncame with song, and they spread the charm, and they placed the spell, and\nthe baptised brow has been bowed down to the unbaptised hand.  They have\nta'en him away, they have ta'en him away; he was too lovely, and too\ngood, and too noble, to bless us with his continuance on earth; for what\nare the sons of men compared to him?--the light of the moonbeam to the\nmorning sun, the glowworm to the eastern star.  They have ta'en him away,\nthe invisible dwellers of the earth.  I saw them come on him with\nshouting and with singing, and they charmed him where he sat, and away\nthey bore him; and the horse he rode was never shod with iron, nor owned\nbefore the mastery of human hand.  They have ta'en him away over the\nwater, and over the wood, and over the hill.  I got but ae look of his\nbonnie blue ee, but ae; ae look.  But as I have endured what never maiden\nendured, so will I undertake what never maiden undertook, I will win him\nfrom them all.  I know the invisible ones of the earth; I have heard\ntheir wild and wondrous music in the wild woods, and there shall a\nchristened maiden seek him, and achieve his deliverance.'  She paused,\nand glancing around a circle of condoling faces, down which the tears\nwere dropping like rain, said, in a calm and altered but still delirious\ntone: 'Why do you weep, Mary Halliday? and why do you weep, John Graeme?\nYe think that Elphin Irving--oh, it's a bonnie, bonnie name, and dear to\nmany a maiden's heart, as well as mine--ye think he is drowned in Corrie;\nand ye will seek in the deep, deep pools for the bonnie, bonnie corse,\nthat ye may weep over it, as it lies in its last linen, and lay it, amid\nweeping and wailing in the dowie kirkyard.  Ye may seek, but ye shall\nnever find; so leave me to trim up my hair, and prepare my dwelling, and\nmake myself ready to watch for the hour of his return to upper earth.'\nAnd she resumed her household labours with an alacrity which lessened not\nthe sorrow of her friends.\n\n\"Meanwhile the rumour flew over the vale that Elphin Irving was drowned\nin Corriewater.  Matron and maid, old man and young, collected suddenly\nalong the banks of the river, which now began to subside to its natural\nsummer limits, and commenced their search; interrupted every now and then\nby calling from side to side, and from pool to pool, and by exclamations\nof sorrow for this misfortune.  The search was fruitless: five sheep,\npertaining to the flock which he conducted to pasture, were found drowned\nin one of the deep eddies; but the river was still too brown, from the\nsoil of its moorland sources, to enable them to see what its deep\nshelves, its pools, and its overhanging and hazelly banks concealed.  They\nremitted further search till the stream should become pure; and old man\ntaking old man aside, began to whisper about the mystery of the youth's\ndisappearance; old women laid their lips to the ears of their coevals,\nand talked of Elphin Irving's fairy parentage, and his having been\ndropped by an unearthly hand into a Christian cradle.  The young men and\nmaids conversed on other themes; they grieved for the loss of the friend\nand the lover, and while the former thought that a heart so kind and true\nwas not left in the vale, the latter thought, as maidens will, on his\nhandsome person, gentle manners, and merry blue eye, and speculated with\na sigh on the time when they might have hoped a return for their love.\nThey were soon joined by others who had heard the wild and delirious\nlanguage of his sister: the old belief was added to the new assurance,\nand both again commented upon by minds full of superstitious feeling, and\nhearts full of supernatural fears, till the youths and maidens of\nCorrievale held no more love trysts for seven days and nights, lest, like\nElphin Irving, they should be carried away to augment the ranks of the\nunchristened chivalry.\n\n\"It was curious to listen to the speculations of the peasantry.  'For my\npart,' said a youth, 'if I were sure that poor Elphin escaped from that\nperilous water, I would not give the fairies a pound of hiplock wool for\ntheir chance of him.  There has not been a fairy seen in the land since\nDonald Cargil, the Cameronian, conjured them into the Solway for playing\non their pipes during one of his nocturnal preachings on the hip of the\nBurnswark hill.'\n\n\"'Preserve me, bairn,' said an old woman, justly exasperated at the\nincredulity of her nephew, 'if ye winna believe what I both heard and saw\nat the moonlight end of Craigyburnwood on a summer night, rank after rank\nof the fairy folk, ye'll at least believe a douce man and a ghostly\nprofessor, even the late minister of Tinwaldkirk.  His only son--I mind\nthe lad weel, with his long yellow locks and his bonnie blue eyes--when I\nwas but a gilpie of a lassie, _he_ was stolen away from off the horse at\nhis father's elbow, as they crossed that false and fearsome water, even\nLocherbriggflow, on the night of the Midsummer fair of Dumfries.  Ay, ay,\nwho can doubt the truth of that?  Have not the godly inhabitants of\nAlmsfieldtown and Tinwaldkirk seen the sweet youth riding at midnight, in\nthe midst of the unhallowed troop, to the sound of flute and of dulcimer,\nand though meikle they prayed, naebody tried to achieve his deliverance?'\n\n\"'I have heard it said by douce folk and sponsible,' interrupted another,\n'that every seven years the elves and fairies pay kane, or make an\noffering of one of their children, to the grand enemy of salvation, and\nthat they are permitted to purloin one of the children of men to present\nto the fiend--a more acceptable offering, I'll warrant, than one of their\nown infernal brood that are Satan's sib allies, and drink a drop of the\ndeil's blood every May morning.  And touching this lost lad, ye all ken\nhis mother was a hawk of an uncanny nest, a second cousin of Kate Kimmer,\nof Barfloshan, as rank a witch as ever rode on ragwort.  Ay, sirs, what's\nbred in the bone is ill to come out of the flesh.'\n\n\"On these and similar topics, which a peasantry full of ancient tradition\nand enthusiasm and superstition readily associate with the commonest\noccurrences of life, the people of Corrievale continued to converse till\nthe fall of evening, when each, seeking their home, renewed again the\nwondrous subject, and illustrated it with all that popular belief and\npoetic imagination could so abundantly supply.\n\n\"The night which followed this melancholy day was wild with wind and\nrain; the river came down broader and deeper than before, and the\nlightning, flashing by fits over the green woods of Corrie, showed the\nungovernable and perilous flood sweeping above its banks.  It happened\nthat a farmer, returning from one of the border fairs, encountered the\nfull swing of the storm; but mounted on an excellent horse, and mantled\nfrom chin to heel in a good grey plaid, beneath which he had the further\nsecurity of a thick greatcoat, he sat dry in his saddle, and proceeded in\nthe anticipated joy of a subsided tempest and a glowing morning sun.  As\nhe entered the long grove, or rather remains of the old Galwegian forest,\nwhich lines for some space the banks of the Corriewater, the storm began\nto abate, the wind sighed milder and milder among the trees, and here and\nthere a star, twinkling momentarily through the sudden rack of the\nclouds, showed the river raging from bank to brae.  As he shook the\nmoisture from his clothes, he was not without a wish that the day would\ndawn, and that he might be preserved on a road which his imagination\nbeset with greater perils than the raging river; for his superstitious\nfeeling let loose upon his path elf and goblin, and the current\ntraditions of the district supplied very largely to his apprehension the\nready materials of fear.\n\n\"Just as he emerged from the wood, where a fine sloping bank, covered\nwith short greensward, skirts the limit of the forest, his horse made a\nfull pause, snorted, trembled, and started from side to side, stooped his\nhead, erected his ears, and seemed to scrutinise every tree and bush.  The\nrider, too, it may be imagined, gazed round and round, and peered warily\ninto every suspicious-looking place.  His dread of a supernatural\nvisitation was not much allayed when he observed a female shape seated on\nthe ground at the root of a huge old oak-tree, which stood in the centre\nof one of those patches of verdant sward, known by the name of 'fairy\nrings,' and avoided by all peasants who wish to prosper.  A long thin\ngleam of eastern daylight enabled him to examine accurately the being\nwho, in this wild place and unusual hour, gave additional terror to this\nhaunted spot.  She was dressed in white from the neck to the knees; her\narms, long and round and white, were perfectly bare; her head, uncovered,\nallowed her long hair to descend in ringlet succeeding ringlet, till the\nhalf of her person was nearly concealed in the fleece.  Amidst the whole,\nher hands were constantly busy in shedding aside the tresses which\ninterposed between her steady and uninterrupted gaze down a line of old\nroad which wound among the hills to an ancient burial-ground.\n\n\"As the traveller continued to gaze, the figure suddenly rose, and,\nwringing the rain from her long locks, paced round and round the tree,\nchanting in a wild and melancholy manner an equally wild and delirious\nsong.\n\n   THE FAIRY OAK OF CORRIEWATER.\n\n   The small bird's head is under its wing,\n      The deer sleeps on the grass;\n   The moon comes out, and the stars shine down,\n      The dew gleams like the glass:\n   There is no sound in the world so wide,\n      Save the sound of the smitten brass,\n   With the merry cittern and the pipe\n      Of the fairies as they pass.\n   But oh! the fire maun burn and burn,\n   And the hour is gone, and will never return.\n\n   The green hill cleaves, and forth, with a bound,\n      Comes elf and elfin steed;\n   The moon dives down in a golden cloud,\n      The stars grow dim with dread;\n   But a light is running along the earth,\n      So of heaven's they have no need:\n   O'er moor and moss with a shout they pass,\n      And the word is spur and speed--\n   But the fire maun burn, and I maun quake,\n   And the hour is gone that will never come back.\n\n   And when they came to Craigyburnwood,\n      The Queen of the Fairies spoke:\n   \"Come, bind your steeds to the rushes so green,\n      And dance by the haunted oak:\n   I found the acorn on Heshbon Hill,\n      In the nook of a palmer's poke,\n   A thousand years since; here it grows!\"\n      And they danced till the greenwood shook:\n   But oh! the fire, the burning fire,\n   The longer it burns, it but blazes the higher.\n\n   \"I have won me a youth,\" the Elf Queen said,\n      \"The fairest that earth may see;\n   This night I have won young Elph Irving\n      My cupbearer to be.\n   His service lasts but seven sweet years,\n      And his wage is a kiss of me.\"\n   And merrily, merrily, laughed the wild elves\n      Round Corris's greenwood tree.\n   But oh! the fire it glows in my brain,\n   And the hour is gone, and comes not again.\n\n   The Queen she has whispered a secret word,\n      \"Come hither my Elphin sweet,\n   And bring that cup of the charmed wine,\n      Thy lips and mine to weet.\"\n   But a brown elf shouted a loud, loud shout,\n      \"Come, leap on your coursers fleet,\n   For here comes the smell of some baptised flesh,\n      And the sounding of baptised feet.\"\n   But oh! the fire that burns, and maun burn;\n   For the time that is gone will never return.\n\n   On a steed as white as the new-milked milk,\n      The Elf Queen leaped with a bound,\n   And young Elphin a steed like December snow\n      'Neath him at the word he found.\n   But a maiden came, and her christened arms\n      She linked her brother around,\n   And called on God, and the steed with a snort\n      Sank into the gaping ground.\n   But the fire maun burn, and I maun quake,\n   And the time that is gone will no more come back.\n\n   And she held her brother, and lo! he grew\n      A wild bull waked in ire;\n   And she held her brother, and lo! he changed\n      To a river roaring higher;\n   And she held her brother, and he became\n      A flood of the raging fire;\n   She shrieked and sank, and the wild elves laughed\n      Till the mountain rang and mire.\n   But oh! the fire yet burns in my brain,\n   And the hour is gone, and comes not again.\n\n   \"O maiden, why waxed thy faith so faint,\n      Thy spirit so slack and slaw?\n   Thy courage kept good till the flame waxed wud,\n      Then thy might begun to thaw;\n   Had ye kissed him with thy christened lip,\n      Ye had wan him frae 'mang us a'.\n   Now bless the fire, the elfin fire,\n      That made thee faint and fa';\n   Now bless the fire, the elfin fire,\n   The longer it burns it blazes the higher.\"\n\n\"At the close of this unusual strain, the figure sat down on the grass,\nand proceeded to bind up her long and disordered tresses, gazing along\nthe old and unfrequented road.  'Now God be my helper,' said the\ntraveller, who happened to be the laird of Johnstone Bank, 'can this be a\ntrick of the fiend, or can it be bonnie Phemie Irving who chants this\ndolorous sang?  Something sad has befallen that makes her seek her seat\nin this eerie nook amid the darkness and tempest; through might from\naboon I will go on and see.'  And the horse, feeling something of the\nowner's reviving spirit in the application of spur-steel, bore him at\nonce to the foot of the tree.  The poor delirious maiden uttered a yell\nof piercing joy as she beheld him, and, with the swiftness of a creature\nwinged, linked her arms round the rider's waist, and shrieked till the\nwoods rang.  'Oh, I have ye now, Elphin, I have ye now,' and she strained\nhim to her bosom with a convulsive grasp.  'What ails ye, my bonnie\nlass?' said the laird of Johnstone Bank, his fears of the supernatural\nvanishing when he beheld her sad and bewildered look.  She raised her\neyes at the sound, and seeing a strange face, her arms slipped their\nhold, and she dropped with a groan on the ground.\n\n\"The morning had now fairly broke; the flocks shook the rain from their\nsides, the shepherds hastened to inspect their charges, and a thin blue\nsmoke began to stream from the cottages of the valley into the\nbrightening air.  The laird carried Phemie Irving in his arms, till he\nobserved two shepherds ascending from one of the loops of Corriewater,\nbearing the lifeless body of her brother.  They had found him whirling\nround and round in one of the numerous eddies, and his hands, clutched\nand filled with wool, showed that he had lost his life in attempting to\nsave the flock of his sister.  A plaid was laid over the body, which,\nalong with the unhappy maiden in a half-lifeless state, was carried into\na cottage, and laid in that apartment distinguished among the peasantry\nby the name of the chamber.  While the peasant's wife was left to take\ncare of Phemie, old man and matron and maid had collected around the\ndrowned youth, and each began to relate the circumstances of his death,\nwhen the door suddenly opened, and his sister, advancing to the corpse,\nwith a look of delirious serenity, broke out into a wild laugh and said:\n'Oh, it is wonderful, it's truly wonderful!  That bare and death-cold\nbody, dragged from the darkest pool of Corrie, with its hands filled with\nfine wool, wears the perfect similitude of my own Elphin!  I'll tell\nye--the spiritual dwellers of the earth, the fairyfolk of our evening\ntale, have stolen the living body, and fashioned this cold and inanimate\nclod to mislead your pursuit.  In common eyes this seems all that Elphin\nIrving would be, had he sunk in Corriewater; but so it seems not to me.\nYe have sought the living soul, and ye have found only its garment.  But\noh, if ye had beheld him, as I beheld him to-night, riding among the\nelfin troop, the fairest of them all; had you clasped him in your arms,\nand wrestled for him with spirits and terrible shapes from the other\nworld, till your heart quailed and your flesh was subdued, then would ye\nyield no credit to the semblance which this cold and apparent flesh bears\nto my brother.  But hearken!  On Hallowmass Eve, when the spiritual\npeople are let loose on earth for a season, I will take my stand in the\nburial-ground of Corrie; and when my Elphin and his unchristened troop\ncome past, with the sound of all their minstrelsy, I will leap on him and\nwin him, or perish for ever.'\n\n\"All gazed aghast on the delirious maiden, and many of her auditors gave\nmore credence to her distempered speech than to the visible evidence\nbefore them.  As she turned to depart, she looked round, and suddenly\nsank upon the body, with tears streaming from her eyes, and sobbed out,\n'My brother!  Oh, my brother!'  She was carried out insensible, and again\nrecovered; but relapsed into her ordinary delirium, in which she\ncontinued till the Hallow Eve after her brother's burial.  She was found\nseated in the ancient burial-ground, her back against a broken\ngravestone, her locks white with frost-rime, watching with intensity of\nlook the road to the kirkyard; but the spirit which gave life to the\nfairest form of all the maids of Annandale was fled for ever.\"\n\nSuch is the singular story which the peasants know by the name of \"Elphin\nIrving, the Fairies' Cupbearer\"; and the title, in its fullest and most\nsupernatural sense, still obtains credence among the industrious and\nvirtuous dames of the romantic vale of Corrie.\n\n\n\n\nTHE GHOSTS OF CRAIG-AULNAIC.\n\n\nTwo celebrated ghosts existed, once on a time, in the wilds of\nCraig-Aulnaic, a romantic place in the district of Strathdown,\nBanffshire.  The one was a male and the other a female.  The male was\ncalled Fhuna Mhoir Ben Baynac, after one of the mountains of Glenavon,\nwhere at one time he resided; and the female was called Clashnichd\nAulnaic, from her having had her abode in Craig-Aulnaic.  But although\nthe great ghost of Ben Baynac was bound by the common ties of nature and\nof honour to protect and cherish his weaker companion, Clashnichd\nAulnaic, yet he often treated her in the most cruel and unfeeling manner.\nIn the dead of night, when the surrounding hamlets were buried in deep\nrepose, and when nothing else disturbed the solemn stillness of the\nmidnight scene, oft would the shrill shrieks of poor Clashnichd burst\nupon the slumberer's ears, and awake him to anything but pleasant\nreflections.\n\nBut of all those who were incommoded by the noisy and unseemly quarrels\nof these two ghosts, James Owre or Gray, the tenant of the farm of Balbig\nof Delnabo, was the greatest sufferer.  From the proximity of his abode\nto their haunts, it was the misfortune of himself and family to be the\nnightly audience of Clashnichd's cries and lamentations, which they\nconsidered anything but agreeable entertainment.\n\nOne day as James Gray was on his rounds looking after his sheep, he\nhappened to fall in with Clashnichd, the ghost of Aulnaic, with whom he\nentered into a long conversation.  In the course of it he took occasion\nto remonstrate with her on the very disagreeable disturbance she caused\nhimself and family by her wild and unearthly cries--cries which, he said,\nfew mortals could relish in the dreary hours of midnight.  Poor\nClashnichd, by way of apology for her conduct, gave James Gray a sad\naccount of her usage, detailing at full length the series of cruelties\ncommitted upon her by Ben Baynac.  From this account, it appeared that\nher living with the latter was by no means a matter of choice with\nClashnichd; on the contrary, it seemed that she had, for a long time,\nlived apart with much comfort, residing in a snug dwelling, as already\nmentioned, in the wilds of Craig-Aulnaic; but Ben Baynac having\nunfortunately taken into his head to pay her a visit, took a fancy, not\nto herself, but her dwelling, of which, in his own name and authority, he\ntook immediate possession, and soon after he expelled poor Clashnichd,\nwith many stripes, from her natural inheritance.  Not satisfied with\ninvading and depriving her of her just rights, he was in the habit of\nfollowing her into her private haunts, not with the view of offering her\nany endearments, but for the purpose of inflicting on her person every\ntorment which his brain could invent.\n\nSuch a moving relation could not fail to affect the generous heart of\nJames Gray, who determined from that moment to risk life and limb in\norder to vindicate the rights and avenge the wrongs of poor Clashnichd,\nthe ghost of Craig-Aulnaic.  He, therefore, took good care to interrogate\nhis new _protegee_ touching the nature of her oppressor's constitution,\nwhether he was of that _killable_ species of ghost that could be shot\nwith a silver sixpence, or if there was any other weapon that could\npossibly accomplish his annihilation.  Clashnichd informed him that she\nhad occasion to know that Ben Baynac was wholly invulnerable to all the\nweapons of man, with the exception of a large mole on his left breast,\nwhich was no doubt penetrable by silver or steel; but that, from the\nspecimens she had of his personal prowess and strength, it were vain for\nmere man to attempt to combat him.  Confiding, however, in his expertness\nas an archer--for he was allowed to be the best marksman of the age--James\nGray told Clashnichd he did not fear him with all his might,--that _he_\nwas a man; and desired her, moreover, next time the ghost chose to repeat\nhis incivilities to her, to apply to him, James Gray, for redress.\n\nIt was not long ere he had an opportunity of fulfilling his promises.  Ben\nBaynac having one night, in the want of better amusement, entertained\nhimself by inflicting an inhuman castigation on Clashnichd, she lost no\ntime in waiting on James Gray, with a full and particular account of it.\nShe found him smoking his _cutty_, for it was night when she came to him;\nbut, notwithstanding the inconvenience of the hour, James needed no great\npersuasion to induce him to proceed directly along with Clashnichd to\nhold a communing with their friend, Ben Baynac, the great ghost.\nClashnichd was stout and sturdy, and understood the knack of travelling\nmuch better than our women do.  She expressed a wish that, for the sake\nof expedition, James Gray would suffer her to bear him along, a motion to\nwhich the latter agreed; and a few minutes brought them close to the\nscene of Ben Baynac's residence.  As they approached his haunt, he came\nforth to meet them, with looks and gestures which did not at all indicate\na cordial welcome.  It was a fine moonlight night, and they could easily\nobserve his actions.  Poor Clashnichd was now sorely afraid of the great\nghost.  Apprehending instant destruction from his fury, she exclaimed to\nJames Gray that they would be both dead people, and that immediately,\nunless James Gray hit with an arrow the mole which covered Ben Baynac's\nheart.  This was not so difficult a task as James had hitherto\napprehended it.  The mole was as large as a common bonnet, and yet nowise\ndisproportioned to the natural size of the ghost's body, for he certainly\nwas a great and a mighty ghost.  Ben Baynac cried out to James Gray that\nhe would soon make eagle's meat of him; and certain it is, such was his\nintention, had not the shepherd so effectually stopped him from the\nexecution of it.  Raising his bow to his eye when within a few yards of\nBen Baynac, he took deliberate aim; the arrow flew--it hit--a yell from\nBen Baynac announced the result.  A hideous howl re-echoed from the\nsurrounding mountains, responsive to the groans of a thousand ghosts; and\nBen Baynac, like the smoke of a shot, vanished into air.\n\nClashnichd, the ghost of Aulnaic, now found herself emancipated from the\nmost abject state of slavery, and restored to freedom and liberty,\nthrough the invincible courage of James Gray.  Overpowered with\ngratitude, she fell at his feet, and vowed to devote the whole of her\ntime and talents towards his service and prosperity.  Meanwhile, being\nanxious to have her remaining goods and furniture removed to her former\ndwelling, whence she had been so iniquitously expelled by Ben Baynac, the\ngreat ghost, she requested of her new master the use of his horses to\nremove them.  James observing on the adjacent hill a flock of deer, and\nwishing to have a trial of his new servant's sagacity or expertness, told\nher those were his horses--she was welcome to the use of them; desiring\nthat when she had done with them, she would inclose them in his stable.\nClashnichd then proceeded to make use of the horses, and James Gray\nreturned home to enjoy his night's rest.\n\nScarce had he reached his arm-chair, and reclined his cheek on his hand,\nto ruminate over the bold adventure of the night, when Clashnichd\nentered, with her \"breath in her throat,\" and venting the bitterest\ncomplaints at the unruliness of his horses, which had broken one-half of\nher furniture, and caused her more trouble in the stabling of them than\ntheir services were worth.\n\n\"Oh! they are stabled, then?\" inquired James Gray.  Clashnichd replied in\nthe affirmative.  \"Very well,\" rejoined James, \"they shall be tame enough\nto-morrow.\"\n\nFrom this specimen of Clashnichd, the ghost of Craig-Aulnaic's\nexpertness, it will be seen what a valuable acquisition her service\nproved to James Gray and his young family.  They were, however, speedily\ndeprived of her assistance by a most unfortunate accident.  From the\nsequel of the story, from which the foregoing is an extract, it appears\nthat poor Clashnichd was deeply addicted to propensities which at that\ntime rendered her kin so obnoxious to their human neighbours.  She was\nconstantly in the habit of visiting her friends much oftener than she was\ninvited, and, in the course of such visits, was never very scrupulous in\nmaking free with any eatables which fell within the circle of her\nobservation.\n\nOne day, while engaged on a foraging expedition of this description, she\nhappened to enter the Mill of Delnabo, which was inhabited in those days\nby the miller's family.  She found his wife engaged in roasting a large\ngridiron of fine savoury fish, the agreeable smell proceeding from which\nperhaps occasioned her visit.  With the usual inquiries after the health\nof the miller and his family, Clashnichd proceeded with the greatest\nfamiliarity and good-humour to make herself comfortable at their expense.\nBut the miller's wife, enraged at the loss of her fish, and not relishing\nsuch unwelcome familiarity, punished the unfortunate Clashnichd rather\ntoo severely for her freedom.  It happened that there was at the time a\nlarge caldron of boiling water suspended over the fire, and this caldron\nthe enraged wife overturned in Clashnichd's bosom!\n\nScalded beyond recovery, she fled up the wilds of Craig-Aulnaic, uttering\nthe most melancholy lamentations, nor has she been ever heard of since.\n\n\n\n\nTHE DOOMED RIDER.\n\n\n\"The Conan is as bonny a river as we hae in a' the north country.  There's\nmony a sweet sunny spot on its banks, an' mony a time an' aft hae I waded\nthrough its shallows, whan a boy, to set my little scautling-line for the\ntrouts an' the eels, or to gather the big pearl-mussels that lie sae\nthick in the fords.  But its bonny wooded banks are places for enjoying\nthe day in--no for passing the nicht.  I kenna how it is; it's nane o'\nyour wild streams that wander desolate through a desert country, like the\nAven, or that come rushing down in foam and thunder, ower broken rocks,\nlike the Foyers, or that wallow in darkness, deep, deep in the bowels o'\nthe earth, like the fearfu' Auldgraunt; an' yet no ane o' these rivers\nhas mair or frightfuller stories connected wi' it than the Conan.  Ane\ncan hardly saunter ower half-a-mile in its course, frae where it leaves\nCoutin till where it enters the sea, without passing ower the scene o'\nsome frightful auld legend o' the kelpie or the waterwraith.  And ane o'\nthe most frightful looking o' these places is to be found among the woods\nof Conan House.  Ye enter a swampy meadow that waves wi' flags an' rushes\nlike a corn-field in harvest, an' see a hillock covered wi' willows\nrising like an island in the midst.  There are thick mirk-woods on ilka\nside; the river, dark an' awesome, an' whirling round an' round in mossy\neddies, sweeps away behind it; an' there is an auld burying-ground, wi'\nthe broken ruins o' an auld Papist kirk, on the tap.  Ane can see amang\nthe rougher stanes the rose-wrought mullions of an arched window, an' the\ntrough that ance held the holy water.  About twa hunder years ago--a wee\nmair maybe, or a wee less, for ane canna be very sure o' the date o' thae\nold stories--the building was entire; an' a spot near it, whar the wood\nnow grows thickest, was laid out in a corn-field.  The marks o' the\nfurrows may still be seen amang the trees.\n\n\"A party o' Highlanders were busily engaged, ae day in harvest, in\ncutting down the corn o' that field; an' just aboot noon, when the sun\nshone brightest an' they were busiest in the work, they heard a voice\nfrae the river exclaim:--'The hour but not the man has come.'  Sure\nenough, on looking round, there was the kelpie stan'in' in what they ca'\na fause ford, just fornent the auld kirk.  There is a deep black pool\nbaith aboon an' below, but i' the ford there's a bonny ripple, that\nshows, as ane might think, but little depth o' water; an' just i' the\nmiddle o' that, in a place where a horse might swim, stood the kelpie.\nAn' it again repeated its words:--'The hour but not the man has come,'\nan' then flashing through the water like a drake, it disappeared in the\nlower pool.  When the folk stood wondering what the creature might mean,\nthey saw a man on horseback come spurring down the hill in hot haste,\nmaking straight for the fause ford.  They could then understand her words\nat ance; an' four o' the stoutest o' them sprang oot frae amang the corn\nto warn him o' his danger, an' keep him back.  An' sae they tauld him\nwhat they had seen an' heard, an' urged him either to turn back an' tak'\nanither road, or stay for an hour or sae where he was.  But he just wadna\nhear them, for he was baith unbelieving an' in haste, an' wauld hae taen\nthe ford for a' they could say, hadna the Highlanders, determined on\nsaving him whether he would or no, gathered round him an' pulled him frae\nhis horse, an' then, to mak' sure o' him, locked him up in the auld kirk.\nWeel, when the hour had gone by--the fatal hour o' the kelpie--they flung\nopen the door, an' cried to him that he might noo gang on his journey.\nAh! but there was nae answer, though; an' sae they cried a second time,\nan' there was nae answer still; an' then they went in, an' found him\nlying stiff an' cauld on the floor, wi' his face buried in the water o'\nthe very stone trough that we may still see amang the ruins.  His hour\nhad come, an' he had fallen in a fit, as 'twould seem, head-foremost\namang the water o' the trough, where he had been smothered,--an' sae ye\nsee, the prophecy o' the kelpie availed naething.\"\n\n\n\n\nWHIPPETY STOURIE.\n\n\nThere was once a gentleman that lived in a very grand house, and he\nmarried a young lady that had been delicately brought up.  In her\nhusband's house she found everything that was fine--fine tables and\nchairs, fine looking-glasses, and fine curtains; but then her husband\nexpected her to be able to spin twelve hanks o' thread every day, besides\nattending to her house; and, to tell the even-down truth, the lady could\nnot spin a bit.  This made her husband glunchy with her, and, before a\nmonth had passed, she found hersel' very unhappy.\n\nOne day the husband gaed away upon a journey, after telling her that he\nexpected her, before his return, to have not only learned to spin, but to\nhave spun a hundred hanks o' thread.  Quite downcast, she took a walk\nalong the hillside, till she cam' to a big flat stane, and there she sat\ndown and grat.  By and by she heard a strain o' fine sma' music, coming\nas it were frae aneath the stane, and, on turning it up, she saw a cave\nbelow, where there were sitting six wee ladies in green gowns, ilk ane o'\nthem spinning on a little wheel, and singing,\n\n   \"Little kens my dame at hame\n   That Whippety Stourie is my name.\"\n\nThe lady walked into the cave, and was kindly asked by the wee bodies to\ntake a chair and sit down, while they still continued their spinning.  She\nobserved that ilk ane's mouth was thrawn away to ae side, but she didna\nventure to speer the reason.  They asked why she looked so unhappy, and\nshe telt them that it was she was expected by her husband to be a good\nspinner, when the plain truth was that she could not spin at all, and\nfound herself quite unable for it, having been so delicately brought up;\nneither was there any need for it, as her husband was a rich man.\n\n\"Oh, is that a'?\" said the little wifies, speaking out of their cheeks\nalike.\n\n\"Yes, and is it not a very good a' too?\" said the lady, her heart like to\nburst wi' distress.\n\n\"We could easily quit ye o' that trouble,\" said the wee women.  \"Just ask\nus a' to dinner for the day when your husband is to come back.  We'll\nthen let you see how we'll manage him.\"\n\nSo the lady asked them all to dine with herself and her husband, on the\nday when he was to come back.\n\nWhen the gudeman came hame, he found the house so occupied with\npreparations for dinner, that he had nae time to ask his wife about her\nthread; and, before ever he had ance spoken to her on the subject, the\ncompany was announced at the hall door.  The six ladies all came in a\ncoach-and-six, and were as fine as princesses, but still wore their gowns\nof green.  The gentleman was very polite, and showed them up the stair\nwith a pair of wax candles in his hand.  And so they all sat down to\ndinner, and conversation went on very pleasantly, till at length the\nhusband, becoming familiar with them, said--\n\n\"Ladies, if it be not an uncivil question, I should like to know how it\nhappens that all your mouths are turned away to one side?\"\n\n\"Oh,\" said ilk ane at ance, \"it's with our constant\n_spin-spin-spinning_.\"\n\n\"Is that the case?\" cried the gentleman; \"then, John, Tam, and Dick, fie,\ngo haste and burn every rock, and reel, and spinning-wheel in the house,\nfor I'll not have my wife to spoil her bonnie face with\n_spin-spin-spinning_.\"\n\nAnd so the lady lived happily with her gudeman all the rest of her days.\n\n\n\n\nTHE WEIRD OF THE THREE ARROWS.\n\n\nSir James Douglas, the companion of Bruce, and well known by his\nappellation of the \"Black Douglas,\" was once, during the hottest period\nof the exterminating war carried on by him and his colleague Randolph,\nagainst the English, stationed at Linthaughlee, near Jedburgh.  He was\nresting, himself and his men after the toils of many days'\nfighting-marches through Teviotdale; and, according to his custom, had\nwalked round the tents, previous to retiring to the unquiet rest of a\nsoldier's bed.  He stood for a few minutes at the entrance to his tent\ncontemplating the scene before him, rendered more interesting by a clear\nmoon, whose silver beams fell, in the silence of a night without a breath\nof wind, calmly on the slumbers of mortals destined to mix in the melee\nof dreadful war, perhaps on the morrow.  As he stood gazing, irresolute\nwhether to retire to rest or indulge longer in a train of thought not\nvery suitable to a warrior who delighted in the spirit-stirring scenes of\nhis profession, his eye was attracted by the figure of an old woman, who\napproached him with a trembling step, leaning on a staff, and holding in\nher left hand three English cloth-shaft arrows.\n\n\"You are he who is ca'ed the guid Sir James?\" said the old woman.\n\n\"I am, good woman,\" replied Sir James.  \"Why hast thou wandered from the\nsutler's camp?\"\n\n\"I dinna belang to the camp o' the hoblers,\" answered the woman.  \"I hae\nbeen a residenter in Linthaughlee since the day when King Alexander\npassed the door o' my cottage wi' his bonny French bride, wha was\nterrified awa' frae Jedburgh by the death's-head whilk appeared to her on\nthe day o' her marriage.  What I hae suffered sin' that day\" (looking at\nthe arrows in her hand) \"lies between me an' heaven.\"\n\n\"Some of your sons have been killed in the wars, I presume?\" said Sir\nJames.\n\n\"Ye hae guessed a pairt o' my waes,\" replied the woman.  \"That arrow\"\n(holding out one of the three) \"carries on its point the bluid o' my\nfirst born; that is stained wi' the stream that poured frae the heart o'\nmy second; and that is red wi' the gore in which my youngest weltered, as\nhe gae up the life that made me childless.  They were a' shot by English\nhands, in different armies, in different battles.  I am an honest woman,\nand wish to return to the English what belongs to the English; but that\nin the same fashion in which they were sent.  The Black Douglas has the\nstrongest arm an' the surest ee in auld Scotland; an' wha can execute my\ncommission better than he?\"\n\n\"I do not use the bow, good woman,\" replied Sir James.  \"I love the grasp\nof the dagger or the battle-axe.  You must apply to some other individual\nto return your arrows.\"\n\n\"I canna tak' them hame again,\" said the woman, laying them down at the\nfeet of Sir James.  \"Ye'll see me again on St. James' E'en.\"\n\nThe old woman departed as she said these words.\n\nSir James took up the arrows, and placed them in an empty quiver that lay\namongst his baggage.  He retired to rest, but not to sleep.  The figure\nof the old woman and her strange request occupied his thoughts, and\nproduced trains of meditation which ended in nothing but restlessness and\ndisquietude.  Getting up at daybreak, he met a messenger at the entrance\nof his tent, who informed him that Sir Thomas de Richmont, with a force\nof ten thousand men, had crossed the Borders, and would pass through a\nnarrow defile, which he mentioned, where he could be attacked with great\nadvantage.  Sir James gave instant orders to march to the spot; and, with\nthat genius for scheming, for which he was so remarkable, commanded his\nmen to twist together the young birch-trees on either side of the passage\nto prevent the escape of the enemy.  This finished, he concealed his\narchers in a hollow way, near the gorge of the pass.\n\nThe enemy came on; and when their ranks were embarrassed by the\nnarrowness of the road, and it was impossible for the cavalry to act with\neffect, Sir James rushed upon them at the head of his horsemen; and the\narchers, suddenly discovering themselves, poured in a flight of arrows on\nthe confused soldiers, and put the whole army to flight.  In the heat of\nthe onset, Douglas killed Sir Thomas de Richmont with his dagger.\n\nNot long after this, Edmund de Cailon, a knight of Gascony, and Governor\nof Berwick, who had been heard to vaunt that he had sought the famous\nBlack Knight, but could not find him, was returning to England, loaded\nwith plunder, the fruit of an inroad on Teviotdale.  Sir James thought it\na pity that a Gascon's vaunt should be heard unpunished in Scotland, and\nmade long forced marches to satisfy the desire of the foreign knight, by\ngiving him a sight of the dark countenance he had made a subject of\nreproach.  He soon succeeded in gratifying both himself and the Gascon.\nComing up in his terrible manner, he called to Cailon to stop, and,\nbefore he proceeded into England, receive the respects of the Black\nKnight he had come to find, but hitherto had not met.  The Gascon's vaunt\nwas now changed; but shame supplied the place of courage, and he ordered\nhis men to receive Douglas's attack.  Sir James assiduously sought his\nenemy.  He at last succeeded; and a single combat ensued, of a most\ndesperate character.  But who ever escaped the arm of Douglas when fairly\nopposed to him in single conflict?  Cailon was killed; he had met the\nBlack Knight at last.\n\n\"So much,\" cried Sir James, \"for the vaunt of a Gascon!\"\n\nSimilar in every respect to the fate of Cailon, was that of Sir Ralph\nNeville.  He, too, on hearing the great fame of Douglas's prowess, from\nsome of Gallon's fugitive soldiers, openly boasted that he would fight\nwith the Scottish Knight, if he would come and show his banner before\nBerwick.  Sir James heard the boast and rejoiced in it.  He marched to\nthat town, and caused his men to ravage the country in front of the\nbattlements, and burn the villages.  Neville left Berwick with a strong\nbody of men; and, stationing himself on a high ground, waited till the\nrest of the Scots should disperse to plunder; but Douglas called in his\ndetachment and attacked the knight.  After a desperate conflict, in which\nmany were slain, Douglas, as was his custom, succeeded in bringing the\nleader to a personal encounter, and the skill of the Scottish knight was\nagain successful.  Neville was slain, and his men utterly discomfited.\n\nHaving retired one night to his tent to take some rest after so much pain\nand toil, Sir James Douglas was surprised by the reappearance of the old\nwoman whom he had seen at Linthaughlee.\n\n\"This is the feast o' St. James,\" said she, as she approached him.  \"I\nsaid I would see ye again this nicht, an' I'm as guid's my word.  Hae ye\nreturned the arrows I left wi' ye to the English wha sent them to the\nhearts o' my sons?\"\n\n\"No,\" replied Sir James.  \"I told ye I did not fight with the bow.\nWherefore do ye importune me thus?\"\n\n\"Give me back the arrows then,\" said the woman.\n\nSir James went to bring the quiver in which he had placed them.  On\ntaking them out, he was surprised to find that they were all broken\nthrough the middle.\n\n\"How has this happened?\" said he.  \"I put these arrows in this quiver\nentire, and now they are broken.\"\n\n\"The weird is fulfilled!\" cried the old woman, laughing eldrichly, and\nclapping her hands.  \"That broken shaft cam' frae a soldier o'\nRichmont's; that frae ane o' Cailon's, and that frae ane o' Neville's.\nThey are a' dead, an' I am revenged!\"\n\nThe old woman then departed, scattering, as she went, the broken\nfragments of the arrows on the floor of the tent.\n\n\n\n\nTHE LAIRD OF BALMACHIE'S WIFE.\n\n\nIn the olden times, when it was the fashion for gentlemen to wear swords,\nthe Laird of Balmachie went one day to Dundee, leaving his wife at home\nill in bed.  Riding home in the twilight, he had occasion to leave the\nhigh road, and when crossing between some little romantic knolls, called\nthe Cur-hills, in the neighbourhood of Carlungy, he encountered a troop\nof fairies supporting a kind of litter, upon which some person seemed to\nbe borne.  Being a man of dauntless courage, and, as he said, impelled by\nsome internal impulse, he pushed his horse close to the litter, drew his\nsword, laid it across the vehicle, and in a firm tone exclaimed--\n\n\"In the name of God, release your captive.\"\n\nThe tiny troop immediately disappeared, dropping the litter on the\nground.  The laird dismounted, and found that it contained his own wife,\ndressed in her bedclothes.  Wrapping his coat around her, he placed her\non the horse before him, and, having only a short distance to ride,\narrived safely at home.\n\nPlacing her in another room, under the care of an attentive friend, he\nimmediately went to the chamber where he had left his wife in the\nmorning, and there to all appearance she still lay, very sick of a fever.\nShe was fretful, discontented, and complained much of having been\nneglected in his absence, at all of which the laird affected great\nconcern, and pretending much sympathy, insisted upon her rising to have\nher bed made.  She said that she was unable to rise, but her husband was\nperemptory, and having ordered a large wood fire to warm the room, he\nlifted the impostor from the bed, and bearing her across the floor as if\nto a chair, which had been previously prepared, he threw her on the fire,\nfrom which she bounced like a sky-rocket, and went through the ceiling,\nand out at the roof of the house, leaving a hole among the slates.  He\nthen brought in his own wife, a little recovered from her alarm, who\nsaid, that sometime after sunset, the nurse having left her for the\npurpose of preparing a little candle, a multitude of elves came in at the\nwindow, thronging like bees from a hive.  They filled the room, and\nhaving lifted her from the bed carried her through the window, after\nwhich she recollected nothing further, till she saw her husband standing\nover her on the Cur-hills, at the back of Carlungy.  The hole in the\nroof, by which the female fairy made her escape, was mended, but could\nnever be kept in repair, as a tempest of wind happened always once a\nyear, which uncovered that particular spot, without injuring any other\npart of the roof.\n\n\n\n\nMICHAEL SCOTT.\n\n\nIn the early part of Michael Scott's life he was in the habit of\nemigrating annually to the Scottish metropolis, for the purpose of being\nemployed in his capacity of mason.  One time as he and two companions\nwere journeying to the place of their destination for a similar object,\nthey had occasion to pass over a high hill, the name of which is not\nmentioned, but which is supposed to have been one of the Grampians, and\nbeing fatigued with climbing, they sat down to rest themselves.  They had\nno sooner done so than they were warned to take to their heels by the\nhissing of a large serpent, which they observed revolving itself towards\nthem with great velocity.  Terrified at the sight, Michael's two\ncompanions fled, while he, on the contrary, resolved to encounter the\nreptile.  The appalling monster approached Michael Scott with distended\nmouth and forked tongue; and, throwing itself into a coil at his feet,\nwas raising its head to inflict a mortal sting, when Michael, with one\nstroke of his stick, severed its body into three pieces.  Having rejoined\nhis affrighted comrades, they resumed their journey; and, on arriving at\nthe next public-house, it being late, and the travellers being weary,\nthey took up their quarters at it for the night.  In the course of the\nnight's conversation, reference was naturally made to Michael's recent\nexploit with the serpent, when the landlady of the house, who was\nremarkable for her \"arts,\" happened to be present.  Her curiosity\nappeared much excited by the conversation; and, after making some\ninquiries regarding the colour of the serpent, which she was told was\nwhite, she offered any of them that would procure her the middle piece\nsuch a tempting reward, as induced one of the party instantly to go for\nit.  The distance was not very great; and on reaching the spot, he found\nthe middle and tail piece in the place where Michael left them, but the\nhead piece was gone.\n\nThe landlady on receiving the piece, which still vibrated with life,\nseemed highly gratified at her acquisition; and, over and above the\npromised reward, regaled her lodgers very plentifully with the choicest\ndainties in her house.  Fired with curiosity to know the purpose for\nwhich the serpent was intended, the wily Michael Scott was immediately\nseized with a severe fit of indisposition, which caused him to prefer the\nrequest that he might be allowed to sleep beside the fire, the warmth of\nwhich, he affirmed, was in the highest degree beneficial to him.\n\nNever suspecting Michael Scott's hypocrisy, and naturally supposing that\na person so severely indisposed would feel very little curiosity about\nthe contents of any cooking utensils which might lie around the fire, the\nlandlady allowed his request.  As soon as the other inmates of the house\nwere retired to bed, the landlady resorted to her darling occupation;\nand, in his feigned state of indisposition, Michael had a favourable\nopportunity of watching most scrupulously all her actions through the\nkeyhole of a door leading to the next apartment where she was.  He could\nsee the rites and ceremonies with which the serpent was put into the\noven, along with many mysterious ingredients.  After which the\nunsuspicious landlady placed the dish by the fireside, where lay the\ndistressed traveller, to stove till the morning.\n\nOnce or twice in the course of the night the \"wife of the change-house,\"\nunder the pretence of inquiring for her sick lodger, and administering to\nhim some renovating cordials, the beneficial effects of which he\ngratefully acknowledged, took occasion to dip her finger in her saucepan,\nupon which the cock, perched on his roost, crowed aloud.  All Michael's\nsickness could not prevent him considering very inquisitively the\nlandlady's cantrips, and particularly the influence of the sauce upon the\ncrowing of the cock.  Nor could he dissipate some inward desires he felt\nto follow her example.  At the same time, he suspected that Satan had a\nhand in the pie, yet he thought he would like very much to be at the\nbottom of the concern; and thus his reason and his curiosity clashed\nagainst each other for the space of several hours.  At length passion, as\nis too often the case, became the conqueror.  Michael, too, dipped his\nfinger in the sauce, and applied it to the tip of his tongue, and\nimmediately the cock perched on the _spardan_ announced the circumstance\nin a mournful clarion.  Instantly his mind received a new light to which\nhe was formerly a stranger, and the astonished dupe of a landlady now\nfound it her interest to admit her sagacious lodger into a knowledge of\nthe remainder of her secrets.\n\nEndowed with the knowledge of \"good and evil,\" and all the \"second\nsights\" that can be acquired, Michael left his lodgings in the morning,\nwith the philosopher's stone in his pocket.  By daily perfecting his\nsupernatural attainments, by new series of discoveries, he became more\nthan a match for Satan himself.  Having seduced some thousands of Satan's\nbest workmen into his employment, he trained them up so successfully to\nthe architective business, and inspired them with such industrious\nhabits, that he was more than sufficient for all the architectural work\nof the empire.  To establish this assertion, we need only refer to some\nremains of his workmanship still existing north of the Grampians, some of\nthem, stupendous bridges built by him in one short night, with no other\nvisible agents than two or three workmen.\n\nOn one occasion work was getting scarce, as might have been naturally\nexpected, and his workmen, as they were wont, flocked to his doors,\nperpetually exclaiming, \"Work! work! work!\"  Continually annoyed by their\nincessant entreaties, he called out to them in derision to go and make a\ndry road from Fortrose to Arderseir, over the Moray Firth.  Immediately\ntheir cry ceased, and as Scott supposed it wholly impossible for them to\nexecute his order, he retired to rest, laughing most heartily at the\nchimerical sort of employment he had given to his industrious workmen.\nEarly in the morning, however, he got up and took a walk at the break of\nday down to the shore to divert himself at the fruitless labours of his\nzealous workmen.  But on reaching the spot, what was his astonishment to\nfind the formidable piece of work allotted to them only a few hours\nbefore already nearly finished.  Seeing the great damage the commercial\nclass of the community would sustain from the operation, he ordered the\nworkmen to demolish the most part of their work; leaving, however, the\npoint of Fortrose to show the traveller to this day the wonderful exploit\nof Michael Scott's fairies.\n\nOn being thus again thrown out of employment, their former clamour was\nresumed, nor could Michael Scott, with all his sagacity, devise a plan to\nkeep them in innocent employment.  He at length discovered one.  \"Go,\"\nsays he, \"and manufacture me ropes that will carry me to the back of the\nmoon, of these materials--_miller's-sudds_ and sea-sand.\"  Michael Scott\nhere obtained rest from his active operators; for, when other work failed\nthem, he always despatched them to their rope manufactory.  But though\nthese agents could never make proper ropes of those materials, their\nefforts to that effect are far from being contemptible, for some of their\nropes are seen by the sea-side to this day.\n\nWe shall close our notice of Michael Scott by reciting one anecdote of\nhim in the latter part of his life.\n\nIn consequence of a violent quarrel which Michael Scott once had with a\nperson whom he conceived to have caused him some injury, he resolved, as\nthe highest punishment he could inflict upon him, to send his adversary\nto that evil place designed only for Satan and his black companions.  He\naccordingly, by means of his supernatural machinations, sent the poor\nunfortunate man thither; and had he been sent by any other means than\nthose of Michael Scott, he would no doubt have met with a warm reception.\nOut of pure spite to Michael, however, when Satan learned who was his\nbillet-master, he would no more receive him than he would receive the\nWife of Beth; and instead of treating the unfortunate man with the\nharshness characteristic of him, he showed him considerable civilities.\nIntroducing him to his \"Ben Taigh,\" he directed her to show the stranger\nany curiosities he might wish to see, hinting very significantly that he\nhad provided some accommodation for their mutual friend, Michael Scott,\nthe sight of which might afford him some gratification.  The polite\nhousekeeper accordingly conducted the stranger through the principal\napartments in the house, where he saw fearful sights.  But the bed of\nMichael Scott!--his greatest enemy could not but feel satiated with\nrevenge at the sight of it.  It was a place too horrid to be described,\nfilled promiscuously with all the awful brutes imaginable.  Toads and\nlions, lizards and leeches, and, amongst the rest, not the least\nconspicuous, a large serpent gaping for Michael Scott, with its mouth\nwide open.  This last sight having satisfied the stranger's curiosity, he\nwas led to the outer gate, and came away.  He reached his friends, and,\namong other pieces of news touching his travels, he was not backward in\nrelating the entertainment that awaited his friend Michael Scott, as soon\nas he would \"stretch his foot\" for the other world.  But Michael did not\nat all appear disconcerted at his friend's intelligence.  He affirmed\nthat he would disappoint all his enemies in their expectations--in proof\nof which he gave the following signs: \"When I am just dead,\" says he,\n\"open my breast and extract my heart.  Carry it to some place where the\npublic may see the result.  You will then transfix it upon a long pole,\nand if Satan will have my soul, he will come in the likeness of a black\nraven and carry it off; and if my soul will be saved it will be carried\noff by a white dove.\"\n\nHis friends faithfully obeyed his instructions.  Having exhibited his\nheart in the manner directed, a large black raven was observed to come\nfrom the east with great fleetness, while a white dove came from the west\nwith equal velocity.  The raven made a furious dash at the heart, missing\nwhich, it was unable to curb its force, till it was considerably past it;\nand the dove, reaching the spot at the same time, carried off the heart\namidst the rejoicing and ejaculations of the spectators.\n\n\n\n\nTHE MINISTER AND THE FAIRY.\n\n\nNot long since, a pious clergyman was returning home, after administering\nspiritual consolation to a dying member of his flock.  It was late of the\nnight, and he had to pass through a good deal of _uncanny_ land.  He was,\nhowever, a good and a conscientious minister of the Gospel, and feared\nnot all the spirits in the country.  On his reaching the end of a lake\nwhich stretched along the roadside for some distance, he was a good deal\nsurprised at hearing the most melodious strains of music.  Overcome by\npleasure and curiosity, the minister coolly sat down to listen to the\nharmonious sounds, and try what new discoveries he could make with regard\nto their nature and source.  He had not sat many minutes before he could\ndistinguish the approach of the music, and also observe a light in the\ndirection from whence it proceeded gliding across the lake towards him.\nInstead of taking to his heels, as any faithless wight would have done,\nthe pastor fearlessly determined to await the issue of the phenomenon.  As\nthe light and music drew near, the clergyman could at length distinguish\nan object resembling a human being walking on the surface of the water,\nattended by a group of diminutive musicians, some of them bearing lights,\nand others instruments of music, from which they continued to evoke those\nmelodious strains which first attracted his attention.  The leader of the\nband dismissed his attendants, landed on the beach, and afforded the\nminister the amplest opportunities of examining his appearance.  He was a\nlittle primitive-looking grey-headed man, clad in the most grotesque\nhabit the clergyman had ever seen, and such as led him at once to suspect\nhis real character.  He walked up to the minister, whom he saluted with\ngreat grace, offering an apology for his intrusion.  The pastor returned\nhis compliments, and, without further explanation, invited the mysterious\nstranger to sit down by his side.  The invitation was complied with, upon\nwhich the minister proposed the following question:--\"Who art thou,\nstranger, and from whence?\"\n\nTo this question the fairy, with downcast eye, replied that he was one of\nthose sometimes called _Doane Shee_, or men of peace, or good men, though\nthe reverse of this title was a more fit appellation for them.  Originally\nangelic in his nature and attributes, and once a sharer of the\nindescribable joys of the regions of light, he was seduced by Satan to\njoin him in his mad conspiracies; and, as a punishment for his\ntransgression, he was cast down from those regions of bliss, and was now\ndoomed, along with millions of fellow-sufferers, to wander through seas\nand mountains, until the coming of the Great Day.  What their fate would\nbe then they could not divine, but they apprehended the worst.  \"And,\"\ncontinued he, turning to the minister, with great anxiety, \"the object of\nmy present intrusion on you is to learn your opinion, as an eminent\ndivine, as to our final condition on that dreadful day.\"  Here the\nvenerable pastor entered upon a long conversation with the fairy,\ntouching the principles of faith and repentance.  Receiving rather\nunsatisfactory answers to his questions, the minister desired the\n\"sheech\" to repeat after him the Paternoster, in attempting to do which,\nit was not a little remarkable that he could not repeat the word \"art,\"\nbut said \"_wert_,\" in heaven.  Inferring from every circumstance that\ntheir fate was extremely precarious, the minister resolved not to puff\nthe fairies up with presumptuous, and, perhaps, groundless expectations.\nAccordingly, addressing himself to the unhappy fairy, who was all anxiety\nto know the nature of his sentiments, the reverend gentleman told him\nthat he could not take it upon him to give them any hopes of pardon, as\ntheir crime was of so deep a hue as scarcely to admit of it.  On this the\nunhappy fairy uttered a shriek of despair, plunged headlong into the\nloch, and the minister resumed his course to his home.\n\n\n\n\nTHE FISHERMAN AND THE MERMAN.\n\n\nOf mermen and merwomen many strange stories are told in the Shetland\nIsles.  Beneath the depths of the ocean, according to these stories, an\natmosphere exists adapted to the respiratory organs of certain beings,\nresembling, in form, the human race, possessed of surpassing beauty, of\nlimited supernatural powers, and liable to the incident of death.  They\ndwell in a wide territory of the globe, far below the region of fishes,\nover which the sea, like the cloudy canopy of our sky, loftily rolls, and\nthey possess habitations constructed of the pearl and coral productions\nof the ocean.  Having lungs not adapted to a watery medium, but to the\nnature of atmospheric air, it would be impossible for them to pass\nthrough the volume of waters that intervenes between the submarine and\nsupramarine world, if it were not for the extraordinary power they\ninherit of entering the skin of some animal capable of existing in the\nsea, which they are enabled to occupy by a sort of demoniacal possession.\nOne shape they put on, is that of an animal human above the waist, yet\nterminating below in the tail and fins of a fish, but the most favourite\nform is that of the larger seal or Haaf-fish; for, in possessing an\namphibious nature, they are enabled not only to exist in the ocean, but\nto land on some rock, where they frequently lighten themselves of their\nsea-dress, resume their proper shape, and with much curiosity examine the\nnature of the upper world belonging to the human race.  Unfortunately,\nhowever, each merman or merwoman possesses but one skin, enabling the\nindividual to ascend the seas, and if, on visiting the abode of man, the\ngarb be lost, the hapless being must unavoidably become an inhabitant of\nthe earth.\n\nA story is told of a boat's crew who landed for the purpose of attacking\nthe seals lying in the hollows of the crags at one of the stacks.  The\nmen stunned a number of the animals, and while they were in this state\nstripped them of their skins, with the fat attached to them.  Leaving the\ncarcasses on the rock, the crew were about to set off for the shore of\nPapa Stour, when such a tremendous swell arose that every one flew\nquickly to the boat.  All succeeded in entering it except one man, who\nhad imprudently lingered behind.  The crew were unwilling to leave a\ncompanion to perish on the skerries, but the surge increased so fast,\nthat after many unsuccessful attempts to bring the boat close in to the\nstack the unfortunate wight was left to his fate.  A stormy night came\non, and the deserted Shetlander saw no prospect before him but that of\nperishing from cold and hunger, or of being washed into the sea by the\nbreakers which threatened to dash over the rocks.  At length, he\nperceived many of the seals, who, in their flight had escaped the attack\nof the boatmen, approach the skerry, disrobe themselves of their\namphibious hides, and resume the shape of the sons and daughters of the\nocean.  Their first object was to assist in the recovery of their\nfriends, who having been stunned by clubs, had, while in that state, been\ndeprived of their skins.  When the flayed animals had regained their\nsensibility, they assumed their proper form of mermen or merwomen, and\nbegan to lament in a mournful lay, wildly accompanied by the storm that\nwas raging around, the loss of their sea-dress, which would prevent them\nfrom again enjoying their native azure atmosphere, and coral mansions\nthat lay below the deep waters of the Atlantic.  But their chief\nlamentation was for Ollavitinus, the son of Gioga, who, having been\nstripped of his seal's skin, would be for ever parted from his mates, and\ncondemned to become an outcast inhabitant of the upper world.  Their song\nwas at length broken off, by observing one of their enemies viewing, with\nshivering limbs and looks of comfortless despair, the wild waves that\ndashed over the stack.  Gioga immediately conceived the idea of rendering\nsubservient to the advantage of the son the perilous situation of the\nman.  She addressed him with mildness, proposing to carry him safe on her\nback across the sea to Papa Stour, on condition of receiving the seal-\nskin of Ollavitinus.  A bargain was struck, and Gioga clad herself in her\namphibious garb; but the Shetlander, alarmed at the sight of the stormy\nmain that he was to ride through, prudently begged leave of the matron,\nfor his better preservation, that he might be allowed to cut a few holes\nin her shoulders and flanks, in order to procure, between the skin and\nthe flesh, a better fastening for his hands and feet.  The request being\ncomplied with, the man grasped the neck of the seal, and committing\nhimself to her care, she landed him safely at Acres Gio in Papa Stour;\nfrom which place he immediately repaired to a skeo at Hamna Voe, where\nthe skin was deposited, and honourably fulfilled his part of the\ncontract, by affording Gioga the means whereby her son could again\nrevisit the ethereal space over which the sea spread its green mantle.\n\n\n\n\nTHE LAIRD O' CO'.\n\n\nIn the days of yore, the proprietors of Colzean, in Ayrshire (ancestors\nof the Marquis of Ailsa), were known in that country by the title of\nLairds o' Co', a name bestowed on Colzean from some co's (or coves) in\nthe rock beneath the castle.\n\nOne morning, a very little boy, carrying a small wooden can, addressed\nthe Laird near the castle gate, begging for a little ale for his mother,\nwho was sick.  The Laird directed him to go to the butler and get his can\nfilled; so away he went as ordered.  The butler had a barrel of ale on\ntap, but about half full, out of which he proceeded to fill the boy's\ncan; but to his extreme surprise he emptied the cask, and still the\nlittle can was not nearly full.  The butler was unwilling to broach\nanother barrel, but the little fellow insisted on the fulfilment of the\nLaird's order, and a reference was made to the Laird by the butler, who\nstated the miraculous capacity of the tiny can, and received instant\norders to fill it if all the ale in the cellar would suffice.  Obedient\nto this command, he broached another cask, but had scarcely drawn a drop\nwhen the can was full, and the dwarf departed with expressions of\ngratitude.\n\nSome years afterwards the Laird being at the wars in Flanders was taken\nprisoner, and for some reason or other (probably as a spy) condemned to\ndie a felon's death.  The night prior to the day for his execution, being\nconfined in a dungeon strongly barricaded, the doors suddenly flew open,\nand the dwarf reappeared, saying--\n\n   \"Laird o' Co',\n   Rise an' go.\"\n\na summons too welcome to require repetition.\n\nOn emerging from prison, the boy caused him to mount on his shoulders,\nand in a short time set him down at his own gate, on the very spot where\nthey had formerly met, saying--\n\n   \"Ae gude turn deserves anither--\n   Tak' ye that for being sae kin' to my auld mither,\"\n\nand vanished.\n\n\n\n\nEWEN OF THE LITTLE HEAD.\n\n\nAbout three hundred years ago, Ewen Maclaine of Lochbuy, in the island of\nMull, having been engaged in a quarrel with a neighbouring chief, a day\nwas fixed for determining the affair by the sword.  Lochbuy, before the\nday arrived, consulted a celebrated witch as to the result of the feud.\nThe witch declared that if Lochbuy's wife should on the morning of that\nday give him and his men food unasked, he would be victorious, but if\nnot, the result would be the reverse.  This was a disheartening response\nfor the unhappy votary, his wife being a noted shrew.\n\nThe fatal morning arrived, and the hour for meeting the enemy approached,\nbut there appeared no symptoms of refreshment for Lochbuy and his men.  At\nlength the unfortunate man was compelled to ask his wife to supply them\nwith food.  She set down before them curds, but without spoons.  When the\nhusband inquired how they were to eat them, she replied they should\nassume the bills of hens.  The men ate the curds, as well as they could,\nwith their hands; but Lochbuy himself ate none.  After behaving with the\ngreatest bravery in the bloody conflict which ensued, he fell covered\nwith wounds, leaving his wife to the execration of the people.  She is\nstill known in that district under the appellation of Corr-dhu, or the\nBlack Crane.\n\nBut the miseries brought on the luckless Lochbuy by his wife did not end\nwith his life, for he died fasting, and his ghost is frequently seen to\nthis day riding the very horse on which he was mounted when he was\nkilled.  It was a small, but very neat and active pony, dun or\nmouse-coloured, to which the Laird was much attached, and on which he had\nridden for many years before his death.  Its appearance is as accurately\ndescribed in the island of Mull as any steed is at Newmarket.  The prints\nof its shoes are discerned by connoisseurs, and the rattling of its curb\nis recognised in the darkest night.  It is not particular with regard to\nroads, for it goes up hill and down dale with equal velocity.  Its hard-\nfated rider still wears the same green cloak which covered him in his\nlast battle; and he is particularly distinguished by the small size of\nhis head, a peculiarity which, we suspect, the learned disciples of\nSpurzheim have never yet had the sagacity to discover as indicative of an\nextraordinary talent and incomparable perseverance in horsemanship.\n\nIt is now above three hundred years since Ewen-a-chin-vig (_Anglice_,\nHugh of the Little Head) fell in the field of honour; but neither the\nvigour of the horse nor of the rider is yet diminished.  His mournful\nduty has always been to attend the dying moments of every member of his\nown tribe, and to escort the departed spirit on its long and arduous\njourney.  He has been seen in the remotest of the Hebrides; and he has\nfound his way to Ireland on these occasions long before steam navigation\nwas invented.  About a century ago he took a fancy for a young man of his\nown race, and frequently did him the honour of placing him behind himself\non horseback.  He entered into conversation with him, and foretold many\ncircumstances connected with the fate of his successors, which have\nundoubtedly since come to pass.\n\nMany a long winter night have I listened to the feats of Ewen-a-chin-vig,\nthe faithful and indefatigable guardian of his ancient family, in the\nhour of their last and greatest trial, affording an example worthy the\nimitation of every chief,--perhaps not beneath the notice of Glengarry\nhimself.\n\nAbout a dozen years since some symptoms of Ewen's decay gave very general\nalarm to his friends.  He accosted one of his own people (indeed he never\nhas been known to notice any other), and, shaking him cordially by the\nhand, he attempted to place him on the saddle behind him, but the\nuncourteous dog declined the honour.  Ewen struggled hard, but the clown\nwas a great, strong, clumsy fellow, and stuck to the earth with all his\nmight.  He candidly acknowledged, however, that his chief would have\nprevailed, had it not been for a birch-tree which stood by, and which he\ngot within the fold of his left arm.  The contest became very warm\nindeed, and the tree was certainly twisted like an osier, as thousands\ncan testify who saw it as well as myself.  At length, however, Ewen lost\nhis seat for the first time, and the instant the pony found he was his\nown master, he set off with the fleetness of lightning.  Ewen immediately\npursued his steed, and the wearied rustic sped his way homeward.  It was\nthe general opinion that Ewen found considerable difficulty in catching\nthe horse; but I am happy to learn that he has been lately seen riding\nthe old mouse-coloured pony without the least change in either the horse\nor the rider.  Long may he continue to do so!\n\nThose who from motives of piety or curiosity have visited the sacred\nisland of Iona, must remember to have seen the guide point out the tomb\nof Ewen, with his figure on horseback, very elegantly sculptured in alto-\nrelievo, and many of the above facts are on such occasions related.\n\n\n\n\nJOCK AND HIS MOTHER.\n\n\nYe see, there was a wife had a son, and they called him Jock; and she\nsaid to him, \"You are a lazy fellow; ye maun gang awa' and do something\nfor to help me.\"  \"Weel,\" says Jock, \"I'll do that.\"  So awa' he gangs,\nand fa's in wi' a packman.  Says the packman, \"If you carry my pack a'\nday, I'll gie you a needle at night.\"  So he carried the pack, and got\nthe needle; and as he was gaun awa' hame to his mither, he cuts a burden\no' brackens, and put the needle into the heart o' them.  Awa' he gaes\nhame.  Says his mither, \"What hae ye made o' yoursel' the day?\"  Says\nJock, \"I fell in wi' a packman, and carried his pack a' day, and he gae\nme a needle for't, and ye may look for it amang the brackens.\"  \"Hout,\"\nquo' she, \"ye daft gowk, you should hae stuck it into your bonnet, man.\"\n\"I'll mind that again,\" quo' Jock.\n\nNext day he fell in wi' a man carrying plough socks.  \"If ye help me to\ncarry my socks a' day, I'll gie ye ane to yersel' at night.\"  \"I'll do\nthat,\" quo' Jock.  Jock carried them a' day, and got a sock, which he\nstuck in his bonnet.  On the way hame, Jock was dry, and gaed away to\ntake a drink out o' the burn; and wi' the weight o' the sock, his bonnet\nfell into the river, and gaed out o' sight.  He gaed hame, and his mither\nsays, \"Weel, Jock, what hae you been doing a' day?\"  And then he tells\nher.  \"Hout,\" quo' she, \"you should hae tied the string to it, and\ntrailed it behind you.\"  \"Weel,\" quo' Jock, \"I'll mind that again.\"\n\nAwa' he sets, and he fa's in wi' a flesher.  \"Weel,\" says the flesher,\n\"if ye'll be my servant a' day, I'll gie ye a leg o' mutton at night.\"\n\"I'll be that,\" quo' Jock.  He got a leg o' mutton at night.  He ties a\nstring to it, and trails it behind him the hale road hame.  \"What hae ye\nbeen doing?\" said his mither.  He tells her.  \"Hout, you fool, ye should\nhae carried it on your shouther.\"  \"I'll mind that again,\" quo' Jock.\n\nAwa' he gaes next day, and meets a horse-dealer.  He says, \"If you will\nhelp me wi' my horses a' day, I'll give you ane to yoursel' at night.\"\n\"I'll do that,\" quo' Jock.  So he served him, and got his horse, and he\nties its feet; but as he was not able to carry it on his back, he left it\nlying on the roadside.  Hame he comes, and tells his mither.  \"Hout, ye\ndaft gowk, ye'll ne'er turn wise!  Could ye no hae loupen on it, and\nridden it?\"  \"I'll mind that again,\" quo' Jock.\n\nAweel, there was a grand gentleman, wha had a daughter wha was very\nsubject to melancholy; and her father gae out that whaever should mak'\nher laugh would get her in marriage.  So it happened that she was sitting\nat the window ae day, musing in her melancholy state, when Jock,\naccording to the advice o' his mither, cam' flying up on a cow's back,\nwi' the tail over his shouther.  And she burst out into a fit o'\nlaughter.  When they made inquiry wha made her laugh, it was found to be\nJock riding on the cow.  Accordingly, Jock was sent for to get his bride.\nWeel, Jock was married to her, and there was a great supper prepared.\nAmongst the rest o' the things, there was some honey, which Jock was very\nfond o'.  After supper, they all retired, and the auld priest that\nmarried them sat up a' night by the kitchen fireside.  So Jock waukens in\nthe night-time, and says, \"Oh, wad ye gie me some o' yon nice sweet honey\nthat we got to our supper last night?\"  \"Oh ay,\" says his wife, \"rise and\ngang into the press, and ye'll get a pig fou o 't.\"  Jock rose, and\nthrust his hand into the honey-pig for a nievefu' o 't, and he could not\nget it out.  So he cam' awa' wi' the pig in his hand, like a mason's\nmell, and says, \"Oh, I canna get my hand out.\"  \"Hoot,\" quo' she, \"gang\nawa' and break it on the cheek-stane.\"  By this time, the fire was dark,\nand the auld priest was lying snoring wi' his head against the chimney-\npiece, wi' a huge white wig on.  Jock gaes awa', and gae him a whack wi'\nthe honey-pig on the head, thinking it was the cheek-stane, and knocks it\na' in bits.  The auld priest roars out, \"Murder!\"  Jock tak's doun the\nstair as hard as he could bicker, and hides himsel' amang the bees'\nskeps.\n\nThat night, as luck wad have it, some thieves cam' to steal the bees'\nskeps, and in the hurry o' tumbling them into a large grey plaid, they\ntumbled Jock in alang wi' them.  So aff they set, wi' Jock and the skeps\non their backs.  On the way, they had to cross the burn where Jock lost\nhis bonnet.  Ane o' the thieves cries, \"Oh, I hae fand a bonnet!\" and\nJock, on hearing that, cries out, \"Oh, that's mine!\"  They thocht they\nhad got the deil on their backs.  So they let a' fa' in the burn; and\nJock, being tied in the plaid, couldna get out; so he and the bees were\na' drowned thegither.\n\nIf a' tales be true, that's nae lee.\n\n\n\n\nSAINT COLUMBA.\n\n\nSoon after Saint Columba established his residence in Iona, tradition\nsays that he paid a visit to a great seminary of Druids, then in the\nvicinity, at a place called Camusnan Ceul, or Bay of Cells, in the\ndistrict of Ardnamurchan.  Several remains of Druidical circles are still\nto be seen there, and on that bay and the neighbourhood many places are\nstill named after their rites and ceremonies; such as _Ardintibert_, the\nMount of Sacrifice, and others.  The fame of the Saint had been for some\ntime well known to the people, and his intention of instructing them in\nthe doctrines of Christianity was announced to them.  The ancient\npriesthood made every exertion to dissuade the inhabitants from hearing\nthe powerful eloquence of Columba, and in this they were seconded by the\nprincipal man then in that country, whose name was Donald, a son of\nConnal.\n\nThe Saint had no sooner made his appearance, however, than he was\nsurrounded by a vast multitude, anxious to hear so celebrated a preacher;\nand after the sermon was ended, many persons expressed a desire to be\nbaptized, in spite of the remonstrances of the Druids.  Columba had made\nchoice of an eminence centrally situated for performing worship; but\nthere was no water near the spot, and the son of Connal threatened with\npunishment any who should dare to procure it for his purpose.  The Saint\nstood with his back leaning on a rock; after a short prayer, he struck\nthe rock with his foot, and a stream of water issued forth in great\nabundance.  The miracle had a powerful effect on the minds of his\nhearers, and many became converts to the new religion.  This fountain is\nstill distinguished by the name of Columba, and is considered of superior\nefficacy in the cure of diseases.  When the Catholic form of worship\nprevailed in that country it was greatly resorted to, and old persons yet\nremember to have seen offerings left at the fountain in gratitude for\nbenefits received from the benignant influence of the Saint's blessing on\nthe water.  At length it is said that a daughter of Donald, the son of\nConnal, expressed a wish to be baptized, and the father restrained her by\nviolence.  He also, with the aid of the Druids, forced Columba to take\nrefuge in his boat, and the holy man departed for Iona, after warning the\ninhospitable Caledonian to prepare for another world, as his life would\nsoon terminate.\n\nThe Saint was at sea during the whole night, which was stormy; and when\napproaching the shores of his own sacred island the following morning, a\nvast number of ravens were observed flying over the boat, chasing another\nof extraordinary large size.  The croaking of the ravens awoke the Saint,\nwho had been sleeping; and he instantly exclaimed that the son of Connal\nhad just expired, which was afterwards ascertained to be true.\n\nA very large Christian establishment appears to have been afterwards\nformed in the Bay of Cells; and the remains of a chapel, dedicated to\nSaint Kiaran, are still to be seen there.  It is the favourite place of\ninterment among the Catholics of this day.  Indeed, Columba and many of\nhis successors seem to have adopted the policy of engrafting their\ninstitutions on those which had formerly existed in the country.  Of this\nthere are innumerable instances, at least we observe the ruins of both\nstill visible in many places; even in Iona we find the burying-ground of\nthe Druids known at the present day.  This practice may have had\nadvantages at the time, but it must have been ultimately productive of\nmany corruptions; and, in a great measure, accounts for many\nsuperstitious and absurd customs which prevailed among that people to a\nvery recent period, and which are not yet entirely extinct.  In a very\nancient family in that country two round balls of coarse glass have been\ncarefully preserved from time immemorial, and to these have been ascribed\nmany virtues--amongst others, the cure of any extraordinary disease among\ncattle.  The balls were immersed in cold water for three days and nights,\nand the water was afterwards sprinkled over all the cattle; this was\nexpected to cure those affected, and to prevent the disease in the rest.\nFrom the names and appearance of these balls, there is no doubt that they\nhad been symbols used by the Archdruids.\n\nWithin a short distance of the Bay of Cells there is a cave very\nremarkable in its appearance, and still more so from the purposes to\nwhich it has been appropriated.  Saint Columba, on one of his many\nvoyages among the Hebrides, was benighted on this rocky coast, and the\nmariners were alarmed for their own safety.  The Saint assured them that\nneither he nor his crew would ever be drowned.  They unexpectedly\ndiscovered a light at no great distance, and to that they directed their\ncourse.  Columba's boat consisted of a frame of osiers, which was covered\nwith hides of leather, and it was received into a very narrow creek close\nto this cave.  After returning thanks for their escape, the Saint and his\npeople had great difficulty in climbing up to the cave, which is elevated\nconsiderably above sea.  They at length got sight of the fire which had\nfirst attracted their attention.  Several persons sat around it, and\ntheir appearance was not much calculated to please the holy man.  Their\naspects were fierce, and they had on the fire some flesh roasting over\nthe coals.  The Saint gave them his benediction; and he was invited to\nsit down among them and to share their hurried repast, with which he\ngladly complied.  They were freebooters, who lived by plunder and\nrobbery, and this Columba soon discovered.  He advised them to forsake\nthat course, and to be converted to his doctrines, to which they all\nassented, and in the morning they accompanied the Saint on his voyage\nhomeward.  This circumstance created a high veneration for the cave among\nthe disciples and successors of Columba, and that veneration still\ncontinues, in some degree.  In one side of it there was a cleft of the\nrock, where lay the water with which the freebooters had been baptized;\nand this was afterwards formed by art into a basin, which is supplied\nwith water by drops from the roof of the cave.  It is alleged never to be\nempty or to overflow, and the most salubrious qualities are ascribed to\nit.  To obtain the benefit of it, however, the votaries must undergo a\nvery severe ordeal.  They must be in the cave before daylight; they stand\non the spot where the Saint first landed his boat, and nine waves must\ndash over their heads; they must afterwards pass through nine openings in\nthe walls of the cave; and, lastly, they must swallow nine mouthfuls out\nof the holy basin.  After invoking the aid of the Saint, the votaries\nwithin three weeks are either relieved by death or by recovery.  Offerings\nare left in a certain place appropriated for that purpose; and these are\nsometimes of considerable value, nor are they ever abstracted.  Strangers\nare always informed that a young man, who had wantonly taken away some of\nthese not many years since, broke his leg before he got home, and this\naffords the property of the Saint ample protection.\n\n\n\n\nTHE MERMAID WIFE.\n\n\nA story is told of an inhabitant of Unst, who, in walking on the sandy\nmargin of a voe, saw a number of mermen and mermaids dancing by\nmoonlight, and several seal-skins strewed beside them on the ground.  At\nhis approach they immediately fled to secure their garbs, and, taking\nupon themselves the form of seals, plunged immediately into the sea.  But\nas the Shetlander perceived that one skin lay close to his feet, he\nsnatched it up, bore it swiftly away, and placed it in concealment.  On\nreturning to the shore he met the fairest damsel that was ever gazed upon\nby mortal eyes, lamenting the robbery, by which she had become an exile\nfrom her submarine friends, and a tenant of the upper world.  Vainly she\nimplored the restitution of her property; the man had drunk deeply of\nlove, and was inexorable; but he offered her protection beneath his roof\nas his betrothed spouse.  The merlady, perceiving that she must become an\ninhabitant of the earth, found that she could not do better than accept\nof the offer.  This strange attachment subsisted for many years, and the\ncouple had several children.  The Shetlander's love for his merwife was\nunbounded, but his affection was coldly returned.  The lady would often\nsteal alone to the desert strand, and, on a signal being given, a large\nseal would make his appearance, with whom she would hold, in an unknown\ntongue, an anxious conference.  Years had thus glided away, when it\nhappened that one of the children, in the course of his play, found\nconcealed beneath a stack of corn a seal's skin; and, delighted with the\nprize, he ran with it to his mother.  Her eyes glistened with rapture--she\ngazed upon it as her own--as the means by which she could pass through\nthe ocean that led to her native home.  She burst forth into an ecstasy\nof joy, which was only moderated when she beheld her children, whom she\nwas now about to leave; and, after hastily embracing them, she fled with\nall speed towards the sea-side.  The husband immediately returned,\nlearned the discovery that had taken place, ran to overtake his wife, but\nonly arrived in time to see her transformation of shape completed--to see\nher, in the form of a seal, bound from the ledge of a rock into the sea.\nThe large animal of the same kind with whom she had held a secret\nconverse soon appeared, and evidently congratulated her, in the most\ntender manner, on her escape.  But before she dived to unknown depths,\nshe cast a parting glance at the wretched Shetlander, whose despairing\nlooks excited in her breast a few transient feelings of commiseration.\n\n\"Farewell!\" said she to him, \"and may all good attend you.  I loved you\nvery well when I resided upon earth, but I always loved my first husband\nmuch better.\"\n\n\n\n\nTHE FIDDLER AND THE BOGLE OF BOGANDORAN.\n\n\n\"Late one night, as my grand-uncle, Lachlan Dhu Macpherson, who was well\nknown as the best fiddler of his day, was returning home from a ball, at\nwhich he had acted as a musician, he had occasion to pass through the\nonce-haunted Bog of Torrans.  Now, it happened at that time that the bog\nwas frequented by a huge bogle or ghost, who was of a most mischievous\ndisposition, and took particular pleasure in abusing every traveller who\nhad occasion to pass through the place betwixt the twilight at night and\ncock-crowing in the morning.  Suspecting much that he would also come in\nfor a share of his abuse, my grand-uncle made up his mind, in the course\nof his progress, to return the ghost any _civilities_ which he might\nthink meet to offer him.  On arriving on the spot, he found his\nsuspicions were too well grounded; for whom did he see but the ghost of\nBogandoran apparently ready waiting him, and seeming by his ghastly grin\nnot a little overjoyed at the meeting.  Marching up to my grand-uncle,\nthe bogle clapped a huge club into his hand, and furnishing himself with\none of the same dimensions, he put a spittle in his hand, and\ndeliberately commenced the combat.  My grand-uncle returned the salute\nwith equal spirit, and so ably did both parties ply their batons that for\na while the issue of the combat was extremely doubtful.  At length,\nhowever, the fiddler could easily discover that his opponent's vigour was\nmuch in the fagging order.  Picking up renewed courage in consequence, he\nplied the ghost with renewed force, and after a stout resistance, in the\ncourse of which both parties were seriously handled, the ghost of\nBogandoran thought it prudent to give up the night.\n\n\"At the same time, filled no doubt with great indignation at this signal\ndefeat, it seems the ghost resolved to re-engage my grand-uncle on some\nother occasion, under more favourable circumstances.  Not long after, as\nmy grand-uncle was returning home quite unattended from another ball in\nthe Braes of the country, he had just entered the hollow of Auldichoish,\nwell known for its 'eerie' properties, when, lo! who presented himself to\nhis view on the adjacent eminence but his old friend of Bogandoran,\nadvancing as large as the gable of a house, and putting himself in the\nmost threatening and fighting attitudes.\n\n\"Looking at the very dangerous nature of the ground where they had met,\nand feeling no anxiety for a second encounter with a combatant of his\nweight, in a situation so little desirable, the fiddler would have\nwillingly deferred the settlement of their differences till a more\nconvenient season.  He, accordingly, assuming the most submissive aspect\nin the world, endeavoured to pass by his champion in peace, but in vain.\nLonging, no doubt, to retrieve the disgrace of his late discomfiture, the\nbogle instantly seized the fiddler, and attempted with all his might to\npull the latter down the precipice, with the diabolical intention, it is\nsupposed, of drowning him in the river Avon below.  In this pious design\nthe bogle was happily frustrated by the intervention of some trees which\ngrew on the precipice, and to which my unhappy grand-uncle clung with the\nzeal of a drowning man.  The enraged ghost, finding it impossible to\nextricate him from those friendly trees, and resolving, at all events, to\nbe revenged upon him, fell upon maltreating the fiddler with his hands\nand feet in the most inhuman manner.\n\n\"Such gross indignities my worthy grand-uncle was not accustomed to, and\nbeing incensed beyond all measure at the liberties taken by Bogandoran,\nhe resolved again to try his mettle, whether life or death should be the\nconsequence.  Having no other weapon wherewith to defend himself but his\n_biodag_, which, considering the nature of his opponent's constitution,\nhe suspected much would be of little avail to him--I say, in the absence\nof any other weapon, he sheathed the _biodag_ three times in the ghost of\nBogandoran's body.  And what was the consequence?  Why, to the great\nastonishment of my courageous forefather, the ghost fell down cold dead\nat his feet, and was never more seen or heard of.\"\n\n\n\n\nTHOMAS THE RHYMER.\n\n\nThomas, of Ercildoun, in Lauderdale, called the Rhymer, on account of his\nproducing a poetical romance on the subject of Tristrem and Yseult, which\nis curious as the earliest specimen of English verse known to exist,\nflourished in the reign of Alexander III. of Scotland.  Like other men of\ntalent of the period, Thomas was suspected of magic.  He was also said to\nhave the gift of prophecy, which was accounted for in the following\npeculiar manner, referring entirely to the Elfin superstition.\n\nAs Thomas lay on Huntly Bank (a place on the descent of the Eildon Hills,\nwhich raise their triple crest above the celebrated monastery of\nMelrose), he saw a lady so extremely beautiful that he imagined she must\nbe the Virgin Mary herself.  Her appointments, however, were those rather\nof an amazon, or goddess of the woods.  Her steed was of the highest\nbeauty, and at its mane hung thirty silver bells and nine, which were\nmusic to the wind as she paced along.  Her saddle was of \"royal bone\"\n(ivory), laid over with \"orfeverie\" (goldsmith's work).  Her stirrups,\nher dress, all corresponded with her extreme beauty and the magnificence\nof her array.  The fair huntress had her bow in hand, and her arrows at\nher belt.  She led three greyhounds in a leash, and three raches, or\nhounds of scent, followed her closely.\n\nShe rejected and disclaimed the homage which Thomas desired to pay her;\nso that, passing from one extremity to the other, Thomas became as bold\nas he had at first been humble.  The lady warned him he must become her\nslave if he wished to prosecute his suit.  Before their interview\nterminated, the appearance of the beautiful lady was changed into that of\nthe most hideous hag in existence.  A witch from the spital or almshouse\nwould have been a goddess in comparison to the late beautiful huntress.\nHideous as she was, Thomas felt that he had placed himself in the power\nof this hag, and when she bade him take leave of the sun, and of the leaf\nthat grew on the tree, he felt himself under the necessity of obeying\nher.  A cavern received them, in which, following his frightful guide, he\nfor three days travelled in darkness, sometimes hearing the booming of a\ndistant ocean, sometimes walking through rivers of blood, which crossed\ntheir subterranean path.  At length they emerged into daylight, in a most\nbeautiful orchard.  Thomas, almost fainting for want of food, stretched\nout his hand towards the goodly fruit which hung around him, but was\nforbidden by his conductress, who informed him that these were the fatal\napples which were the cause of the fall of man.  He perceived also that\nhis guide had no sooner entered this mysterious ground and breathed its\nmagic air than she was revived in beauty, equipage, and splendour, as\nfair or fairer than he had first seen her on the mountain.  She then\nproceeded to explain to him the character of the country.\n\n\"Yonder right-hand path,\" she says, \"conveys the spirits of the blest to\nparadise.  Yon downward and well-worn way leads sinful souls to the place\nof everlasting punishment.  The third road, by yonder dark brake,\nconducts to the milder place of pain, from which prayer and mass may\nrelease offenders.  But see you yet a fourth road, sweeping along the\nplain to yonder splendid castle?  Yonder is the road to Elfland, to which\nwe are now bound.  The lord of the castle is king of the country, and I\nam his queen; and when we enter yonder castle, you must observe strict\nsilence, and answer no question that is asked you, and I will account for\nyour silence by saying I took your speech when I brought you from middle\nearth.\"\n\nHaving thus instructed him, they journeyed on to the castle, and,\nentering by the kitchen, found themselves in the midst of such a festive\nscene as might become the mansion of a great feudal lord or prince.\n\nThirty carcasses of deer were lying on the massive kitchen board, under\nthe hands of numerous cooks, who toiled to cut them up and dress them,\nwhile the gigantic greyhounds which had taken the spoil lay lapping the\nblood, and enjoying the sight of the slain game.  They came next to the\nroyal hall, where the king received his loving consort; knights and\nladies, dancing by threes, occupied the floor of the hall; and Thomas,\nthe fatigue of his journey from the Eildon Hills forgotten, went forward\nand joined in the revelry.  After a period, however, which seemed to him\na very short one, the queen spoke with him apart, and bade him prepare to\nreturn to his own country.\n\n\"Now,\" said the queen, \"how long think you that you have been here?\"\n\n\"Certes, fair lady,\" answered Thomas, \"not above these seven days.\"\n\n\"You are deceived,\" answered the queen; \"you have been seven years in\nthis castle, and it is full time you were gone.  Know, Thomas, that the\narchfiend will come to this castle to-morrow to demand his tribute, and\nso handsome a man as you will attract his eye.  For all the world would I\nnot suffer you to be betrayed to such a fate; therefore up, and let us be\ngoing.\"\n\nThis terrible news reconciled Thomas to his departure from Elfinland; and\nthe queen was not long in placing him upon Huntly Bank, where the birds\nwere singing.  She took leave of him, and to ensure his reputation\nbestowed on him the tongue which _could not lie_.  Thomas in vain\nobjected to this inconvenient and involuntary adhesion to veracity, which\nwould make him, as he thought, unfit for church or for market, for king's\ncourt or for lady's bower.  But all his remonstrances were disregarded by\nthe lady; and Thomas the Rhymer, whenever the discourse turned on the\nfuture, gained the credit of a prophet whether he would or not, for he\ncould say nothing but what was sure to come to pass.\n\nThomas remained several years in his own tower near Ercildoun, and\nenjoyed the fame of his predictions, several of which are current among\nthe country people to this day.  At length, as the prophet was\nentertaining the Earl of March in his dwelling, a cry of astonishment\narose in the village, on the appearance of a hart and hind, which left\nthe forest, and, contrary to their shy nature, came quietly onward,\ntraversing the village towards the dwelling of Thomas.  The prophet\ninstantly rose from the board, and acknowledging the prodigy as the\nsummons of his fate, he accompanied the hart and hind into the forest,\nand though occasionally seen by individuals to whom he has chosen to show\nhimself, he has never again mixed familiarly with mankind.\n\n\n\n\nFAIRY FRIENDS.\n\n\nIt is a good thing to befriend the fairies, as the following stories\nshow:--\n\nThere have been from time immemorial at Hawick, during the two or three\nlast weeks of the year, markets once a week, for the disposal of sheep\nfor slaughter, at which the greater number of people, both in the middle\nand poorer classes of life, have been accustomed to provide themselves\nwith their _marts_.  A poor man from Jedburgh who was on his way to\nHawick for the purpose of attending one of these markets, as he was\npassing over that side of Rubislaw which is nearest the Teviot, was\nsuddenly alarmed by a frightful and unaccountable noise.  The sound, as\nhe supposed, proceeded from an immense number of female voices, but no\nobjects whence it could come were visible.  Amidst howling and wailing\nwere mixed shouts of mirth and jollity, but he could gather nothing\narticulate except the following words--\n\n\"O there's a bairn born, but there's naething to pit on 't.\"\n\nThe occasion of this elfish concert, it seemed, was the birth of a fairy\nchild, at which the fairies, with the exception of two or three who were\ndiscomposed at having nothing to cover the little innocent with, were\nenjoying themselves with that joviality usually characteristic of such an\nevent.  The astonished rustic finding himself amongst a host of invisible\nbeings, in a wild moorland place, and far from any human assistance,\nshould assistance be required, full of the greatest consternation,\nimmediately on hearing this expression again and again vociferated,\nstripped off his plaid, and threw it on the ground.  It was instantly\nsnatched up by an invisible hand, and the wailings immediately ceased,\nbut the shouts of mirth were continued with increased vigour.  Being of\nopinion that what he had done had satisfied his invisible friends, he\nlost no time in making off, and proceeded on his road to Hawick, musing\non his singular adventure.  He purchased a sheep, which turned out a\nremarkably good bargain, and returned to Jedburgh.  He had no cause to\nregret his generosity in bestowing his plaid on the fairies, for every\nday afterwards his wealth multiplied, and he continued till the day of\nhis death a rich and prosperous man.\n\n* * * * *\n\nAbout the beginning of harvest, there having been a want of meal for\n_shearers_' bread in the farmhouse of Bedrule, a small quantity of barley\n(being all that was yet ripe) was cut down, and converted into meal.  Mrs.\nBuckham, the farmer's wife, rose early in the morning to bake the bread,\nand, while she was engaged in baking, a little woman in green costume\ncame in, and, with much politeness, asked for a loan of a capful of meal.\nMrs. Buckham thought it prudent to comply with her request.  In a short\ntime afterwards the woman in green returned with an equal quantity of\nmeal, which Mrs. Buckham put into the _meal-ark_.  This meal had such a\nlasting quality, that from it alone the gudewife of Bedrule baked as much\nbread as served her own family and the reapers throughout the harvest,\nand when harvest was over it was not exhausted.\n\n\n\n\nTHE SEAL-CATCHER'S ADVENTURE.\n\n\nThere was once upon a time a man who lived upon the northern coasts, not\nfar from \"Taigh Jan Crot Callow\" (John-o'-Groat's House), and he gained\nhis livelihood by catching and killing fish, of all sizes and\ndenominations.  He had a particular liking for the killing of those\nwonderful beasts, half dog half fish, called \"Roane,\" or seals, no doubt\nbecause he got a long price for their skins, which are not less curious\nthan they are valuable.  The truth is, that the most of these animals are\nneither dogs nor cods, but downright fairies, as this narration will\nshow; and, indeed, it is easy for any man to convince himself of the fact\nby a simple examination of his _tobacco-spluichdan_, for the dead skins\nof those beings are never the same for four-and-twenty hours together.\nSometimes the _spluichdan_ will erect its bristles almost\nperpendicularly, while, at other times, it reclines them even down; one\ntime it resembles a bristly sow, at another time a _sleekit cat_; and\nwhat dead skin, except itself, could perform such cantrips?  Now, it\nhappened one day, as this notable fisher had returned from the\nprosecution of his calling, that he was called upon by a man who seemed a\ngreat stranger, and who said he had been despatched for him by a person\nwho wished to contract for a quantity of seal-skins, and that the fisher\nmust accompany him (the stranger) immediately to see the person who\nwished to contract for the skins, as it was necessary that he should be\nserved that evening.  Happy in the prospect of making a good bargain, and\nnever suspecting any duplicity, he instantly complied.  They both mounted\na steed belonging to the stranger, and took the road with such velocity\nthat, although the direction of the wind was towards their backs, yet the\nfleetness of their movement made it appear as if it had been in their\nfaces.  On reaching a stupendous precipice which overhung the sea, his\nguide told him they had now reached their destination.\n\n\"Where is the person you spoke of!\" inquired the astonished seal-killer.\n\n\"You shall see that presently,\" replied the guide.  With that they\nimmediately alighted, and, without allowing the seal-killer much time to\nindulge the frightful suspicions that began to pervade his mind, the\nstranger seized him with irresistible force, and plunged headlong with\nhim into the sea.  After sinking down, down, nobody knows how far, they\nat length reached a door, which, being open, led them into a range of\napartments, filled with inhabitants--not people, but seals, who could\nnevertheless speak and feel like human folk; and how much was the seal-\nkiller surprised to find that he himself had been unconsciously\ntransformed into the like image.  If it were not so, he would probably\nhave died from the want of breath.  The nature of the poor fisher's\nthoughts may be more easily conceived than described.  Looking at the\nnature of the quarters into which he had landed, all hopes of escape from\nthem appeared wholly chimerical, whilst the degree of comfort, and length\nof life which the barren scene promised him were far from being\nflattering.  The \"Roane,\" who all seemed in very low spirits, appeared to\nfeel for him, and endeavoured to soothe the distress which he evinced by\nthe amplest assurances of personal safety.  Involved in sad meditation on\nhis evil fate, he was quickly roused from his stupor by his guide's\nproducing a huge gully or joctaleg, the object of which he supposed was\nto put an end to all his earthly cares.  Forlorn as was his situation,\nhowever, he did not wish to be killed; and, apprehending instant\ndestruction, he fell down, and earnestly implored for mercy.  The poor\ngenerous animals did not mean him any harm, however much his former\nconduct deserved it, and he was accordingly desired to pacify himself,\nand cease his cries.\n\n\"Did you ever see that knife before?\" said the stranger to the fisher.\n\nThe latter instantly recognised his own knife, which he had that day\nstuck into a seal, and with which it had escaped, and acknowledged it was\nformerly his own, for what would be the use of denying it?\n\n\"Well,\" rejoined the guide, \"the apparent seal which made away with it is\nmy father, who has lain dangerously ill ever since, and no means can stay\nhis fleeting breath without your aid.  I have been obliged to resort to\nthe artifice I have practised to bring you hither, and I trust that my\nfilial duty to my father will readily excuse me.\"\n\nHaving said this, he led into another apartment the trembling\nseal-killer, who expected every minute to be punished for his own ill-\ntreatment of the father.  There he found the identical seal with which he\nhad had the encounter in the morning, suffering most grievously from a\ntremendous cut in its hind-quarter.  The seal-killer was then desired,\nwith his hand, to cicatrise the wound, upon doing which it immediately\nhealed, and the seal arose from its bed in perfect health.  Upon this the\nscene changed from mourning to rejoicing--all was mirth and glee.  Very\ndifferent, however, were the feelings of the unfortunate seal-catcher,\nwho expected no doubt to be metamorphosed into a seal for the remainder\nof his life.  However, his late guide accosting him, said--\n\n\"Now, sir, you are at liberty to return to your wife and family, to whom\nI am about to conduct you; but it is on this express condition, to which\nyou must bind yourself by a solemn oath, viz. that you will never maim or\nkill a seal in all your lifetime hereafter.\"\n\nTo this condition, hard as it was, he joyfully acceded; and the oath\nbeing administered in all due form, he bade his new acquaintance most\nheartily and sincerely a long farewell.  Taking hold of his guide, they\nissued from the place and swam up, till they regained the surface of the\nsea, and, landing at the said stupendous pinnacle, they found their\nformer steed ready for a second canter.  The guide breathed upon the\nfisher, and they became like men.  They mounted their horse, and fleet as\nhad been their course towards the precipice, their return from it was\ndoubly swift; and the honest seal-killer was laid down at his own door-\ncheek, where his guide made him such a present as would have almost\nreconciled him to another similar expedition, such as rendered his loss\nof profession, in so far as regarded the seals, a far less intolerable\nhardship than he had at first considered it.\n\n\n\n\nTHE FAIRIES OF MERLIN'S CRAIG.\n\n\nEarly in the seventeenth century, John Smith, a barn-man at a farm, was\nsent by his master to cast divots (turf) on the green immediately behind\nMerlin's Craig.  After having laboured for a considerable time, there\ncame round from the front of the rock a little woman, about eighteen\ninches in height, clad in a green gown and red stockings, with long\nyellow hair hanging down to her waist, who asked the astonished operator\nhow he would feel were she to send her husband to _tir_ (uncover) his\nhouse, at the same time commanding him to place every _divot_ he had cast\n_in statu quo_.  John obeyed with fear and trembling, and, returning to\nhis master, told what had happened.  The farmer laughed at his credulity,\nand, anxious to cure him of such idle superstition, ordered him to take a\ncart and fetch home the _divots_ immediately.\n\nJohn obeyed, although with much reluctance.  Nothing happened to him in\nconsequence till that day twelve months, when he left his master's work\nat the usual hour in the evening, with a small _stoup_ of milk in his\nhand, but he did not reach home, nor was he ever heard of for years (I\nhave forgotten how many), when, upon the anniversary of that unfortunate\nday, John walked into his house at the usual hour, with the milk-stoup in\nhis hand.\n\nThe account that he gave of his captivity was that, on the evening of\nthat eventful day, returning home from his labour, when passing Merlin's\nCraig, he felt himself suddenly taken ill, and sat down to rest a little.\nSoon after he fell asleep, and awoke, as he supposed, about midnight,\nwhen there was a troop of male and female fairies dancing round him.  They\ninsisted upon his joining in the sport, and gave him the finest girl in\nthe company as a partner.  She took him by the hand; they danced three\ntimes round in a fairy ring, after which he became so happy that he felt\nno inclination to leave his new associates.  Their amusements were\nprotracted till he heard his master's cock crow, when the whole troop\nimmediately rushed forward to the front of the craig, hurrying him along\nwith them.  A door opened to receive them, and he continued a prisoner\nuntil the evening on which he returned, when the same woman who had first\nappeared to him when casting _divots_ came and told him that the grass\nwas again green on the roof of her house, which he had _tirred_, and if\nhe would swear an oath, which she dictated, never to discover what he had\nseen in fairyland, he should be at liberty to return to his family.  John\ntook the oath, and observed it most religiously, although sadly teased\nand questioned by his helpmate, particularly about the \"bonnie lassie\"\nwith whom he danced on the night of his departure.  He was also observed\nto walk a mile out of his way rather than pass Merlin's Craig when the\nsun was below the horizon.\n\nOn a subsequent occasion the tiny inhabitants of Merlin's Craig surprised\na shepherd when watching his fold at night; he was asleep, and his bonnet\nhad fallen off and rolled to some little distance.  He was awakened by\nthe fairies dancing round him in a circle, and was induced to join them;\nbut recollecting the fate of John Smith, he would not allow his female\ncompanion to take hold of his hands.  In the midst of their gambols they\ncame close to the hillock where the shepherd's bonnet lay,--he affected\nto stumble, fell upon his bonnet, which he immediately seized, clapping\nit on his head, when the whole troop instantly vanished.  This exorcism\nwas produced by the talismanic power of a Catechism containing the Lord's\nPrayer and the Apostles' Creed, which the shepherd most fortunately\nrecollected was deposited in the crown of his bonnet.\n\n\n\n\nRORY MACGILLIVRAY.\n\n\nOnce upon a time a tenant in the neighbourhood of Cairngorm, in\nStrathspey, emigrated with his family and cattle to the forest of\nGlenavon, which is well known to be inhabited by many fairies as well as\nghosts.  Two of his sons being out late one night in search of some of\ntheir sheep which had strayed, had occasion to pass a fairy turret, or\ndwelling, of very large dimensions; and what was their astonishment on\nobserving streams of the most refulgent light shining forth through\ninnumerable crevices in the rock--crevices which the sharpest eye in the\ncountry had never seen before.  Curiosity led them towards the turret,\nwhen they were charmed by the most exquisite sounds ever emitted by a\nfiddle-string, which, joined to the sportive mirth and glee accompanying\nit, reconciled them in a great measure to the scene, although they knew\nwell enough the inhabitants of the nook were fairies.  Nay, overpowered\nby the enchanting jigs played by the fiddler, one of the brothers had\neven the hardihood to propose that they should pay the occupants of the\nturret a short visit.  To this motion the other brother, fond as he was\nof dancing, and animated as he was by the music, would by no means\nconsent, and he earnestly desired his brother to restrain his curiosity.\nBut every new jig that was played, and every new reel that was danced,\ninspired the adventurous brother with additional ardour, and at length,\ncompletely fascinated by the enchanting revelry, leaving all prudence\nbehind, at one leap he entered the \"Shian.\"  The poor forlorn brother was\nnow left in a most uncomfortable situation.  His grief for the loss of a\nbrother whom he dearly loved suggested to him more than once the\ndesperate idea of sharing his fate by following his example.  But, on the\nother hand, when he coolly considered the possibility of sharing very\ndifferent entertainment from that which rang upon his ears, and\nremembered, too, the comforts and convenience of his father's fireside,\nthe idea immediately appeared to him anything but prudent.  After a long\nand disagreeable altercation between his affection for his brother and\nhis regard for himself, he came to the resolution to take a middle\ncourse, that is, to shout in at the window a few remonstrances to his\nbrother, which, if he did not attend to, let the consequences be upon his\nown head.  Accordingly, taking his station at one of the crevices, and\ncalling upon his brother three several times by name, as use is, he\nuttered the most moving pieces of elocution he could think of, imploring\nhim, as he valued his poor parents' life and blessing, to come forth and\ngo home with him, Donald Macgillivray, his thrice affectionate and\nunhappy brother.  But whether it was the dancer could not hear this\neloquent harangue, or, what is more probable, that he did not choose to\nattend to it, certain it is that it proved totally ineffectual to\naccomplish its object, and the consequence was that Donald Macgillivray\nfound it equally his duty and his interest to return home to his family\nwith the melancholy tale of poor Rory's fate.  All the prescribed\nceremonies calculated to rescue him from the fairy dominion were resorted\nto by his mourning relatives without effect, and Rory was supposed lost\nfor ever, when a \"wise man\" of the day having learned the circumstance,\ndiscovered to his friends a plan by which they might deliver him at the\nend of twelve months from his entry.\n\n\"Return,\" says the _Duin Glichd_ to Donald, \"to the place where you lost\nyour brother a year and a day from the time.  You will insert in your\ngarment a _Rowan Cross_, which will protect you from the fairies'\ninterposition.  Enter the turret boldly and resolutely in the name of the\nHighest, claim your brother, and, if he does not accompany you\nvoluntarily, seize him and carry him off by force--none dare interfere\nwith you.\"\n\nThe experiment appeared to the cautious contemplative brother as one that\nwas fraught with no ordinary danger, and he would have most willingly\ndeclined the prominent character allotted to him in the performance but\nfor the importunate entreaty of his friends, who implored him, as he\nvalued their blessing, not to slight such excellent advice.  Their\nentreaties, together with his confidence in the virtues of the _Rowan\nCross_, overcame his scruples, and he at length agreed to put the\nexperiment in practice, whatever the result might be.\n\nWell, then, the important day arrived, when the father of the two sons\nwas destined either to recover his lost son, or to lose the only son he\nhad, and, anxious as the father felt, Donald Macgillivray, the intended\nadventurer, felt no less so on the occasion.  The hour of midnight\napproached when the drama was to be acted, and Donald Macgillivray,\nloaded with all the charms and benedictions in his country, took mournful\nleave of his friends, and proceeded to the scene of his intended\nenterprise.  On approaching the well-known turret, a repetition of that\nmirth and those ravishing sounds, that had been the source of so much\nsorrow to himself and family, once more attracted his attention, without\nat all creating in his mind any extraordinary feelings of satisfaction.\nOn the contrary, he abhorred the sounds most heartily, and felt much\ngreater inclination to recede than to advance.  But what was to be done?\nCourage, character, and everything dear to him were at stake, so that to\nadvance was his only alternative.  In short, he reached the \"Shian,\" and,\nafter twenty fruitless attempts, he at length entered the place with\ntrembling footsteps, and amidst the brilliant and jovial scene the not\nleast gratifying spectacle which presented itself to Donald was his\nbrother Rory earnestly engaged at the Highland fling on the floor, at\nwhich, as might have been expected, he had greatly improved.  Without\nlosing much time in satisfying his curiosity by examining the quality of\nthe company, Donald ran to his brother, repeating, most vehemently, the\nwords prescribed to him by the \"wise man,\" seized him by the collar, and\ninsisted on his immediately accompanying him home to his poor afflicted\nparents.  Rory assented, provided he would allow him to finish his single\nreel, assuring Donald, very earnestly, that he had not been half an hour\nin the house.  In vain did the latter assure him that, instead of half an\nhour, he had actually remained twelve months.  Nor would he have believed\nhis overjoyed friends when his brother at length got him home, did not\nthe calves, now grown into stots, and the new-born babes, now travelling\nthe house, at length convince him that in his single reel he had danced\nfor a twelvemonth and a day.\n\n\n\n\nTHE HAUNTED SHIPS.\n\n\n         \"Though my mind's not\n   Hoodwinked with rustic marvels, I do think\n   There are more things in the grove, the air, the flood,\n   Yea, and the charnelled earth, than what wise man,\n   Who walks so proud as if his form alone\n   Filled the wide temple of the universe,\n   Will let a frail mind say.  I'd write i' the creed\n   O' the sagest head alive, that fearful forms,\n   Holy or reprobate, do page men's heels;\n   That shapes, too horrid for our gaze, stand o'er\n   The murderer's dust, and for revenge glare up,\n   Even till the stars weep fire for very pity.\"\n\nAlong the sea of Solway, romantic on the Scottish side, with its\nwoodland, its bays, its cliffs, and headlands; and interesting on the\nEnglish side, with its many beautiful towns with their shadows on the\nwater, rich pastures, safe harbours, and numerous ships, there still\nlinger many traditional stories of a maritime nature, most of them\nconnected with superstitions singularly wild and unusual.  To the curious\nthese tales afford a rich fund of entertainment, from the many\ndiversities of the same story; some dry and barren, and stripped of all\nthe embellishments of poetry; others dressed out in all the riches of a\nsuperstitious belief and haunted imagination.  In this they resemble the\ninland traditions of the peasants; but many of the oral treasures of the\nGalwegian or the Cumbrian coast have the stamp of the Dane and the\nNorseman upon them, and claim but a remote or faint affinity with the\nlegitimate legends of Caledonia.  Something like a rude prosaic outline\nof several of the most noted of the northern ballads, the adventures and\ndepredations of the old ocean kings, still lends life to the evening\ntale; and, among others, the story of the Haunted Ships is still popular\namong the maritime peasantry.\n\nOne fine harvest evening I went on board the shallop of Richard Faulder,\nof Allanbay, and, committing ourselves to the waters, we allowed a gentle\nwind from the east to waft us at its pleasure towards the Scottish coast.\nWe passed the sharp promontory of Siddick, and, skirting the land within\na stonecast, glided along the shore till we came within sight of the\nruined Abbey of Sweetheart.  The green mountain of Criffel ascended\nbeside us; and the bleat of the flocks from its summit, together with the\nwinding of the evening horn of the reapers, came softened into something\nlike music over land and sea.  We pushed our shallop into a deep and\nwooded bay, and sat silently looking on the serene beauty of the place.\nThe moon glimmered in her rising through the tall shafts of the pines of\nCaerlaverock; and the sky, with scarce a cloud, showered down on wood and\nheadland and bay the twinkling beams of a thousand stars, rendering every\nobject visible.  The tide, too, was coming with that swift and silent\nswell observable when the wind is gentle; the woody curves along the land\nwere filling with the flood, till it touched the green branches of the\ndrooping trees; while in the centre current the roll and the plunge of a\nthousand pellocks told to the experienced fisherman that salmon were\nabundant.\n\nAs we looked, we saw an old man emerging from a path that wound to the\nshore through a grove of doddered hazel; he carried a halve-net on his\nback, while behind him came a girl, bearing a small harpoon, with which\nthe fishers are remarkably dexterous in striking their prey.  The senior\nseated himself on a large grey stone, which overlooked the bay, laid\naside his bonnet, and submitted his bosom and neck to the refreshing sea\nbreeze, and, taking his harpoon from his attendant, sat with the gravity\nand composure of a spirit of the flood, with his ministering nymph behind\nhim.  We pushed our shallop to the shore, and soon stood at their side.\n\n\"This is old Mark Macmoran the mariner, with his granddaughter Barbara,\"\nsaid Richard Faulder, in a whisper that had something of fear in it; \"he\nknows every creek and cavern and quicksand in Solway; has seen the\nSpectre Hound that haunts the Isle of Man; has heard him bark, and at\nevery bark has seen a ship sink; and he has seen, too, the Haunted Ships\nin full sail; and, if all tales be true, he has sailed in them\nhimself;--he's an awful person.\"\n\nThough I perceived in the communication of my friend something of the\nsuperstition of the sailor, I could not help thinking that common rumour\nhad made a happy choice in singling out old Mark to maintain her\nintercourse with the invisible world.  His hair, which seemed to have\nrefused all intercourse with the comb, hung matted upon his shoulders; a\nkind of mantle, or rather blanket, pinned with a wooden skewer round his\nneck, fell mid-leg down, concealing all his nether garments as far as a\npair of hose, darned with yarn of all conceivable colours, and a pair of\nshoes, patched and repaired till nothing of the original structure\nremained, and clasped on his feet with two massy silver buckles.  If the\ndress of the old man was rude and sordid, that of his granddaughter was\ngay, and even rich.  She wore a bodice of fine wool, wrought round the\nbosom with alternate leaf and lily, and a kirtle of the same fabric,\nwhich, almost touching her white and delicate ankle, showed her snowy\nfeet, so fairy-light and round that they scarcely seemed to touch the\ngrass where she stood.  Her hair, a natural ornament which woman seeks\nmuch to improve, was of bright glossy brown, and encumbered rather than\nadorned with a snood, set thick with marine productions, among which the\nsmall clear pearl found in the Solway was conspicuous.  Nature had not\ntrusted to a handsome shape and a sylph-like air for young Barbara's\ninfluence over the heart of man, but had bestowed a pair of large bright\nblue eyes, swimming in liquid light, so full of love and gentleness and\njoy, that all the sailors from Annanwater to far Saint Bees acknowledged\ntheir power, and sang songs about the bonnie lass of Mark Macmoran.  She\nstood holding a small gaff-hook of polished steel in her hand, and seemed\nnot dissatisfied with the glances I bestowed on her from time to time,\nand which I held more than requited by a single glance of those eyes\nwhich retained so many capricious hearts in subjection.\n\nThe tide, though rapidly augmenting, had not yet filled the bay at our\nfeet.  The moon now streamed fairly over the tops of Caerlaverock pines,\nand showed the expanse of ocean dimpling and swelling, on which sloops\nand shallops came dancing, and displaying at every turn their extent of\nwhite sail against the beam of the moon.  I looked on old Mark the\nmariner, who, seated motionless on his grey stone, kept his eye fixed on\nthe increasing waters with a look of seriousness and sorrow, in which I\nsaw little of the calculating spirit of a mere fisherman.  Though he\nlooked on the coming tide, his eyes seemed to dwell particularly on the\nblack and decayed hulls of two vessels, which, half immersed in the\nquicksand, still addressed to every heart a tale of shipwreck and\ndesolation.  The tide wheeled and foamed around them, and, creeping inch\nby inch up the side, at last fairly threw its waters over the top, and a\nlong and hollow eddy showed the resistance which the liquid element\nreceived.\n\nThe moment they were fairly buried in the water, the old man clasped his\nhands together, and said: \"Blessed be the tide that will break over and\nbury ye for ever!  Sad to mariners, and sorrowful to maids and mothers,\nhas the time been you have choked up this deep and bonnie bay.  For evil\nwere you sent, and for evil have you continued.  Every season finds from\nyou its song of sorrow and wail, its funeral processions, and its\nshrouded corses.  Woe to the land where the wood grew that made ye!\nCursed be the axe that hewed ye on the mountains, the hands that joined\nye together, the bay that ye first swam in, and the wind that wafted ye\nhere!  Seven times have ye put my life in peril, three fair sons have ye\nswept from my side, and two bonnie grand-bairns; and now, even now, your\nwaters foam and flash for my destruction, did I venture my infirm limbs\nin quest of food in your deadly bay.  I see by that ripple and that foam,\nand hear by the sound and singing of your surge, that ye yearn for\nanother victim; but it shall not be me nor mine.\"\n\nEven as the old mariner addressed himself to the wrecked ships, a young\nman appeared at the southern extremity of the bay, holding his halve-net\nin his hand, and hastening into the current.  Mark rose and shouted, and\nwaved him back from a place which, to a person unacquainted with the\ndangers of the bay, real and superstitious, seemed sufficiently perilous;\nhis granddaughter, too, added her voice to his, and waved her white\nhands; but the more they strove, the faster advanced the peasant, till he\nstood to his middle in the water, while the tide increased every moment\nin depth and strength.  \"Andrew, Andrew,\" cried the young woman, in a\nvoice quavering with emotion, \"turn, turn, I tell you!  O the Ships, the\nHaunted Ships!\"  But the appearance of a fine run of fish had more\ninfluence with the peasant than the voice of bonnie Barbara, and forward\nhe dashed, net in hand.  In a moment he was borne off his feet, and\nmingled like foam with the water, and hurried towards the fatal eddies\nwhich whirled and roared round the sunken ships.  But he was a powerful\nyoung man, and an expert swimmer; he seized on one of the projecting ribs\nof the nearest hulk, and clinging to it with the grasp of despair,\nuttered yell after yell, sustaining himself against the prodigious rush\nof the current.\n\nFrom a shealing of turf and straw, within the pitch of a bar from the\nspot where we stood, came out an old woman bent with age, and leaning on\na crutch.  \"I heard the voice of that lad Andrew Lammie; can the chield\nbe drowning that he skirls sae uncannily?\" said the old woman, seating\nherself on the ground, and looking earnestly at the water.  \"Ou, ay,\" she\ncontinued, \"he's doomed, he's doomed; heart and hand can never save him;\nboats, ropes, and man's strength and wit, all vain! vain!--he's doomed,\nhe's doomed!\"\n\nBy this time I had thrown myself into the shallop, followed reluctantly\nby Richard Faulder, over whose courage and kindness of heart superstition\nhad great power, and with one push from the shore, and some exertion in\nsculling, we came within a quoitcast of the unfortunate fisherman.  He\nstayed not to profit by our aid; for, when he perceived us near, he\nuttered a piercing shriek of joy, and bounded towards us through the\nagitated element the full length of an oar.  I saw him for a second on\nthe surface of the water, but the eddying current sucked him down; and\nall I ever beheld of him again was his hand held above the flood, and\nclutching in agony at some imaginary aid.  I sat gazing in horror on the\nvacant sea before us; but a breathing-time before, a human being, full of\nyouth and strength and hope, was there; his cries were still ringing in\nmy ears, and echoing in the woods; and now nothing was seen or heard save\nthe turbulent expanse of water, and the sound of its chafing on the\nshores.  We pushed back our shallop, and resumed our station on the cliff\nbeside the old mariner and his descendant.\n\n\"Wherefore sought ye to peril your own lives fruitlessly,\" said Mark, \"in\nattempting to save the doomed?  Whoso touches those infernal ships never\nsurvives to tell the tale.  Woe to the man who is found nigh them at\nmidnight when the tide has subsided, and they arise in their former\nbeauty, with forecastle, and deck, and sail, and pennon, and shroud!  Then\nis seen the streaming of lights along the water from their cabin windows,\nand then is heard the sound of mirth and the clamour of tongues, and the\ninfernal whoop and halloo and song, ringing far and wide.  Woe to the man\nwho comes nigh them!\"\n\nTo all this my Allanbay companion listened with a breathless attention.  I\nfelt something touched with a superstition to which I partly believed I\nhad seen one victim offered up; and I inquired of the old mariner, \"How\nand when came these Haunted Ships there?  To me they seem but the\nmelancholy relics of some unhappy voyagers, and much more likely to warn\npeople to shun destruction than entice and delude them to it.\"\n\n\"And so,\" said the old man with a smile, which had more of sorrow in it\nthan of mirth; \"and so, young man, these black and shattered hulks seem\nto the eye of the multitude.  But things are not what they seem: that\nwater, a kind and convenient servant to the wants of man, which seems so\nsmooth and so dimpling and so gentle, has swallowed up a human soul even\nnow; and the place which it covers, so fair and so level, is a faithless\nquicksand, out of which none escape.  Things are otherwise than they\nseem.  Had you lived as long as I have had the sorrow to live; had you\nseen the storms, and braved the perils, and endured the distresses which\nhave befallen me; had you sat gazing out on the dreary ocean at midnight\non a haunted coast; had you seen comrade after comrade, brother after\nbrother, and son after son, swept away by the merciless ocean from your\nvery side; had you seen the shapes of friends, doomed to the wave and the\nquicksand, appearing to you in the dreams and visions of the night, then\nwould your mind have been prepared for crediting the maritime legends of\nmariners; and the two haunted Danish ships would have had their terrors\nfor you, as they have for all who sojourn on this coast.\n\n\"Of the time and the cause of their destruction,\" continued the old man,\n\"I know nothing certain; they have stood as you have seen them for\nuncounted time; and while all other ships wrecked on this unhappy coast\nhave gone to pieces, and rotted and sunk away in a few years, these two\nhaunted hulks have neither sunk in the quicksand, nor has a single spar\nor board been displaced.  Maritime legend says that two ships of Denmark\nhaving had permission, for a time, to work deeds of darkness and dolor on\nthe deep, were at last condemned to the whirlpool and the sunken rock,\nand were wrecked in this bonnie bay, as a sign to seamen to be gentle and\ndevout.  The night when they were lost was a harvest evening of uncommon\nmildness and beauty: the sun had newly set; the moon came brighter and\nbrighter out; and the reapers, laying their sickles at the root of the\nstanding corn, stood on rock and bank, looking at the increasing\nmagnitude of the waters, for sea and land were visible from Saint Bees to\nBarnhourie.  The sails of two vessels were soon seen bent for the\nScottish coast; and, with a speed outrunning the swiftest ship, they\napproached the dangerous quicksands and headland of Borranpoint.  On the\ndeck of the foremost ship not a living soul was seen, or shape, unless\nsomething in darkness and form, resembling a human shadow could be called\na shape, which flitted from extremity to extremity of the ship, with the\nappearance of trimming the sails, and directing the vessel's course.  But\nthe decks of its companion were crowded with human shapes; the captain\nand mate, and sailor and cabin-boy, all seemed there; and from them the\nsound of mirth and minstrelsy echoed over land and water.  The coast\nwhich they skirted along was one of extreme danger, and the reapers\nshouted to warn them to beware of sandbank and rock; but of this friendly\ncounsel no notice was taken, except that a large and famished dog, which\nsat on the prow, answered every shout with a long, loud, and melancholy\nhowl.  The deep sandbank of Carsethorn was expected to arrest the career\nof these desperate navigators; but they passed, with the celerity of\nwater-fowl, over an obstruction which had wrecked many pretty ships.\n\n\"Old men shook their heads and departed, saying, 'We have seen the fiend\nsailing in a bottomless ship; let us go home and pray;' but one young and\nwilful man said, 'Fiend!  I'll warrant it's nae fiend, but douce Janet\nWithershins the witch, holding a carouse with some of her Cumberland\ncummers, and mickle red wine will be spilt atween them.  Dod I would\ngladly have a toothfu'!  I'll warrant it's nane o' your cauld sour slae-\nwater like a bottle of Bailie Skrinkie's port, but right\ndrap-o'-my-heart's-blood stuff, that would waken a body out of their last\nlinen.  I wonder where the cummers will anchor their craft?'  'And I'll\nvow,' said another rustic, 'the wine they quaff is none of your visionary\ndrink, such as a drouthie body has dished out to his lips in a dream; nor\nis it shadowy and unsubstantial, like the vessels they sail in, which are\nmade out of a cockel-shell or a cast-off slipper, or the paring of a\nseaman's right thumb-nail.  I once got a hansel out of a witch's quaigh\nmyself--auld Marion Mathers, of Dustiefoot, whom they tried to bury in\nthe old kirkyard of Dunscore; but the cummer raise as fast as they laid\nher down, and naewhere else would she lie but in the bonnie green\nkirkyard of Kier, among douce and sponsible fowk.  So I'll vow that the\nwine of a witch's cup is as fell liquor as ever did a kindly turn to a\npoor man's heart; and be they fiends, or be they witches, if they have\nred wine asteer, I'll risk a drouket sark for ae glorious tout on't.\"\n\n\"'Silence, ye sinners,' said the minister's son of a neighbouring parish,\nwho united in his own person his father's lack of devotion with his\nmother's love of liquor.  'Whist!--speak as if ye had the fear of\nsomething holy before ye.  Let the vessels run their own way to\ndestruction: who can stay the eastern wind, and the current of the Solway\nsea?  I can find ye Scripture warrant for that; so let them try their\nstrength on Blawhooly rocks, and their might on the broad quicksand.\nThere's a surf running there would knock the ribs together of a galley\nbuilt by the imps of the pit, and commanded by the Prince of Darkness.\nBonnily and bravely they sail away there, but before the blast blows by\nthey'll be wrecked; and red wine and strong brandy will be as rife as\ndyke-water, and we'll drink the health of bonnie Bell Blackness out of\nher left-foot slipper.'\n\n\"The speech of the young profligate was applauded by several of his\ncompanions, and away they flew to the bay of Blawhooly, from whence they\nnever returned.  The two vessels were observed all at once to stop in the\nbosom of the bay, on the spot where their hulls now appear; the mirth and\nthe minstrelsy waxed louder than ever, and the forms of maidens, with\ninstruments of music and wine-cups in their hands, thronged the decks.  A\nboat was lowered; and the same shadowy pilot who conducted the ships made\nit start towards the shore with the rapidity of lightning, and its head\nknocked against the bank where the four young men stood who longed for\nthe unblest drink.  They leaped in with a laugh, and with a laugh were\nthey welcomed on deck; wine-cups were given to each, and as they raised\nthem to their lips the vessels melted away beneath their feet, and one\nloud shriek, mingled with laughter still louder, was heard over land and\nwater for many miles.  Nothing more was heard or seen till the morning,\nwhen the crowd who came to the beach saw with fear and wonder the two\nHaunted Ships, such as they now seem, masts and tackle gone; nor mark,\nnor sign, by which their name, country, or destination could be known,\nwas left remaining.  Such is the tradition of the mariners; and its truth\nhas been attested by many families whose sons and whose fathers have been\ndrowned in the haunted bay of Blawhooly.\"\n\n\"And trow ye,\" said the old woman, who, attracted from her hut by the\ndrowning cries of the young fisherman, had remained an auditor of the\nmariner's legend,--\"And trow ye, Mark Macmoran, that the tale of the\nHaunted Ships is done?  I can say no to that.  Mickle have mine ears\nheard; but more mine eyes have witnessed since I came to dwell in this\nhumble home by the side of the deep sea.  I mind the night weel; it was\non Hallowmas Eve; the nuts were cracked, and the apples were eaten, and\nspell and charm were tried at my fireside; till, wearied with diving into\nthe dark waves of futurity, the lads and lasses fairly took to the more\nvisible blessings of kind words, tender clasps, and gentle courtship.\nSoft words in a maiden's ear, and a kindly kiss o' her lip were old-world\nmatters to me, Mark Macmoran; though I mean not to say that I have been\nfree of the folly of daunering and daffin with a youth in my day, and\nkeeping tryst with him in dark and lonely places.  However, as I say,\nthese times of enjoyment were passed and gone with me--the mair's the\npity that pleasure should fly sae fast away--and as I couldna make sport\nI thought I should not mar any; so out I sauntered into the fresh cold\nair, and sat down behind that old oak, and looked abroad on the wide sea.\nI had my ain sad thoughts, ye may think, at the time: it was in that very\nbay my blythe good-man perished, with seven more in his company; and on\nthat very bank where ye see the waves leaping and foaming, I saw seven\nstately corses streeked, but the dearest was the eighth.  It was a woful\nsight to me, a widow, with four bonnie boys, with nought to support them\nbut these twa hands, and God's blessing, and a cow's grass.  I have never\nliked to live out of sight of this bay since that time; and mony's the\nmoonlight night I sit looking on these watery mountains and these waste\nshores; it does my heart good, whatever it may do to my head.  So ye see\nit was Hallowmas Night, and looking on sea and land sat I; and my heart\nwandering to other thoughts soon made me forget my youthful company at\nhame.  It might be near the howe hour of the night.  The tide was making,\nand its singing brought strange old-world stories with it, and I thought\non the dangers that sailors endure, the fates they meet with, and the\nfearful forms they see.  My own blythe goodman had seen sights that made\nhim grave enough at times, though he aye tried to laugh them away.\n\n\"Aweel, atween that very rock aneath us and the coming tide, I saw, or\nthought I saw--for the tale is so dreamlike that the whole might pass for\na vision of the night,--I saw the form of a man; his plaid was grey, his\nface was grey; and his hair, which hung low down till it nearly came to\nthe middle of his back, was as white as the white sea-foam.  He began to\nhowk and dig under the bank; an' God be near me, thought I, this maun be\nthe unblessed spirit of auld Adam Gowdgowpin the miser, who is doomed to\ndig for shipwrecked treasure, and count how many millions are hidden for\never from man's enjoyment.  The form found something which in shape and\nhue seemed a left-foot slipper of brass; so down to the tide he marched,\nand, placing it on the water, whirled it thrice round, and the infernal\nslipper dilated at every turn, till it became a bonnie barge with its\nsails bent, and on board leaped the form, and scudded swiftly away.  He\ncame to one of the Haunted Ships, and striking it with his oar, a fair\nship, with mast and canvas and mariners, started up; he touched the other\nHaunted Ship, and produced the like transformation; and away the three\nspectre ships bounded, leaving a track of fire behind them on the billows\nwhich was long unextinguished.  Now wasna that a bonnie and fearful sight\nto see beneath the light of the Hallowmas moon?  But the tale is far frae\nfinished, for mariners say that once a year, on a certain night, if ye\nstand on the Borran Point, ye will see the infernal shallops coming\nsnoring through the Solway; ye will hear the same laugh and song and\nmirth and minstrelsy which our ancestors heard; see them bound over the\nsandbanks and sunken rocks like sea-gulls, cast their anchor in Blawhooly\nBay, while the shadowy figure lowers down the boat, and augments their\nnumbers with the four unhappy mortals to whose memory a stone stands in\nthe kirkyard, with a sinking ship and a shoreless sea cut upon it.  Then\nthe spectre ships vanish, and the drowning shriek of mortals and the\nrejoicing laugh of fiends are heard, and the old hulls are left as a\nmemorial that the old spiritual kingdom has not departed from the earth.\nBut I maun away, and trim my little cottage fire, and make it burn and\nblaze up bonnie, to warm the crickets and my cold and crazy bones that\nmaun soon be laid aneath the green sod in the eerie kirkyard.\"  And away\nthe old dame tottered to her cottage, secured the door on the inside, and\nsoon the hearth-flame was seen to glimmer and gleam through the keyhole\nand window.\n\n\"I'll tell ye what,\" said the old mariner, in a subdued tone, and with a\nshrewd and suspicious glance of his eye after the old sibyl, \"it's a word\nthat may not very well be uttered, but there are many mistakes made in\nevening stories if old Moll Moray there, where she lives, knows not\nmickle more than she is willing to tell of the Haunted Ships and their\nunhallowed mariners.  She lives cannily and quietly; no one knows how she\nis fed or supported; but her dress is aye whole, her cottage ever smokes,\nand her table lacks neither of wine, white and red, nor of fowl and fish,\nand white bread and brown.  It was a dear scoff to Jock Matheson, when he\ncalled old Moll the uncanny carline of Blawhooly: his boat ran round and\nround in the centre of the Solway--everybody said it was enchanted--and\ndown it went head foremost; and hadna Jock been a swimmer equal to a\nsheldrake, he would have fed the fish.  But I'll warrant it sobered the\nlad's speech; and he never reckoned himself safe till he made old Moll\nthe present of a new kirtle and a stone of cheese.\"\n\n\"O father!\" said his granddaughter Barbara, \"ye surely wrong poor old\nMary Moray; what use could it be to an old woman like her, who has no\nwrongs to redress, no malice to work out against mankind, and nothing to\nseek of enjoyment save a canny hour and a quiet grave--what use could the\nfellowship of fiends and the communion of evil spirits be to her?  I know\nJenny Primrose puts rowan-tree above the door-head when she sees old Mary\ncoming; I know the good-wife of Kittlenaket wears rowan-berry leaves in\nthe headband of her blue kirtle, and all for the sake of averting the\nunsonsie glance of Mary's right ee; and I know that the auld Laird of\nBurntroutwater drives his seven cows to their pasture with a wand of\nwitch-tree, to keep Mary from milking them.  But what has all that to do\nwith haunted shallops, visionary mariners, and bottomless boats?  I have\nheard myself as pleasant a tale about the Haunted Ships and their\nunworldly crews as any one would wish to hear in a winter evening.  It\nwas told me by young Benjie Macharg, one summer night, sitting on\nArbigland-bank: the lad intended a sort of love meeting; but all that he\ncould talk of was about smearing sheep and shearing sheep, and of the\nwife which the Norway elves of the Haunted Ships made for his uncle\nSandie Macharg.  And I shall tell ye the tale as the honest lad told it\nto me.\n\n\"Alexander Macharg, besides being the laird of three acres of peatmoss,\ntwo kale gardens, and the owner of seven good milch cows, a pair of\nhorses, and six pet sheep, was the husband of one of the handsomest women\nin seven parishes.  Many a lad sighed the day he was brided; and a\nNithsdale laird and two Annandale moorland farmers drank themselves to\ntheir last linen, as well as their last shilling, through sorrow for her\nloss.  But married was the dame; and home she was carried, to bear rule\nover her home and her husband, as an honest woman should.  Now ye maun\nken that though the flesh-and-blood lovers of Alexander's bonnie wife all\nceased to love and to sue her after she became another's, there were\ncertain admirers who did not consider their claim at all abated, or their\nhopes lessened by the kirk's famous obstacle of matrimony.  Ye have heard\nhow the devout minister of Tinwald had a fair son carried away, and\nwedded against his liking to an unchristened bride, whom the elves and\nthe fairies provided; ye have heard how the bonnie bride of the drunken\nLaird of Soukitup was stolen by the fairies out at the back-window of the\nbridal chamber, the time the bridegroom was groping his way to the\nchamber door; and ye have heard--but why need I multiply cases?  Such\nthings in the ancient days were as common as candle-light.  So ye'll no\nhinder certain water elves and sea fairies, who sometimes keep festival\nand summer mirth in these old haunted hulks, from falling in love with\nthe weel-faured wife of Laird Macharg; and to their plots and\ncontrivances they went how they might accomplish to sunder man and wife;\nand sundering such a man and such a wife was like sundering the green\nleaf from the summer, or the fragrance from the flower.\n\n\"So it fell on a time that Laird Macharg took his halve-net on his back,\nand his steel spear in his hand, and down to Blawhooly Bay gaed he, and\ninto the water he went right between the two haunted hulks, and placing\nhis net awaited the coming of the tide.  The night, ye maun ken, was\nmirk, and the wind lowne, and the singing of the increasing waters among\nthe shells and the peebles was heard for sundry miles.  All at once light\nbegan to glance and twinkle on board the two Haunted Ships from every\nhole and seam, and presently the sound as of a hatchet employed in\nsquaring timber echoed far and wide.  But if the toil of these unearthly\nworkmen amazed the laird, how much more was his amazement increased when\na sharp shrill voice called out, 'Ho, brother! what are you doing now?'  A\nvoice still shriller responded from the other haunted ship, 'I'm making a\nwife to Sandie Macharg!'  And a loud quavering laugh running from ship to\nship, and from bank to bank, told the joy they expected from their\nlabour.\n\n\"Now the laird, besides being a devout and a God-fearing man, was shrewd\nand bold; and in plot and contrivance, and skill in conducting his\ndesigns, was fairly an overmatch for any dozen land elves; but the water\nelves are far more subtle; besides their haunts and their dwellings being\nin the great deep, pursuit and detection is hopeless if they succeed in\ncarrying their prey to the waves.  But ye shall hear.  Home flew the\nlaird, collected his family around the hearth, spoke of the signs and the\nsins of the times, and talked of mortification and prayer for averting\ncalamity; and, finally, taking his father's Bible, brass clasps, black\nprint, and covered with calf-skin, from the shelf, he proceeded without\nlet or stint to perform domestic worship.  I should have told ye that he\nbolted and locked the door, shut up all inlet to the house, threw salt\ninto the fire, and proceeded in every way like a man skilful in guarding\nagainst the plots of fairies and fiends.  His wife looked on all this\nwith wonder; but she saw something in her husband's looks that hindered\nher from intruding either question or advice, and a wise woman was she.\n\n\"Near the mid-hour of the night the rush of a horse's feet was heard, and\nthe sound of a rider leaping from its back, and a heavy knock came to the\ndoor, accompanied by a voice, saying, 'The cummer drink's hot, and the\nknave bairn is expected at Laird Laurie's to-night; sae mount, good-wife,\nand come.'\n\n\"'Preserve me!' said the wife of Sandie Macharg, 'that's news indeed; who\ncould have thought it?  The laird has been heirless for seventeen years!\nNow, Sandie, my man, fetch me my skirt and hood.'\n\n\"But he laid his arm round his wife's neck, and said, 'If all the lairds\nin Galloway go heirless, over this door threshold shall you not stir to-\nnight; and I have said, and I have sworn it; seek not to know why or\nwherefore--but, Lord, send us thy blessed mornlight.'  The wife looked\nfor a moment in her husband's eyes, and desisted from further entreaty.\n\n\"'But let us send a civil message to the gossips, Sandy; and hadna ye\nbetter say I am sair laid with a sudden sickness? though it's sinful-like\nto send the poor messenger a mile agate with a lie in his mouth without a\nglass of brandy.'\n\n\"'To such a messenger, and to those who sent him, no apology is needed,'\nsaid the austere laird; 'so let him depart.'  And the clatter of a\nhorse's hoofs was heard, and the muttered imprecations of its rider on\nthe churlish treatment he had experienced.\n\n\"'Now, Sandie, my lad,' said his wife, laying an arm particularly white\nand round about his neck as she spoke, 'are you not a queer man and a\nstern?  I have been your wedded wife now these three years; and, beside\nmy dower, have brought you three as bonnie bairns as ever smiled aneath a\nsummer sun.  O man, you a douce man, and fitter to be an elder than even\nWillie Greer himself, I have the minister's ain word for 't, to put on\nthese hard-hearted looks, and gang waving your arms that way, as if ye\nsaid, \"I winna take the counsel of sic a hempie as you;\" I'm your ain\nleal wife, and will and maun have an explanation.'\n\n\"To all this Sandie Macharg replied, 'It is written, \"Wives, obey your\nhusbands\"; but we have been stayed in our devotion, so let us pray;' and\ndown he knelt: his wife knelt also, for she was as devout as bonnie; and\nbeside them knelt their household, and all lights were extinguished.\n\n\"'Now this beats a',' muttered his wife to herself; 'however, I shall be\nobedient for a time; but if I dinna ken what all this is for before the\nmorn by sunket-time, my tongue is nae langer a tongue, nor my hands worth\nwearing.'\n\n\"The voice of her husband in prayer interrupted this mental soliloquy;\nand ardently did he beseech to be preserved from the wiles of the fiends\nand the snares of Satan; from witches, ghosts, goblins, elves, fairies,\nspunkies, and water-kelpies; from the spectre shallop of Solway; from\nspirits visible and invisible; from the Haunted Ships and their unearthly\ntenants; from maritime spirits that plotted against godly men, and fell\nin love with their wives--'\n\n\"'Nay, but His presence be near us!' said his wife, in a low tone of\ndismay.  'God guide my gudeman's wits: I never heard such a prayer from\nhuman lips before.  But, Sandie, my man, Lord's sake, rise.  What fearful\nlight is this?  Barn and byre and stable maun be in a blaze; and Hawkie,\nand Hurley, Doddie, and Cherrie, and Damsonplum will be smoored with\nreek, and scorched with flame.'\n\n\"And a flood of light, but not so gross as a common fire, which ascended\nto heaven and filled all the court before the house, amply justified the\ngood-wife's suspicions.  But to the terrors of fire Sandie was as\nimmovable as he was to the imaginary groans of the barren wife of Laird\nLaurie; and he held his wife, and threatened the weight of his right\nhand--and it was a heavy one--to all who ventured abroad, or even\nunbolted the door.  The neighing and prancing of horses, and the\nbellowing of cows, augmented the horrors of the night; and to any one who\nonly heard the din, it seemed that the whole onstead was in a blaze, and\nhorses and cattle perishing in the flame.  All wiles, common or\nextraordinary, were put in practice to entice or force the honest farmer\nand his wife to open the door; and when the like success attended every\nnew stratagem, silence for a little while ensued, and a long, loud, and\nshrilling laugh wound up the dramatic efforts of the night.  In the\nmorning, when Laird Macharg went to the door, he found standing against\none of the pilasters a piece of black ship oak, rudely fashioned into\nsomething like human form, and which skilful people declared would have\nbeen clothed with seeming flesh and blood, and palmed upon him by elfin\nadroitness for his wife, had he admitted his visitants.  A synod of wise\nmen and women sat upon the woman of timber, and she was finally ordered\nto be devoured by fire, and that in the open air.  A fire was soon made,\nand into it the elfin sculpture was tossed from the prongs of two pairs\nof pitchforks.  The blaze that arose was awful to behold; and hissings\nand burstings and loud cracklings and strange noises were heard in the\nmidst of the flame; and when the whole sank into ashes, a drinking-cup of\nsome precious metal was found; and this cup, fashioned no doubt by elfin\nskill, but rendered harmless by the purification with fire, the sons and\ndaughters of Sandie Macharg and his wife drink out of to this very day.\nBless all bold men, say I, and obedient wives!\"\n\n\n\n\nTHE BROWNIE.\n\n\nThe Scottish Brownie formed a class of being distinct in habit and\ndisposition from the freakish and mischievous elves.  He was meagre,\nshaggy, and wild in his appearance.  Thus Cleland, in his satire against\nthe Highlanders, compares them to\n\n   \"Faunes, or Brownies, if ye will,\n   Or Satyres come from Atlas Hill.\"\n\nIn the day-time he lurked in remote recesses of the old houses which he\ndelighted to haunt, and in the night sedulously employed himself in\ndischarging any laborious task which he thought might be acceptable to\nthe family to whose service he had devoted himself.  But the Brownie does\nnot drudge from the hope of recompense.  On the contrary, so delicate is\nhis attachment that the offer of reward, but particularly of food,\ninfallibly occasions his disappearance for ever.  It is told of a\nBrownie, who haunted a border family now extinct, that the lady having\nfallen unexpectedly ill, and the servant, who was ordered to ride to\nJedburgh for the _sage-femme_, showing no great alertness in setting out,\nthe familiar spirit slipped on the greatcoat of the lingering domestic,\nrode to the town on the laird's best horse, and returned with the midwife\n_en croupe_.  During the short space of his absence, the Tweed, which\nthey must necessarily ford, rose to a dangerous height.  Brownie, who\ntransported his charge with all the rapidity of the ghostly lover of\nLenore, was not to be stopped by the obstacle.  He plunged in with the\nterrified old lady, and landed her in safety where her services were\nwanted.  Having put the horse into the stable (where it was afterwards\nfound in a woful plight), he proceeded to the room of the servant, whose\nduty he had discharged, and finding him just in the act of drawing on his\nboots, he administered to him a most merciless drubbing with his own\nhorsewhip.  Such an important service excited the gratitude of the laird,\nwho, understanding that Brownie had been heard to express a wish to have\na green coat, ordered a vestment of the colour to be made, and left in\nhis haunts.  Brownie took away the green coat, but was never seen more.\nWe may suppose that, tired of his domestic drudgery, he went in his new\nlivery to join the fairies.\n\nThe last Brownie known in Ettrick Forest resided in Bodsbeck, a wild and\nsolitary spot, near the head of Moffat Water, where he exercised his\nfunctions undisturbed, till the scrupulous devotion of an old lady\ninduced her to \"hire him away,\" as it was termed, by placing in his haunt\na porringer of milk and a piece of money.  After receiving this hint to\ndepart, he was heard the whole night to howl and cry, \"Farewell to bonnie\nBodsbeck!\" which he was compelled to abandon for ever.\n\n\n\n\nMAUNS' STANE.\n\n\nIn the latter end of the autumn of 18--, I set out by myself on an\nexcursion over the northern part of Scotland, and during that time my\nchief amusement was to observe the little changes of manners, language,\netc., in the different districts.  After having viewed on my return the\nprincipal curiosities in Buchan, I made a little ale-house, or \"public,\"\nmy head-quarters for the night.  Having discussed my supper in solitude,\nI called up mine host to enable me to discuss my bottle, and to give me a\nstatistical account of the country around me.  Seated in the \"blue\" end,\nand well supplied with the homely but satisfying luxuries which the place\nafforded, I was in an excellent mood for enjoying the communicativeness\nof my landlord; and, after speaking about the cave of Slaines, the state\nof the crops, and the neighbouring franklins, edged him, by degrees, to\nspeak about the Abbey of Deer, an interesting ruin which I had examined\nin the course of the day, formerly the stronghold of the once powerful\nfamily of Cummin.\n\n\"It's dootless a bonnie place about the abbey,\" said he, \"but naething\nlike what it was when the great Sir James the Rose came to hide i' the\nBuchan woods wi' a' the Grahames rampagin' at his tail, whilk you that's\na beuk-learned man 'ill hae read o', an' may be ye'll hae heard o' the\nsaughen bush where he forgathered wi' his jo; or aiblins ye may have seen\n't, for it's standing yet just at the corner o' gaukit Jamie Jamieson's\npeat-stack.  Ay, ay, the abbey was a brave place once; but a' thing, ye\nken, comes till an end.\"  So saying, he nodded to me, and brought his\nglass to an end.\n\n\"This place, then, must have been famed in days of yore, my friend?\"\n\n\"Ye may tak my word for that,\" said he, \"'Od, it _was_ a place!  Sic a\nsight o' fechtin' as they had about it!  But gin ye'll gan up the trap-\nstair to the laft, an' open Jenny's kist, ye'll see sic a story about it,\nprinted by ane o' your learned Aberdeen's fouk, Maister Keith, I think;\nshe coft it in Aberdeen for twal' pennies, lang ago, an' battered it to\nthe lid o' her kist.  But gang up the stair canny, for fear that you\nshould wauken her, puir thing; or, bide, I'll just wauken Jamie Fleep,\nan' gar him help me down wi't, for our stair's no just that canny for\nthem 't's no acquaint wi't, let alane a frail man wi' your infirmity.\"\n\nI assured him that I would neither disturb the young lady's slumber nor\nJamie Fleep's, and begged him to give me as much information as he could\nabout this castle.\n\n\"Weel, wishin' your guid health again.--Our minister ance said that\nSolomon's Temple was a' in ruins, wi' whin bushes, an' broom and thistles\ngrowin' ower the bonnie carved wark an' the cedar wa's, just like our ain\nabbey.  Noo, I judge that the Abbey o' Deer was just the marrow o 't, or\nthe minister wadna hae said that.  But when it was biggit, Lord kens, for\nI dinna.  It was just as you see it, lang afore your honour was born, an'\naiblins, as the by-word says, may be sae after ye're hanged.  But that's\nneither here nor there.  The Cummins o' Buchan were a dour and surly\nrace; and, for a fearfu' time, nane near han' nor far awa could ding\nthem, an' yet mony a ane tried it.  The fouk on their ain lan' likit them\nweel enough; but the Crawfords, an' the Grahames, an' the Mars, an' the\nLovats, were aye trying to comb them against the hair, an' mony a weary\nkempin' had they wi' them.  But some way or ither they could never ding\nthem; an' fouk said that they gaed and learned the black art frae the\nPope o' Room, wha, I myself heard the minister say, had aye a colleague\nwi' the Auld Chiel.  I dinna ken fou it was, in the tail o' the day, the\nhale country raise up against them, an' besieged them in the Abbey o'\nDeer.  Ye'll see, my frien'\" (by this time mine host considered me as one\nof his cronies), \"tho' we ca' it the abbey, it had naething to do wi'\npapistry; na, na, no sae bad as a' that either, but just a noble's\ncastle, where they keepit sodgers gaun about in airn an' scarlet, wi'\ntheir swords an' guns, an' begnets, an' sentry-boxes, like the local\nmilitia in the barracks o' Aberdeen.\n\n\"Weel, ye see, they surrounded the castle, an' lang did they besiege it;\nbut there was a vast o' meat in the castle, an' the Buchan fouk fought\nlike the vera deil.  They took their horse through a miscellaneous\npassage, half a mile long, aneath the hill o' Saplinbrae, an' watered\nthem in the burn o' Pulmer.  But a' wadna do; they took the castle at\nlast, and a terrible slaughter they made amo' them; but they were sair\ndisappointed in ae partic'ler, for Cummin's fouk sank a' their goud an'\nsiller in a draw-wall, an' syne filled it up wi' stanes.  They got\nnaething in the way of spulzie to speak o'; sae out o' spite they dang\ndoon the castle, an' it's never been biggit to this day.  But the Cummins\nwere no sae bad as the Lairds o' Federat, after a'.\"\n\n\"And who were these Federats?\" I inquired.\n\n\"The Lairds o' Federat?\" said he, moistening his mouth again as a\npreamble to his oration.  \"Troth, frae their deeds ane would maist think\nthat they had a drap o' the deil's blude, like the pyets.  Gin a' tales\nbe true, they hae the warmest place at his bink this vera minute.  I\ndinna ken vera muckle about them though, but the auldest fouk said they\nwere just byous wi' cruelty.  Mony a good man did they hing up i' their\nha', just for their ain sport; ye'll see the ring to the fore yet in the\nroof o 't.  Did ye never hear o' Mauns' Stane, neebour?\"\n\n\"Mauns' what?\" said I.\n\n\"Ou, Mauns' Stane.  But it's no likely.  Ye see it was just a queer clump\no' a roun'-about heathen, waghlin' may be twa tons or thereby.  It wasna\nlike ony o' the stanes in our countra, an' it was as roun' as a fit-ba';\nI'm sure it wad ding Professor Couplan himsel' to tell what way it cam'\nthere.  Noo, fouk aye thought there was something uncanny about it, an'\nsome gaed the length o' saying that the deil used to bake ginshbread\nupon't; and, as sure as ye're sitting there, frien', there was knuckle-\nmarks upon 't, for my ain father has seen them as aften as I have taes\nan' fingers.  Aweel, ye see, Mauns Crawford, the last o' the Lairds o'\nFederat, an' the deil had coost out (may be because the laird was just as\nwicked an' as clever as he was himsel'), an' ye perceive the evil ane\nwantit to play him a trick.  Noo, Mauns Crawford was ae day lookin' ower\nhis castle wa', and he saw a stalwart carle, in black claes, ridin' up\nthe loanin'.  He stopped at this chuckie o' a stane, an' loutin' himsel',\nhe took it up in his arms, and lifted it three times to his saddle-bow,\nan' syne he rade awa out o' sight, never comin' near the castle, as Mauns\nthought he would hae done.  'Noo,' says the baron till himsel', says he,\n'I didna think that there was ony ane in a' the land that could hae\nplayed sic a ploy; but deil fetch me if I dinna lift it as weel as he\ndid!'  Sae aff he gaed, for there wasna sic a man for birr in a' the\ncountra, an' he kent it as weel, for he never met wi' his match.  Weel,\nhe tried, and tugged, and better than tugged at the stane, but he coudna\nmudge it ava; an' when he looked about, he saw a man at his ilbuck, a'\nsmeared wi' smiddy-coom, snightern an' laughin' at him.  The laird d---d\nhim, an' bade him lift it, whilk he did as gin 't had been a little\npinnin.  The laird was like to burst wi' rage at being fickled by sic a\nhag-ma-hush carle, and he took to the stane in a fury, and lifted it till\nhis knee; but the weight o 't amaist ground his banes to smash.  He held\nthe stane till his een-strings crackit, when he was as blin' as a\nmoudiwort.  He was blin' till the day o' his death,--that's to say, if\never he died, for there were queer sayings about it--vera queer! vera\nqueer!  The stane was ca'd Mauns' Stane ever after; an' it was no thought\nthat canny to be near it after gloaming; for what says the Psalm--hem!--I\nmean the sang--\n\n   'Tween Ennetbutts an' Mauns' Stane\n   Ilka night there walks ane!\n\n\"There never was a chief of the family after; the men were scattered, an'\nthe castle demolished.  The doo and the hoodie-craw nestle i' their\ntowers, and the hare mak's her form on their grassy hearth-stane.\"\n\n\"Is this stone still to be seen?\"\n\n\"Ou, na.  Ye see, it was just upon Johnie Forbes's craft, an' fouk cam'\nfar an' near to leuk at it, an' trampit down a' the puir cottar-body's\ncorn; sae he houkit a hole just aside it, and tumbled it intil 't; by\nthat means naebody sees't noo, but its weel kent that it's there, for\nthey're livin' yet wha've seen it.\"\n\n\"But the well at the Abbey--did no one feel a desire to enrich himself\nwith the gold and silver buried there?\"\n\n\"Hoot, ay; mony a ane tried to find out whaur it was, and, for that\nmatter, I've may be done as foolish a thing myself; but nane ever made it\nout.  There was a scholar, like yoursel', that gaed ae night down to the\nAbbey, an', ye see, he summoned up the deil.\"\n\n\"The deuce he did!\" said I.\n\n\"Weel, weel, the deuce, gin ye like it better,\" said he.  \"An' he was\ngaun to question him where the treasure was, but he had eneuch to do to\nget him laid without deaving him wi' questions, for a' the deils cam'\nabout him, like bees biggin' out o' a byke.  He never coured the fright\nhe gat, but cried out, 'Help! help!' till his very enemy wad hae been wae\nto see him; and sae he cried till he died, which was no that lang after.\nFouk sudna meddle wi' sic ploys!\"\n\n\"Most wonderful!  And do you believe that Beelzebub actually appeared to\nhim?\"\n\n\"Believe it!  What for no?\" said he, consequentially tapping the lid of\nhis snuff-horn.  \"Didna my ain father see the evil ane i' the schule o'\nAuld Deer?\"\n\n\"Indeed!\"\n\n\"Weel, I wot he did that.  A wheen idle callants, when the dominie was\nout at his twal'-hours, read the Lord's Prayer backlans, an' raised him,\nbut couldna lay him again, for he threepit ower them that he wadna gang\nawa unless he gat ane o' them wi' him.  Ye may be sure this put them in\nan awfu' swither.  They were a' squallin' an' crawlin' and sprawlin' amo'\nthe couples to get out o' his grips.  Ane o' them gat out an' tauld the\nmaister about it, an' when he cam' down, the melted lead was runnin' aff\nthe roof o' the house wi' the heat, sae, flingin' to the black thief a\nyoung bit kittlen o' the schule-mistress's, he sank through the floor wi'\nan awsome roar.  I mysel' have heard the mistress misca'in her man about\noffering up the puir thing, baith saul and body, to Baal.  But troth, I'm\nno clear to speak o' the like o' this at sic a time o' night; sae if your\nhonour bena for another jug, I'll e'en wus you a gude-night, for it's\nwearin' late, an I maun awa' to Skippyfair i' the mornin'.\"\n\nI assented to this, and quickly lost in sleep the remembrance of all\nthese tales of the olden times.\n\n\n\n\n\"HORSE AND HATTOCK.\"\n\n\nThe power of the fairies was not confined to unchristened children alone;\nit was supposed frequently to be extended to full-grown people,\nespecially such as in an unlucky hour were devoted to the devil by the\nexecrations of parents and of masters; or those who were found asleep\nunder a rock, or on a green hill, belonging to the fairies, after sunset,\nor, finally, to those who unwarily joined their orgies.  A tradition\nexisted, during the seventeenth century, concerning an ancestor of the\nnoble family of Duffers, who, \"walking abroad in the fields near to his\nown house, was suddenly carried away, and found the next day at Paris, in\nthe French king's cellar, with a silver cup in his hand.  Being brought\ninto the king's presence, and questioned by him who he was, and how he\ncame thither, he told his name, his country, and the place of his\nresidence, and that on such a day of the month, which proved to be the\nday immediately preceding, being in the fields, he heard a noise of a\nwhirlwind, and of voices crying 'Horse and hattock!' (this is the word\nwhich the fairies are said to use when they remove from any place),\nwhereupon he cried 'Horse and hattock!' also, and was immediately caught\nup and transported through the air by the fairies to that place, where,\nafter he had drunk heartily, he fell asleep, and before he woke the rest\nof the company were gone, and had left him in the posture wherein he was\nfound.  It is said the king gave him a cup which was found in his hand,\nand dismissed him.\"  The narrator affirms \"that the cup was still\npreserved, and known by the name of the fairy cup.\"  He adds that Mr.\nSteward, tutor to the then Lord Duffers, had informed him that, \"when a\nboy at the school of Forres, he and his school-fellows were once upon a\ntime whipping their tops in the churchyard, before the door of the\nchurch, when, though the day was calm, they heard a noise of a wind, and\nat some distance saw the small dust begin to rise and turn round, which\nmotion continued advancing till it came to the place where they were,\nwhereupon they began to bless themselves; but one of their number being,\nit seems, a little more bold and confident than his companion, said,\n'Horse and hattock with my top!' and immediately they all saw the top\nlifted up from the ground, but could not see which way it was carried, by\nreason of a cloud of dust which was raised at the same time.  They sought\nfor the top all about the place where it was taken up, but in vain; and\nit was found afterwards in the churchyard, on the other side of the\nchurch.\"  This legend is contained in a letter from a learned gentleman\nin Scotland to Mr. Aubrey, dated 15th March 1695, published in _Aubrey's\nMiscellanies_.\n\n\n\n\nSECRET COMMONWEALTH.\n\n\n_By_ MR. ROBERT KIRK, _Minister of Aberfoyle_, 1691.\n\nThe Siths, or Fairies, they call _Sluagh Maith_, or the Goodpeople, it\nwould seem, to prevent the dint of their ill attempts (for the Irish used\nto bless all they fear harm of), and are said to be of a middle nature\nbetwixt man and angel, as were demons thought to be of old, of\nintelligent studious spirits, and light changeable bodies (like those\ncalled astral), somewhat of the nature of a condensed cloud, and best\nseen in twilight.  These bodies be so pliable through the subtlety of the\nspirits that agitate them, that they can make them appear or disappear at\npleasure.  Some have bodies or vehicles so spongeous, thin, and defecat\n[pure] that they are fed by only sucking into some fine spirituous\nliquors, that pierce like pure air and oil; others feed more gross on the\nfoyson [abundance] or substance of corn and liquors, or corn itself that\ngrows on the surface of the earth, which these fairies steal away, partly\ninvisible, partly preying on the grain, as do crows and mice; wherefore\nin this same age they are sometimes heard to break bread, strike hammers,\nand to do such like services within the little hillocks they most do\nhaunt; some whereof of old, before the Gospel dispelled Paganism, and in\nsome barbarous places as yet, enter houses after all are at rest, and set\nthe kitchens in order, cleansing all the vessels.  Such drags go under\nthe name of Brownies.  When we have plenty, they have scarcity at their\nhomes; and, on the contrary (for they are not empowered to catch as much\nprey everywhere as they please), their robberies, notwithstanding,\nofttimes occasion great ricks of corn not to bleed so well (as they call\nit), or prove so copious by very far as was expected by the owner.\n\nTheir bodies of congealed air are sometimes carried aloft, other whiles\ngrovel in different shapes, and enter into any cranny or clift of the\nearth where air enters, to their ordinary dwellings; the earth being full\nof cavities and cells, and there being no place, no creature, but is\nsupposed to have other animals (greater or lesser) living in or upon it\nas inhabitants; and no such thing as a pure wilderness in the whole\nuniverse.\n\nWe then (the more terrestrial kind have now so numerously planted all\ncountries) do labour for that abstruse people, as well as for ourselves.\nAlbeit, when several countries were uninhabited by us, these had their\neasy tillage above ground, as we now.  The print of those furrows do yet\nremain to be seen on the shoulders of very high hills, which was done\nwhen the campaign ground was wood and forest.\n\nThey remove to other lodgings at the beginning of each quarter of the\nyear, so traversing till doomsday, being impotent of staying in one\nplace, and finding some ease by so purning [journeying] and changing\nhabitations.  Their chameleon-like bodies swim in the air near the earth\nwith bag and baggage; and at such revolution of time, seers, or men of\nthe second sight (females being seldom so qualified) have very terrifying\nencounters with them, even on highways; who, therefore, awfully shun to\ntravel abroad at these four seasons of the year, and thereby have made it\na custom to this day among the Scottish-Irish to keep church duly every\nfirst Sunday of the quarter to _seun_ or hallow themselves, their corn\nand cattle, from the shots and stealth of these wandering tribes; and\nmany of these superstitious people will not be seen in church again till\nthe next quarter begins, as if no duty were to be learnt or done by them,\nbut all the use of worship and sermons were to save them from these\narrows that fly in the dark.\n\nThey are distributed in tribes and orders, and have children, nurses,\nmarriages, deaths, and burials in appearance, even as we (unless they so\ndo for a mock-show, or to prognosticate some such things among us).\n\nThey are clearly seen by these men of the second sight to eat at funerals\n[and] banquets.  Hence many of the Scottish-Irish will not taste meat at\nthese meetings, lest they have communion with, or be poisoned by, them.\nSo are they seen to carry the bier or coffin with the corpse among the\nmiddle-earth men to the grave.  Some men of that exalted sight (whether\nby art or nature) have told me they have seen at these meetings a double\nman, or the shape of some man in two places; that is a super-terranean\nand a subterranean inhabitant, perfectly resembling one another in all\npoints, whom he, notwithstanding, could easily distinguish one from\nanother by some secret tokens and operations, and so go and speak to the\nman, his neighbour and familiar, passing by the apparition or resemblance\nof him.  They avouch that every element and different state of being has\nanimals resembling those of another element; as there be fishes sometimes\nat sea resembling monks of late order in all their hoods and dresses; so\nas the Roman invention of good and bad demons, and guardian angels\nparticularly assigned, is called by them an ignorant mistake, sprung only\nfrom this original.  They call this reflex man a co-walker, every way\nlike the man, as a twin brother and companion, haunting him as his\nshadow, as is oft seen and known among men (resembling the original),\nboth before and after the original is dead; and was often seen of old to\nenter a house, by which the people knew that the person of that likeness\nwas to visit them within a few days.  This copy, echo, or living picture,\ngoes at last to his own herd.  It accompanied that person so long and\nfrequently for ends best known to itself, whether to guard him from the\nsecret assaults of some of its own folk, or only as a sportful ape to\ncounterfeit all his actions.  However, the stories of old witches prove\nbeyond contradiction that all sorts of people, spirits which assume light\nairy bodies, or crazed bodies coacted by foreign spirits, seem to have\nsome pleasure (at least to assuage some pain or melancholy) by frisking\nand capering like satyrs, or whistling and screeching (like unlucky\nbirds) in their unhallowed synagogues and Sabbaths.  If invited and\nearnestly required, these companions make themselves known and familiar\nto men; otherwise, being in a different state and element, they neither\ncan nor will easily converse with them.  They avouch that a _heluo_ or\ngreat eater has a voracious elve to be his attender, called a joint-eater\nor just-halver, feeding on the pith and quintessence of what the man\neats; and that, therefore, he continues lean like a hawk or heron,\nnotwithstanding his devouring appetite; yet it would seem they convey\nthat substance elsewhere, for these subterraneans eat but little in their\ndwellings, their food being exactly clean, and served up by pleasant\nchildren, like enchanted puppets.\n\nTheir houses are called large and fair, and (unless at some odd\noccasions) unperceivable by vulgar eyes, like Rachland and other\nenchanted islands, having fir lights, continual lamps, and fires, often\nseen without fuel to sustain them.  Women are yet alive who tell they\nwere taken away when in childbed to nurse fairy children, a lingering\nvoracious image of them being left in their place (like their reflection\nin a mirror), which (as if it were some insatiable spirit in an assumed\nbody) made first semblance to devour the meats that it cunningly carried\nby, and then left the carcass as if it expired and departed thence by a\nnatural and common death.  The child and fire, with food and all other\nnecessaries, are set before the nurse how soon she enters, but she\nneither perceives any passage out, nor sees what those people do in other\nrooms of the lodging.  When the child is weaned, the nurse dies, or is\nconveyed back, or gets it to her choice to stay there.  But if any\nsuperterraneans be so subtle as to practise sleights for procuring the\nprivacy to any of their mysteries (such as making use of their ointments,\nwhich, as Gyges' ring, make them invisible or nimble, or cast them in a\ntrance, or alter their shape, or make things appear at a vast distance,\netc.), they smite them without pain, as with a puff of wind, and bereave\nthem of both the natural and acquired sights in the twinkling of an eye\n(both these sights, when once they come, being in the same organ and\ninseparable), or they strike them dumb.  The tramontanes to this day\nplace bread, the Bible, or a piece of iron, to save their women at such\ntimes from being thus stolen, and they commonly report that all uncouth,\nunknown wights are terrified by nothing earthly so much as cold iron.\nThey deliver the reason to be that hell lying betwixt the chill tempests\nand the firebrands of scalding metals, and iron of the north (hence the\nloadstone causes a tendency to that point), by an antipathy thereto,\nthese odious, far-scenting creatures shrug and fright at all that comes\nthence relating to so abhorred a place, whence their torment is either\nbegun, or feared to come hereafter.\n\nTheir apparel and speech is like that of the people and country under\nwhich they live; so are they seen to wear plaids and variegated garments\nin the Highlands of Scotland, and suanachs [plaids] therefore in Ireland.\nThey speak but little, and that by way of whistling, clear, not rough.\nThe very devils conjured in any country do answer in the language of the\nplace; yet sometimes the subterraneans speak more distinctly than at\nother times.  Their women are said to spin very fine, to dye, to tossue,\nand embroider; but whether it be as manual operation of substantial\nrefined stuffs, with apt and solid instruments, or only curious cobwebs,\nunpalpable rainbows, and a phantastic imitation of the actions of more\nterrestrial mortals, since it transcended all the senses of the seer to\ndiscern whether, I leave to conjecture as I found it.\n\nTheir men travel much abroad, either presaging or aping the dismal and\ntragical actions of some amongst us; and have also many disastrous doings\nof their own, as convocations, fighting, gashes, wounds, and burials,\nboth in the earth and air.  They live much longer than we; yet die at\nlast, or [at] least vanish from that state.  'Tis one of their tenets\nthat nothing perisheth, but (as the sun and year) everything goes in a\ncircle, lesser or greater, and is renewed and refreshed in its\nrevolutions; as 'tis another, that every body in the creation moves\n(which is a sort of life); and that nothing moves but has another animal\nmoving on it; and so on, to the utmost minutest corpuscle that's capable\nof being a receptacle of life.\n\nThey are said to have aristocratical rulers and laws, but no discernible\nreligion, love, or devotion towards God, the blessed Maker of all: they\ndisappear whenever they hear His name invoked, or the name of Jesus (at\nwhich all do bow willingly, or by constraint, that dwell above or\nbeneath, within the earth), (Philip, ii. 10); nor can they act ought at\nthat time after hearing of that sacred name.  The Taiblsdear or seer,\nthat corresponds with this kind of familiars, can bring them with a spell\nto appear to himself or others when he pleases, as readily as Endor Witch\ndid those of her own kind.  He tells they are ever readiest to go on\nhurtful errands, but seldom will be the messengers of great good to men.\nHe is not terrified with their sight when he calls them, but seeing them\nin a surprise (as often as he does) frights him extremely, and glad would\nhe be quit of such, for the hideous spectacles seen among them; as the\ntorturing of some wight, earnest, ghostly, staring looks, skirmishes, and\nthe like.  They do not all the harm which appearingly they have power to\ndo; nor are they perceived to be in great pain, save that they are\nusually silent and sullen.  They are said to have many pleasant toyish\nbooks; but the operation of these pieces only appears in some paroxysms\nof antic, corybantic jollity, as if ravished and prompted by a new spirit\nentering into them at that instant, lighter and merrier than their own.\nOther books they have of involved, abstruse sense, much like the\nRosurcian [Rosicrucian] style.  They have nothing of the Bible, save\ncollected parcels for charms and counter-charms; not to defend themselves\nwithal, but to operate on other animals, for they are a people\ninvulnerable by our weapons, and albeit werewolves' and witches' true\nbodies are (by the union of the spirit of nature that runs through all\nechoing and doubling the blow towards another) wounded at home, when the\nastral assumed bodies are stricken elsewhere--as the strings of a second\nharp, tuned to a unison, sound, though only one be struck,--yet these\npeople have not a second, or so gross a body at all, to be so pierced;\nbut as air which when divided unites again; or if they feel pain by a\nblow, they are better physicians than we, and quickly cure.  They are not\nsubject to sore sicknesses, but dwindle and decay at a certain period,\nall about an age.  Some say their continual sadness is because of their\npendulous state (like those men, Luke xiii. 2-6), as uncertain what at\nthe last revolution will become of them, when they are locked up into an\nunchangeable condition; and if they have any frolic fits of mirth, 'tis\nas the constrained grinning of a mort-head [death's-head], or rather as\nacted on a stage, and moved by another, ther [than?] cordially coming of\nthemselves.  But other men of the second sight, being illiterate, and\nunwary in their observations, learn from [differ from] those; one\naverring those subterranean people to be departed souls, attending a\nwhile in this inferior state, and clothed with bodies procured through\ntheir alms-deeds in this life; fluid, active, ethereal vehicles to hold\nthem that they may not scatter nor wander, and be lost in the totum, or\ntheir first nothing; but if any were so impious as to have given no alms,\nthey say, when the souls of such do depart, they sleep in an inactive\nstate till they resume the terrestrial bodies again; others, that what\nthe low-country Scotch call a wraith, and the Irish _taibhse_, or death's\nmessenger (appearing sometimes as a little rough dog, and if crossed and\nconjured in time, will be pacified by the death of any other creature\ninstead of the sick man), is only exuvious fumes of the man approaching\ndeath, exhaled and congealed into a various likeness (as ships and armies\nare sometimes shaped in the air), and called astral bodies, agitated as\nwild-fire with wind, and are neither souls nor counterfeiting spirits;\nyet not a few avouch (as is said) that surely these are a numerous people\nby themselves, having their own politics, which diversities of judgment\nmay occasion several inconsonancies in this rehearsal, after the\nnarrowest scrutiny made about it.\n\nTheir weapons are most-what solid earthly bodies, nothing of iron, but\nmuch of stone, like to yellow soft flint spa, shaped like a barbed\narrowhead, but flung like a dart, with great force.  These arms (cut by\nart and tools, it seems, beyond human) have somewhat of the nature of\nthunderbolt subtlety, and mortally wounding the vital parts without\nbreaking the skin; of which wounds I have observed in beasts, and felt\nthem with my hands.  They are not as infallible Benjamites, hitting at a\nhair's-breadth; nor are they wholly unvanquishable, at least in\nappearance.\n\nThe men of the second sight do not discover strange things when asked,\nbut at fits and raptures, as if inspired with some genius at that\ninstant, which before did work in or about them.  Thus I have frequently\nspoken to one of them, who in his transport told me he cut the body of\none of those people in two with his iron weapon, and so escaped this\nonset, yet he saw nothing left behind of that appearing divided; at other\ntimes he outwrested [wrestled?] some of them.  His neighbours often\nperceived this man to disappear at a certain place, and about an hour\nafter to become visible, and discover himself near a bow-shot from the\nfirst place.  It was in that place where he became invisible, said he,\nthat the subterraneans did encounter and combat with him.  Those who are\n_unseund_, or unsanctified (called fey), are said to be pierced or\nwounded with those people's weapons, which makes them do somewhat very\nunlike their former practice, causing a sudden alteration, yet the cause\nthereof unperceivable at present; nor have they power (either they cannot\nmake use of their natural powers, or asked not the heavenly aid) to\nescape the blow impendent.  A man of the second sight perceived a person\nstanding by him (sound to other's view) wholly gored in blood, and he\n(amazed like) bid him instantly flee.  The whole man laughed at his\n_airt_ [notice] and warning, since there was no appearance of danger.  He\nhad scarce contracted his lips from laughter when unexpectedly his\nenemies leaped in at his side and stabbed him with their weapons.  They\nalso pierce cows or other animals, usually said to be Elf-shot, whose\npurest substance (if they die) these subterraneans take to live on, viz.\nthe aerial and ethereal parts, the most spirituous matter for prolonging\nof life, such as aquavitae (moderately taken) is amongst liquors, leaving\nthe terrestrial behind.  The cure of such hurts is only for a man to find\nout the hole with his finger, as if the spirits flowing from a man's warm\nhand were antidote sufficient against their poisoned darts.\n\nAs birds, as beasts, whose bodies are much used to the change of the free\nand open air, foresee storms, so those invisible people are more\nsagacious to understand by the books of nature things to come, than we,\nwho are pestered with the grossest dregs of all elementary mixtures, and\nhave our purer spirits choked by them.  The deer scents out a man and\npowder (though a late invention) at a great distance; a hungry hunter,\nbread; and the raven, a carrion; their brains, being long clarified by\nthe high and subtle air, will observe a very small change in a trice.\nThus a man of the second sight, perceiving the operations of these\nforecasting invisible people among us (indulged through a stupendous\nprovidence to give warnings of some remarkable events, either in the air,\nearth, or waters), told he saw a winding shroud creeping on a walking\nhealthful person's leg till it came to the knee, and afterwards it came\nup to the middle, then to the shoulders, and at last over the head, which\nwas visible to no other person.  And by observing the spaces of time\nbetwixt the several stages, he easily guessed how long the man was to\nlive who wore the shroud; for when it approached the head, he told that\nsuch a person was ripe for the grave.\n\nThere be many places called fairy-hills, which the mountain people think\nimpious and dangerous to peel or discover, by taking earth or wood from\nthem, superstitiously believing the souls of their predecessors to dwell\nthere.  And for that end (say they) a mole or mound was dedicate beside\nevery churchyard to receive the souls till their adjacent bodies arise,\nand so became as a fairy-hill; they using bodies of air when called\nabroad.  They also affirm those creatures that move invisibly in a house,\nand cast huge great stones, but do no much hurt, because counter-wrought\nby some more courteous and charitable spirits that are everywhere ready\nto defend men (Dan. x. 13), to be souls that have not attained their\nrest, through a vehement desire of revealing a murder or notable injury\ndone or received, or a treasure that was forgot in their lifetime on\nearth, which, when disclosed to a conjuror alone, the ghost quite\nremoves.\n\nIn the next country to that of my former residence, about the year 1676,\nwhen there was some scarcity of grain, a marvellous illapse and vision\nstrongly struck the imagination of two women in one night, living at a\ngood distance from one another, about a treasure hid in a hill called\n_Sith-bruthach_, or fairy-hill.  The appearance of a treasure was first\nrepresented to the fancy, and then an audible voice named the place where\nit was to their awaking senses.  Whereupon both rose, and meeting\naccidentally at the place, discovered their design; and jointly digging,\nfound a vessel as large as a Scottish peck full of small pieces of good\nmoney, of ancient coin; and halving betwixt them, they sold in dishfuls\nfor dishfuls of meal to the country people.  Very many of undoubted\ncredit saw and had of the coin to this day.  But whether it was a good or\nbad angel, one of the subterranean people, or the restless soul of him\nwho hid it, that discovered it, and to what end it was done, I leave to\nthe examination of others.\n\nThese subterraneans have controversies, doubts, disputes, feuds, and\nsiding of parties; there being some ignorance in all creatures, and the\nvastest created intelligences not compassing all things.  As to vice and\nsin, whatever their own laws be, sure according to ours, and equity,\nnatural, civil, and revealed, they transgress and commit acts of\ninjustice and sin by what is above said, as to their stealing of nurses\nto their children, and that other sort of plaginism in catching our\nchildren away (may seem to heir some estate in those invisible dominions)\nwhich never return.  For swearing and intemperance, they are not observed\nso subject to those irregularities, as to envy, spite, hypocrisy, lying,\nand dissimulation.\n\nAs our religion obliges us not to make a peremptory and curious search\ninto these abstrusenesses, so the histories of all ages give as many\nplain examples of extraordinary occurrences as make a modest inquiry not\ncontemptible.  How much is written of pigmies, fairies, nymphs, syrens,\napparitions, which though not the tenth part true, yet could not spring\nof nothing; even English authors relate [of] Barry Island, in\nGlamorganshire, that laying your ear into a cleft of the rocks, blowing\nof bellows, striking of hammers, clashing of armour, filing of iron, will\nbe heard distinctly ever since Merlin enchanted those subterranean wights\nto a solid manual forging of arms to Aurelius Ambrosius and his Britons,\ntill he returned; which Merlin being killed in a battle, and not coming\nto loose the knot, these active vulcans are there tied to a perpetual\nlabour.\n\n\n\n\nTHE FAIRY BOY OF LEITH.\n\n\n\"About fifteen years since, having business that detained me for some\ntime at Leith, which is near Edinburgh, in the kingdom of Scotland, I\noften met some of my acquaintance at a certain house there, where we used\nto drink a glass of wine for our refection.  The woman which kept the\nhouse was of honest reputation among the neighbours, which made me give\nthe more attention to what she told me one day about a fairy boy (as they\ncalled him) who lived about that town.  She had given me so strange an\naccount of him, that I desired her I might see him the first opportunity,\nwhich she promised; and not long after, passing that way, she told me\nthere was the fairy boy, but a little before I came by; and, casting her\neye into the street, said, 'Look you, sir, yonder he is, at play with\nthose other boys'; and pointing him out to me, I went, and by smooth\nwords, and a piece of money, got him to come into the house with me;\nwhere, in the presence of divers people, I demanded of him several\nastrological questions, which he answered with great subtlety; and,\nthrough all his discourse, carried it with a cunning much above his\nyears, which seemed not to exceed ten or eleven.\n\n\"He seemed to make a motion like drumming upon the table with his\nfingers, upon which I asked him whether he could beat a drum?  To which\nhe replied, 'Yes, sir, as well as any man in Scotland; for every Thursday\nnight I beat all points to a sort of people that used to meet under\nyonder hill' (pointing to the great hill between Edinburgh and Leith).\n'How, boy?' quoth I, 'what company have you there?'  'There are, sir,'\nsaid he, 'a great company both of men and women, and they are entertained\nwith many sorts of music besides my drum; they have, besides, plenty of\nvariety of meats and wine, and many times we are carried into France or\nHolland in the night, and return again, and whilst we are there, we enjoy\nall the pleasures the country doth afford.'  I demanded of him how they\ngot under that hill?  To which he replied that there was a great pair of\ngates that opened to them, though they were invisible to others, and that\nwithin there were brave large rooms, as well accommodated as most in\nScotland.  I then asked him how I should know what he said to be true?\nUpon which he told me he would read my fortune, saying, I should have two\nwives, and that he saw the forms of them over my shoulders; and both\nwould be very handsome women.\n\n\"The woman of the house told me that all the people in Scotland could not\nkeep him from the rendezvous on Thursday night; upon which, by promising\nhim some more money, I got a promise of him to meet me at the same place\nin the afternoon, the Thursday following, and so dismissed him at that\ntime.  The boy came again at the place and time appointed, and I had\nprevailed with some friends to continue with me (if possible) to prevent\nhis moving that night.  He was placed between us, and answered many\nquestions, until, about eleven of the clock, he was got away unperceived\nby the company; but I, suddenly missing him, hastened to the door, and\ntook hold of him, and so returned him into the same room.  We all watched\nhim, and, of a sudden, he was again got out of doors; I followed him\nclose, and he made a noise in the street, as if he had been set upon, and\nfrom that time I could never see him.\"\n\n\n\n\nTHE DRACAE.\n\n\nThese are a sort of water-spirits who inveigle women and children into\nthe recesses which they inhabit, beneath lakes and rivers, by floating\npast them, on the surface of the water, in the shape of gold rings or\ncups.  The women thus seized are employed as nurses, and after seven\nyears are permitted to revisit earth.  Gervase mentions one woman in\nparticular who had been allured by observing a wooden dish, or cup, float\nby her, while she was washing clothes in the river.  Being seized as soon\nas she reached the depths, she was conducted into one of the subterranean\nrecesses, which she described as very magnificent, and employed as nurse\nto one of the brood of the hag who had allured her.  During her residence\nin this capacity, having accidentally touched one of her eyes with an\nointment of serpent's grease, she perceived, at her return to the world,\nthat she had acquired the faculty of seeing the _Dracae_, when they\nintermingle themselves with men.  Of this power she was, however,\ndeprived by the touch of her ghostly mistress, whom she had one day\nincautiously addressed.  It is a curious fact that this story, in almost\nall its parts, is current in both the Highlands and Lowlands of Scotland,\nwith no other variation than the substitution of Fairies for Dracae, and\nthe cavern of a hill for that of a river.  Indeed many of the vulgar\naccount it extremely dangerous to touch anything which they may happen to\nfind without saining (blessing) it, the snares of the enemy being\nnotorious and well-attested.  A pool-woman of Teviotdale having been\nfortunate enough, as she thought herself, to find a wooden beetle, at the\nvery time when she needed such an implement, seized it without\npronouncing a proper blessing, and, carrying it home, laid it above her\nbed to be ready for employment in the morning.  At midnight the window of\nher cottage opened, and a loud voice was heard calling up some one within\nby a strange and uncouth name.  The terrified cottager ejaculated a\nprayer, which, we may suppose, ensured her personal safety; while the\nenchanted implement of housewifery, tumbling from the bedstead, departed\nby the window with no small noise and precipitation.  In a humorous\nfugitive tract, Dr. Johnson has been introduced as disputing the\nauthenticity of an apparition, merely because the spirit assumed the\nshape of a teapot and a shoulder of mutton.  No doubt, a case so much in\npoint as that we have now quoted would have removed his incredulity.\n\n\n\n\nA SUCCINCT ACCOUNT\nOF\nMY LORD TARBAT'S RELATIONS,\nIN A LETTER TO THE HONORABLE ROBERT BOYLE,\nESQUIRE, OF THE PREDICTIONS MADE BY\nSEERS, WHEREOF HIMSELF WAS EAR-AND EYE-WITNESS.\n\n\nSir,--I heard very much, but believed very little of the second sight;\nyet its being assumed by several of great veracity, I was induced to make\ninquiry after it in the year 1652, being then confined in the north of\nScotland by the English usurpers.  The more general accounts of it were\nthat many Highlanders, yet far more Islanders, were qualified with this\nsecond sight; and men, women, and children, indistinctly, were subject to\nit, and children where parents were not.  Sometimes people came to age\nwho had it not when young, nor could any tell by what means produced.  It\nis a trouble to most of them who are subject to it, and they would be rid\nof it at any rate if they could.  The sight is of no long duration, only\ncontinuing so long as they can keep their eyes steady without twinkling.\nThe hardy, therefore, fix their look that they may see the longer; but\nthe timorous see only glances--their eyes always twinkle at the first\nsight of the object.  That which generally is seen by them are the\nspecies of living creatures, and of inanimate things, which be in motion,\nsuch as ships, and habits upon persons.  They never see the species of\nany person who is already dead.  What they foresee fails not to exist in\nthe mode, and in that place where it appears to them.  They cannot well\nknow what space of time shall intervene between the apparition and the\nreal existence.  But some of the hardiest and longest experience have\nsome rules for conjectures; as, if they see a man with a shrouding sheet\nin the apparition, they will conjecture at the nearness or remoteness of\nhis death by the more or less of his body that is covered by it.  They\nwill ordinarily see their absent friends, though at a great distance,\nsometimes no less than from America to Scotland, sitting, standing, or\nwalking in some certain place; and then they conclude with an assurance\nthat they will see them so, and there.  If a man be in love with a woman,\nthey will ordinarily see the species of that man standing by her, and so\nlikewise if a woman be in love.  If they see the species of any person\nwho is sick to die, they see them covered over with the shrouding sheet.\n\nThese generals I had verified to me by such of them as did see, and were\nesteemed honest and sober by all the neighbourhood; for I inquired after\nsuch for my information.  And because there were more of these seers in\nthe isles of Lewis, Harris, and Uist than in any other place, I did\nentreat Sir James M'Donald (who is now dead), Sir Normand M'Loud, and Mr.\nDaniel Morison, a very honest person (who are still alive), to make\ninquiry in this uncouth sight, and to acquaint me therewith; which they\ndid, and all found an agreement in these generals, and informed me of\nmany instances confirming what they said.  But though men of discretion\nand honour, being but at second-hand, I will choose rather to put myself\nthan my friends on the hazard of being laughed at for incredible\nrelations.\n\nI was once travelling in the Highlands, and a good number of servants\nwith me, as is usual there; and one of them, going a little before me,\nentering into a house where I was to stay all night, and going hastily to\nthe door, he suddenly slipped back with a screech, and did fall by a\nstone, which hit his foot.  I asked what the matter was, for he seemed to\nbe very much frighted.  He told me very seriously that I should not lodge\nin that house, because shortly a dead coffin would be carried out of it,\nfor many were carrying of it when he was heard cry.  I, neglecting his\nwords, and staying there, he said to other of his servants he was sorry\nfor it, and that surely what he saw would shortly come to pass.  Though\nno sick person was then there, yet the landlord, a healthy Highlander,\ndied of an apoplectic fit before I left the house.\n\nIn the year 1653 Alexander Monro (afterwards Lieutenant-Colonel to the\nEarl of Dumbarton's regiment) and I were walking in a place called\nUllapool, in Loch Broom, on a little plain at the foot of a rugged hill.\nThere was a servant walking with a spade in the walk before us; his back\nwas to us, and his face to the hill.  Before we came to him he let the\nspade fall, and looked toward the hill.  He took notice of us as we\npassed near by him, which made me look at him, and perceiving him to\nstare a little strangely I conjectured him to be a seer.  I called at\nhim, at which he started and smiled.  \"What are you doing?\" said I.  He\nanswered, \"I have seen a very strange thing: an army of Englishmen,\nleading of horses, coming down that hill; and a number of them are coming\ndown to the plain, and eating the barley which is growing in the field\nnear to the hill.\"  This was on the 4th May (for I noted the day), and it\nwas four or five days before the barley was sown in the field he spoke\nof.  Alexander Monro asked him how he knew they were Englishmen.  He said\nbecause they were leading of horses, and had on hats and boots, which he\nknew no Scotchman would have there.  We took little notice of the whole\nstory as other than a foolish vision, but wished that an English party\nwere there, we being then at war with them, and the place almost\ninaccessible for horsemen.  But in the beginning of August thereafter,\nthe Earl of Middleton (then Lieutenant for the King in the Highlands),\nhaving occasion to march a party of his towards the South Highlands, he\nsent his Foot through a place called Inverlawell; and the fore-party,\nwhich was first down the hill, did fall off eating the barley which was\non the little plain under it.  And Monro calling to mind what the seer\ntold us in May preceding, he wrote of it, and sent an express to me to\nLochslin, in Ross (where I then was), with it.\n\nI had occasion once to be in company where a young lady was (excuse my\nnot naming of persons), and I was told there was a notable seer in the\ncompany.  I called him to speak with me, as I did ordinarily when I found\nany of them; and after he had answered me several questions, I asked if\nhe knew any person to be in love with that lady.  He said he did, but he\nknew not the person; for, during the two days he had been in her company,\nhe perceived one standing near her, and his head leaning on her shoulder,\nwhich he said did foretell that the man should marry her, and die before\nher, according to his observation.  This was in the year 1655.  I desired\nhim to describe the person, which he did, so that I could conjecture, by\nthe description, of such a one, who was of that lady's acquaintance,\nthough there were no thoughts of their marriage till two years\nthereafter.  And having occasion in the year 1657 to find this seer, who\nwas an islander, in company with the other person whom I conjectured to\nhave been described by him, I called him aside, and asked if that was the\nperson he saw beside the lady near two years then past.  He said it was\nhe indeed, for he had seen that lady just then standing by him hand in\nhand.  This was some few months before their marriage, and that man is\nnow dead, and the lady alive.\n\nI shall trouble you but with one more, which I thought most remarkable of\nany that occurred to me.\n\nIn January 1652, the above-mentioned Lieutenant, Colonel Alex. Monro, and\nI, happened to be in the house of one William M'Clend, of Ferrinlea, in\nthe county of Ross.  He, the landlord, and I, were sitting in three\nchairs near the fire, and in the corner of the great chimney there were\ntwo islanders, who were that very night come to the house, and were\nrelated to the landlord.  While the one of them was talking with Monro, I\nperceived the other to look oddly toward me.  From this look, and his\nbeing an islander, I conjectured him a seer, and asked him at what he\nstared.  He answered by desiring me to rise from that chair, for it was\nan unlucky one.  I asked him why?  He answered, because there was a dead\nman in the chair next to me.  \"Well,\" said I, \"if it be in the next\nchair, I may keep my own.  But what is the likeness of the man?\"  He said\nhe was a tall man, with a long grey coat, booted, and one of his legs\nhanging over the arm of the chair, and his head hanging dead to the other\nside, and his arm backward, as if it was broken.  There were some English\ntroops then quartered near that place, and there being at that time a\ngreat frost after a thaw, the country was covered all over with ice.  Four\nor five of the English riding by this house some two hours after the\nvision, while we were sitting by the fire, we heard a great noise, which\nproved to be those troopers, with the help of other servants, carrying in\none of their number, who had got a very mischievous fall, and had his arm\nbroke; and falling frequently in swooning fits, they brought him into the\nhall, and set him in the very chair, and in the very posture that the\nseer had prophesied.  But the man did not die, though he recovered with\ngreat difficulty.\n\nAmong the accounts given me by Sir Normand M'Loud, there was one worthy\nof special notice, which was thus:--There was a gentleman in the Isle of\nHarris, who was always seen by the seers with an arrow in his thigh.  Such\nin the Isle who thought those prognostications infallible, did not doubt\nbut he would be shot in the thigh before he died.  Sir Normand told me\nthat he heard it the subject of their discourse for many years.  At last\nhe died without any such accident.  Sir Normand was at his burial at St.\nClement's Church in the Harris.  At the same time the corpse of another\ngentleman was brought to be buried in the same very church.  The friends\non either side came to debate who should first enter the church, and, in\na trice, from words they came to blows.  One of the number (who was armed\nwith bow and arrows) let one fly among them.  (Now every family in that\nIsle have their burial-place in the Church in stone chests, and the\nbodies are carried in open biers to the burial-place.)  Sir Normand\nhaving appeased the tumult, one of the arrows was found shot in the dead\nman's thigh.  To this Sir Normand was a witness.\n\nIn the account which Mr. Daniel Morison, parson in the Lewis, gave me,\nthere was one, though it be heterogeneous from the subject, yet it may be\nworth your notice.  It was of a young woman in this parish, who was\nmightily frightened by seeing her own image still before her, always when\nshe came to the open air; the back of the image being always to her, so\nthat it was not a reflection as in a mirror, but the species of such a\nbody as her own, and in a very like habit which appeared to herself\ncontinually before her.  The parson kept her a long while with him, but\nhad no remedy of her evil, which troubled her exceedingly.  I was told\nafterwards that when she was four or five years older she saw it not.\n\nThese are matters of fact, which I assure you they are truly related.  But\nthese and all others that occurred to me, by information or otherwise,\ncould never lead me into a remote conjecture of the cause of so\nextraordinary a phenomenon.  Whether it be a quality in the eyes of some\npeople in these parts, concurring with a quality in the air also; whether\nsuch species be everywhere, though not seen by the want of eyes so\nqualified, or from whatever other cause, I must leave to the inquiry of\nclearer judgments than mine.  But a hint may be taken from this image\nwhich appeared still to this woman above mentioned, and from another\nmentioned by Aristotle, in the fourth of his Metaphysics (if I remember\nright, for it is long since I read it), as also from the common opinion\nthat young infants (unsullied with many objects) do see apparitions which\nwere not seen by those of elder years; as likewise from this, that\nseveral did see the second sight when in the Highlands or Isles, yet when\ntransported to live in other countries, especially in America, they quite\nlose this quality, as was told me by a gentleman who knew some of them in\nBarbadoes, who did see no vision there, although he knew them to be seers\nwhen they lived in the Isles of Scotland.\n\n_Thus far my Lord Tarbat_.\n\n\n\n\nTHE BOGLE.\n\n\nThis is a freakish spirit who delights rather to perplex and frighten\nmankind than either to serve or seriously hurt them.  The _Esprit Follet_\nof the French, Shakespeare's Puck, or Robin Goodfellow, and Shellycoat, a\nspirit who resides in the waters, and has given his name to many a rock\nand stone on the Scottish coast, belong to the class of bogles.  One of\nShellycoat's pranks is thus narrated:--Two men in a very dark night,\napproaching the banks of the Ettrick, heard a doleful voice from its\nwaves repeatedly exclaim, \"Lost! lost!\"  They followed the sound, which\nseemed to be the voice of a drowning person, and, to their astonishment,\nfound that it ascended the river; still they continued to follow the cry\nof the malicious sprite, and, arriving before dawn at the very sources of\nthe river, the voice was now heard descending the opposite side of the\nmountain in which they arise.  The fatigued and deluded travellers now\nrelinquished the pursuit, and had no sooner done so, than they heard\nShellycoat applauding, in loud bursts of laughter, his successful\nroguery.\n\n\n\n\nDAOINE SHIE, OR THE MEN OF PEACE.\n\n\nThey are, though not absolutely malevolent, believed to be a peevish,\nrepining, and envious race, who enjoy, in the subterranean recesses, a\nkind of shadowy splendour.  The Highlanders are at all times unwilling to\nspeak of them, but especially on Friday, when their influence is supposed\nto be particularly extensive.  As they are supposed to be invisibly\npresent, they are at all times to be spoken of with respect.  The fairies\nof Scotland are represented as a diminutive race of beings, of a mixed or\nrather dubious nature, capricious in their dispositions, and mischievous\nin their resentment.  They inhabit the interior of green hills, chiefly\nthose of a conical form, in Gaelic termed _Sighan_, on which they lead\ntheir dances by moonlight, impressing upon the surface the marks of\ncircles, which sometimes appear yellow and blasted, sometimes of a deep\ngreen hue, and within which it is dangerous to sleep, or to be found\nafter sunset.  The removal of those large portions of turf, which\nthunderbolts sometimes scoop out of the ground with singular regularity,\nis also ascribed to their agency.  Cattle which are suddenly seized with\nthe cramp, or some similar disorder, are said to be elf-shot, and the\napproved cure is to chafe the parts affected with a blue bonnet, which,\nit may be readily believed, often restores the circulation.  The\ntriangular flints frequently found in Scotland, with which the ancient\ninhabitants probably barbed their shafts, are supposed to be the weapons\nof fairy resentment, and are termed elf arrowheads.  The rude brazen\nbattle-axes of the ancients, commonly called \"celts,\" are also ascribed\nto their manufacture.  But, like the Gothic duergar, their skill is not\nconfined to the fabrication of arms; for they are heard sedulously\nhammering in linns, precipices, and rocky or cavernous situations, where,\nlike the dwarfs of the mines mentioned by George Agricola, they busy\nthemselves in imitating the actions and the various employments of men.\nThe Brook of Beaumont, for example, which passes in its course by\nnumerous linns and caverns, is notorious for being haunted by the\nfairies; and the perforated and rounded stones which are formed by\ntrituration in its channels are termed by the vulgar fairy cups and\ndishes.  A beautiful reason is assigned by Fletcher for the fays\nfrequenting streams and fountains.  He tells us of\n\n   \"A virtuous well, about whose flowery banks\n   The nimble-footed fairies dance their rounds\n   By the pale moonshine, dipping oftentimes\n   Their stolen children, so to make them free\n   From dying flesh and dull mortality.\"\n\nIt is sometimes accounted unlucky to pass such places without performing\nsome ceremony to avert the displeasure of the elves.  There is upon the\ntop of Minchmuir, a mountain in Peeblesshire, a spring called the Cheese\nWell, because, anciently, those who passed that way were wont to throw\ninto it a piece of cheese as an offering to the fairies, to whom it was\nconsecrated.\n\nLike the _feld elfen_ of the Saxons, the usual dress of the fairies is\ngreen; though, on the moors, they have been sometimes observed in heath-\nbrown, or in weeds dyed with the stone-raw or lichen.  They often ride in\ninvisible procession, when their presence is discovered by the shrill\nringing of their bridles.  On these occasions they sometimes borrow\nmortal steeds, and when such are found at morning, panting and fatigued\nin their stalls, with their manes and tails dishevelled and entangled,\nthe grooms, I presume, often find this a convenient excuse for their\nsituation, as the common belief of the elves quaffing the choicest\nliquors in the cellars of the rich might occasionally cloak the\ndelinquencies of an unfaithful butler.\n\nThe fairies, besides their equestrian processions, are addicted, it would\nseem, to the pleasures of the chase.  A young sailor, travelling by night\nfrom Douglas, in the Isle of Man, to visit his sister residing in Kirk\nMerlugh, heard a noise of horses, the holloa of a huntsman, and the sound\nof a horn.  Immediately afterwards, thirteen horsemen, dressed in green,\nand gallantly mounted, swept past him.  Jack was so much delighted with\nthe sport that he followed them, and enjoyed the sound of the horn for\nsome miles, and it was not till he arrived at his sister's house that he\nlearned the danger which he had incurred.  I must not omit to mention\nthat these little personages are expert jockeys, and scorn to ride the\nlittle Manx ponies, though apparently well suited to their size.  The\nexercise, therefore, falls heavily upon the English and Irish horses\nbrought into the Isle of Man.  Mr. Waldron was assured by a gentleman of\nBallafletcher that he had lost three or four capital hunters by these\nnocturnal excursions.  From the same author we learn that the fairies\nsometimes take more legitimate modes of procuring horses.  A person of\nthe utmost integrity informed him that, having occasion to sell a horse,\nhe was accosted among the mountains by a little gentleman plainly\ndressed, who priced his horse, cheapened him, and, after some chaffering,\nfinally purchased him.  No sooner had the buyer mounted and paid the\nprice than he sank through the earth, horse and man, to the astonishment\nand terror of the seller, who, experienced, however, no inconvenience\nfrom dealing with so extraordinary a purchaser.\n\n\n\n\nTHE DEATH \"BREE.\"\n\n\nThere was once a woman, who lived in the Camp-del-more of Strathavon,\nwhose cattle were seized with a murrain, or some such fell disease, which\nravaged the neighbourhood at the time, carrying off great numbers of them\ndaily.  All the forlorn fires and hallowed waters failed of their\ncustomary effects; and she was at length told by the wise people, whom\nshe consulted on the occasion, that it was evidently the effect of some\ninfernal agency, the power of which could not be destroyed by any other\nmeans than the never-failing specific--the juice of a dead head from the\nchurchyard,--a nostrum certainly very difficult to be procured,\nconsidering that the head must needs be abstracted from the grave at the\nhour of midnight.  Being, however, a woman of a stout heart and strong\nfaith, native feelings of delicacy towards the sanctuary of the dead had\nmore weight than had fear in restraining her for some time from resorting\nto this desperate remedy.  At length, seeing that her stock would soon be\nannihilated by the destructive career of the disease, the wife of Camp-\ndel-more resolved to put the experiment in practice, whatever the result\nmight be.  Accordingly, having with considerable difficulty engaged a\nneighbouring woman as her companion in this hazardous expedition, they\nset out a little before midnight for the parish churchyard, distant about\na mile and a half from her residence, to execute her determination.  On\narriving at the churchyard her companion, whose courage was not so\nnotable, appalled by the gloomy prospect before her, refused to enter\namong the habitations of the dead.  She, however, agreed to remain at the\ngate till her friend's business was accomplished.  This circumstance,\nhowever, did not stagger the wife's resolution.  She, with the greatest\ncoolness and intrepidity, proceeded towards what she supposed an old\ngrave, took down her spade, and commenced her operations.  After a good\ndeal of toil she arrived at the object of her labour.  Raising the first\nhead, or rather skull, that came in her way, she was about to make it her\nown property, when a hollow, wild, sepulchral voice exclaimed, \"That is\nmy head; let it alone!\"  Not wishing to dispute the claimant's title to\nthis head, and supposing she could be otherwise provided, she very good-\nnaturedly returned it and took up another.  \"That is my father's head,\"\nbellowed the same voice.  Wishing, if possible, to avoid disputes, the\nwife of Camp-del-more took up another head, when the same voice instantly\nstarted a claim to it as his grandfather's head.  \"Well,\" replied the\nwife, nettled at her disappointments, \"although it were your\ngrandmother's head, you shan't get it till I am done with it.\"  \"What do\nyou say, you limmer?\" says the ghost, starting up in his awry\nhabiliments.  \"What do you say, you limmer?\" repeated he in a great rage.\n\"By the great oath, you had better leave my grandfather's head.\"  Upon\nmatters coming this length, the wily wife of Camp-del-more thought it\nproper to assume a more conciliatory aspect.  Telling the claimant the\nwhole particulars of the predicament in which she was placed, she\npromised faithfully that if his honour would only allow her to carry off\nhis grandfather's skull or head in a peaceable manner, she would restore\nit again when done with.  Here, after some communing, they came to an\nunderstanding; and she was allowed to take the head along with her, on\ncondition that she should restore it before cock-crowing, under the\nheaviest penalties.\n\nOn coming out of the churchyard and looking for her companion, she had\nthe mortification to find her \"without a mouthful of breath in her body\";\nfor, on hearing the dispute between her friend and the guardian of the\ngrave, and suspecting much that she was likely to share the unpleasant\npunishments with which he threatened her friend, at the bare recital of\nthem she fell down in a faint, from which it was no easy matter to\nrecover her.  This proved no small inconvenience to Camp-del-more's wife,\nas there were not above two hours to elapse ere she had to return the\nhead according to the terms of her agreement.  Taking her friend upon her\nback, she carried her up a steep acclivity to the nearest adjoining\nhouse, where she left her for the night; then repaired home with the\nutmost speed, made _dead bree_ of the head ere the appointed time had\nexpired, restored the skull to its guardian, and placed the grave in its\nformer condition.  It is needless to add that, as a reward for her\nexemplary courage, the \"_bree_\" had its desired effect.  The cattle\nspeedily recovered, and, so long as she retained any of it, all sorts of\ndiseases were of short duration.","title":"Folk-Lore and Legends: Scotland","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":43643}