The king of Lochlann heard what had happened, and he sent a longship with a hardy crew to bring the body home to Lochlann. But when they had sailed out as far as the mouth of Little Loch [Broom] there came a fearful gale which forced them to turn back. They made three attempts to leave with the bier, but at last they saw that Dubh a’ Ghiubhais would have to be buried where she had fallen, at Kildonan, at the head of Little Loch Broom. A beautiful green hillock is pointed out there as her resting place.
54 Nan MacKinnon
THE PABBAY MOTHER’S GHOST
THERE WAS A MAN living in Pabbay at one time and his wife was in child-bed. And what they used to give them in these times when they were in child-bed was porridge with butter, and he was making porridge for his wife this night. And when he had the porridge on the fire, a woman came in and sat on the bench. And she never spoke and neither did the man speak to her. But, anyway, when he had the porridge cooked, he asked her if she would take some porridge and she said she would indeed, and he gave her some porridge.
And when she had eaten all he had given her, she got up to scrape the pot. And he asked her if she would take some more and she said she would, and he put the pot back on and filled it again. And she ate all of that too. Well, I can’t tell you now how often he put the pot back on but he put it on several times anyway, and, anyway, when she had had as much as she wanted she said:
‘There now,’ she said, ‘that’s what I ought to have had when I was in child-bed myself, and it was hunger,’ she said, ‘that was the cause of my death. But now,’ she said, ‘as long as a drop of your blood remains, no woman will ever die in child-bed if anyone related to you is attending her.’
And neither there did, and his descendants are still on this island. Yes.
55a Duncan MacDonald
LURAN AND IARAS
ONCE UPON A TIME there lived a man in Stoneybridge who was called Luran, himself and his wife. Luran was always out working during the day, and he did not come home till evening, and his wife stayed at home by herself. But one day what happened was that his wife complained to Luran that a man was always coming around the house while he was away working and that, first of all, he looked in the window and, when he saw that she was alone, he came in and stayed with her all day. And this day she asked Luran to stay at home himself and hide, and when the man came she would let him in and they would catch him.
This is what happened. Luran stayed at home this day and hid in the other end of the house, waiting until the same stranger came – if he did come. It wasn’t long till his wife called to him that the man was coming. When he came he went to the window and looked in. When he saw that she was alone he came to the door, and she immediately opened the door. He came in and sat down, but just then Luran appeared from the other end of the house. Out of the door went the visitor with Luran after him. This man set off towards the hill running at full speed with Luran at his heels. Now they were getting close to Loch Iarais out in the hill and, when the man was almost at Tigh Iarais [the house of Iaras] – a huge cairn of stones which is at the edge of the loch – he turned round and said, ‘Luran is swift, but for the hardness of his bread, but if Luran’s food was porridge, Luran could run down the deer.’ Then he vanished and Luran had just to return home.
But he kept thinking of what the man had said to him about the porridge and how swift he would be if porridge were his food. And he began to take porridge instead of bread [oatcakes]. But after being a while on porridge he began to grow heavy and clumsy and he realised that it was to harm him that the man he had been chasing had given him that advice. Luran went back to his usual food and he was as fast and as supple as ever he was and the stranger never again came near the house.
55b Calum Johnston
LURAN
WHEN WE WERE CHILDREN there were plenty of things that were good for us, but didn’t seem so good to us. We weren’t terribly keen on porridge at all, and sometimes we would be given some encouragement to like it by being told this story.
There was once a man and his wife. He was a crofter. They lived in a remote glen by themselves. They had a good bit of land, and they kept a good stock of cattle on it too. They wanted for nothing: they had milk and butter and cream in plenty and they lived very comfortably.
About Hallowe’en strange things always happen – some of them natural enough, but sometimes supernatural ones: and this crofter, sometimes he would lose some of his stock. One of his stirks would disappear, or one of his calves or something, and he hadn’t the faintest idea where it went. Anyway, this time autumn was drawing to a close and Hallowe’en was approaching, and when Hallowe’en came he said to himself that he’d go . . . and keep an eye on the stock that night.
And when night was falling he went out to the fold where his cattle were, to keep an eye on the stock, and he hadn’t been there long when he saw two little men dressed in green coming towards him, and he realised at once that these were fairies. Anyway, he watched them: and they came into the fold and seized on the best cow he had and made off with it. He went after them at once, but, oh, the fairies went so fast that he couldn’t catch up with them at all: he couldn’t hold a candle to them.
In the end he got so exhausted chasing them that he had to sit down on a little hillock for a breather. And the fairies themselves must have been pretty exhausted, and they sat down up the way from him. They began to talk among themselves, and they didn’t want him to understand if he heard anything of what they said, so when they spoke about him they called him Luran. One said to the other:
‘Didn’t Luran run fast?’
‘If only his bread were not so hard,’ said the other, ‘but if Luran were fed on porridge, Luran would outrun the deer.’
And he heard this, and he turned back. And when he got home, his wife asked him how he had fared, and he told her everything that had happened word for word, and how the fairies had carried off his best cow.
‘You never got it back?’ said she.
‘No,’ said he, ‘but I picked up a hint that will probably help me for all that.’
‘What’s that?’ said she.
‘Well, I’ll tell you,’ said he. ‘You’ll have to give me porridge and milk every day for the next year.’
‘Oh, fine,’ said she. ‘I’ll do that.’ And all that year she fed him on porridge and milk, every morning or every evening, whichever he preferred.
And when next Hallowe’en came he said to her: ‘I’m going to watch the cattle now.’ And he went out as before on Hallowe’en night, and as before the two of them came again and came in among the animals and seized on his best cow. They went off with it, but off he went after them, and they hadn’t gone terribly far when he caught them and took the cow from them and brought it home. And the fairies never bothered him or came after him from then on.
So now you know the best advice for any boy who wants to be nimble on his feet: he should stick to porridge and milk.
55c Tom Tulloch
PEERIE MERRAN’S SPÜN
THIS WAS A STORY ’at was telt to the bairns to . . . encourage them to tak their gruel aboot the moarnin. They telt them ’at the fairies güd to cairry the Ness o Houllan – that’s a long smaa ness ’at lies oot through the sea here at the north end o Yell – ’at they were goin to cairry him some wey, awey fae the aest’ard o Shetland to help to mak a brig ower Yell Soond. An when they cam yondroo this moarnin they set doon the Ness while they had their brakfast. But when they set them in to their brakfast, then they fand oot that they were een o them ’at wis lost their spün. So een o the leadin fairies said to the rest o them ’at they were bidden to
‘Caa fast an sop shün
For peerie Merran wänts a spün.’
But they were apparently i thatten a hurry ’at they boltit doon their brakfast, an they never waitit quhile peerie Merran got a laen o wän o their ither spüns. And they liftit the Ness and set aff wi’m ageen. But fir the want o her brakfast peerie Merran couldna tak her equal share o the wight, an
when shö got the full wight upon her shö wisna able to cairry it, an shö bruke her back. An fir the want o her cairryin ipö the Ness, the Ness fell, an peerie Merran fell anunder’m. And peerie Merran is anunder the Ness yet, an the Ness is lyin yondroo broaken in t’ree.
56 Angus MacKenzie
BLACK JOHN OF THE BLIZZARD
IT WAS IN SPRING and it was a cold day, according to the story that I heard, and a boat came – it was from Harris that the boat came to raid the cattle – she came in to land at a place we call Toilisgir on the Balranald shore with a north-east wind blowing, and she had good shelter coming in there. And that was the first house they came to – the house at Cìrein, and he was ploughing; they went up to him and they must have had information that he was a good seaman. There was nothing else at all for it, but he must go with them to Heisker [a group of islands west of Uist], and the day turned bad with showers of snow.
It was no use refusing: he had to go, and he was in the bow of the boat, and as they were drawing close to the Heisker shore he was being asked: ‘What is the name of that reef?’ and ‘What is the name of this skerry?’ And he was making signs to the helmsman, he was making signs to him with his hand to keep close to the shore. And there is a point in Heisker that they call Rubha na Marbh and he – Black John of the Blizzard as they called him – he was in the bow of the boat and he called to Donald MacLeod who was in the stern – it was he who was steering: ‘Hold her in,’ said he, ‘as close to the point as you can get her.’
He held her in close to the point and Black John of the Blizzard stood up and put his hand on the sheet of the fore-sail and made a single leap to the point. The boat came in that close: he escaped and as he went he said, ‘Whatever the name of the point was before,’ said he, ‘it shall be called Rubha na Marbh [the Point of the Dead] tonight.’
The boat was broken up to matchwood there and every man in her was drowned. No-one escaped, according to the story, but John. And because they were so pleased in Heisker, he moved his home from here and went to Heisker.
That is how I heard the story: that that was what caused it to be called Rubha na Marbh.
LEGENDS OF GHOSTS AND EVIL SPIRITS
57 Duncan MacDonald
MACPHAIL OF UISINNIS
THREE HUNDRED and fifty years ago a man lived in Uisinnis whose name was MacPhail. He and his wife, his son and the son’s wife and daughter all lived together. Now the girl had been dumb from birth: she’d be coming on for thirteen and had never spoken a word in her life. Anyway, old MacPhail died and his body was dressed and laid out for burial in an end room of the house. Then the son went off to the township to fetch people and to get whatever was needed for the funeral. He wasn’t going to return to Uisinnis until the following morning. The two women and the dumb girl were by themselves in the house, with MacPhail’s corpse at the other end of the house.
But as it came near one o’clock in the morning MacPhail’s wife to her astonishment heard the girl who had never spoken a word in her life shouting: ‘Granny, Granny, my grandfather’s getting up! He’ll eat you and he won’t touch me!’
The woman had a look, and the man who was dead and laid out for the burial had risen to a sitting position. She sprang back and closed the door, but MacPhail was right behind it. Then she began to pile boxes and chests against the door to hold him there. At this, MacPhail began to dig his way out under the frame of the door, and in spite of her efforts to keep him back, his head and shoulders had emerged from beneath the doorway when the cock flew down from the cross-beam on to the floor and crowed three times. Immediately the man who was digging his way out fell dead and there he stayed until the son came back from the township next day.
He was lifted then and buried, but the hole he made underneath the doorway is still to be seen in the old ruins of the house where the thing happened in Uisinnis, and no-one has ever been able to fill it in. The hole is known as ‘MacPhail’s Pit’ to the present day. It’s said that people tried more than once to fill it up with stones and earth, but next day it would be the same as before, and not one blade of grass ever grew there – nothing but a foul, dank mire.
58 Duncan MacDonald
MÓR PRINCESS OF LOCHLANN
IN OLDEN TIMES it was a custom among people to keep a graveyard watch; that meant watching in the graveyard all night, in case anything happened to it. One night this woman was watching in Howmore graveyard and, in order to pass the time for herself through the night, she took a distaff with her, meaning to spin all night. She went to the graveyard and sat down and began to spin. The night was beautiful, calm and warm, and she thought that she would have a good quantity of wool spun before morning came.
But round about midnight, while she was busy spinning, what was she most surprised to see but graves opening on every side, and the people coming out of them and hurrying out of the graveyard. She did not know what all this meant, but she kept on spinning as if nothing unusual was happening.
But after some time, one after another began to return and make for their own graves, and the grave closed over each one, male and female, who went back into it. Thus every man and woman who had gone away had returned except one, and that grave was still open. The time was drawing near to morning and the watcher went and placed the distaff across the mouth of the grave and she sat down to wait until the one who had left it came. At the end of a good while anyway, she saw a woman coming in a great hurry. She came into the graveyard and made for the grave, but the distaff was across the mouth of the grave. She asked the woman who was watching to lift the distaff and let her to her rest because she was tired.
‘I shall do that,’ said the watcher, ‘when you tell me where everyone who was here tonight was, and what left you so long after the others in returning.’
‘I’ll do that,’ said the one who had come. ‘Everyone who was here tonight was away at the places where their dwellings were in this world and the way I was so long after the others was that I had longer to go than any of those who left here tonight. I am Mór, daughter of the king of Lochlann and I have been to Lochlann since I left. The boat I was in was lost near land here and I and all who were on board were drowned. My body came ashore and I was buried in the graveyard before there was a graveyard, and people have called the place Tom Móireadh [Mór’s Knoll] ever since then. And let me tell you one more little thing. My casket came to land on the shore at the mouth of the ford and nobody found it, and eventually it sank into the strand and it was not to be seen. But to let you know where it is, and the very spot where it can be found, where you see three black stalks of tangle sticking up out of the beach, my casket is just under that. And now lift the distaff off my grave and let me go to my rest for I am tired.’
The watching woman said no more, but she lifted the distaff off the grave and Mor, daughter of the king of Lochlann, went down into it and the grave closed over her. Day had now dawned and she [the watcher] went home. She related what had happened to her and what the daughter of the king of Lochlann had said to her and immediately some people went to the mouth of the ford to dig for the casket, but they never found the three stalks of tangle together. There were tangles in plenty sticking out of the beach but they never chanced on three together, and so Mór, princess of Lochlann’s casket is under the strand, still undiscovered, whatever treasure is inside it.
59 Tom Tulloch
MYZE KEYS
THIS IS THE STOARY relaetin to the owld Kirk o Ness near the Saunds o Breckin. It wis reputed ’at it wis biggit wi a shipwreck’t crew – whether that’s correct or not I doan’t know, but that wis the stoary ’at wis toald. And unfortunately wan o the maen ’at wis . . . at the buildin o the kirk, he wis a man by the name o Myze Keys, and he fell off the scauff’ldin and was so severely hurt ’at it resulted in his daeth. An he was the first män to be böried i the graveyard, an his workmates erected a wuiden heidston til him.
And there wis a croftin house a wee bit farther north, a house be the neem o Taaft, and the crofter ’at wi
s stoppin i the hoose o Taaft hed occasion to mak himsel a kirn: an he managed to get the whoale o the kirn made till he cam to the bottom an then he couldna fin’ a piece o wuid to mak the boddom o the kirn oot ot o. And they were wan day that he wis passin the kirkyaurd, an he geed in, an he pulled up the wuiden tombston and he took him horn wi him an made a boddom til his kirn. An no doot his conscience likely boddered him aboot this act o sacrileege ’at he wis committit, an durin the night sometime he thowt ’at they were an aapareetion that stüd afore his baed, an he thowt that that was Myze Keys. And this aapareetion said til him ’at he wis
‘Myze Keys
Come fir his trees
’At stüd at his heid.’
But then the man wis cut up the piece o wuid, an he couldna putt it together ageen, and he was in a dilemma to keen whät to do. So he hed a good hunt aroond until he fan’ anither piece o wuid that was very seemilar to the piece ’at he wis removed, an he güd an krockit it doon i the kirkyaurd at the man’s grave, an he was bother’t no more wi the aapareetion.
60a Donald Alec MacEachen
ALASDAIR MÓR MAC IAIN LAIDIR
WHEN CLANRANALD stayed in Nunton, he had a farm – servant, a big strong man who was called Alasdair Mór mac Iain Làidir [Big Alasdair son of Strong John]. He lived in the Aird Fhada. I know fine where his house was: it’s not far from the Well of Clach an [?Déidhir], a little to the north-west of it.
Scottish Traditional Tales Page 30
