Читать книгу Superstitions of the Highlands & Islands of Scotland. Collected Entirely from Oral Sources онлайн

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“Bran had yellow feet,

Its two sides black and belly white;

Green was the back of the hunting hound,

Its two pointed ears blood-red.”

Bran had a venomous shoe (Bròg nimhe), with which it killed whatever living creature it struck, and when at full speed, and ‘like its father’ (dol ri athair), was seen as three dogs, intercepting the deer at three passes.

The Fairy hound was kept tied as a watch dog in the brugh, but at times accompanied the women on their expeditions or roamed about alone, making its lairs in clefts of the rocks. Its motion was silent and gliding, and its bark a rude clamour (blaodh). It went in a straight line, and its bay has been last heard, by those who listened for it, far out at sea. Its immense footmarks, as large as the spread of the human hand, have been found next day traced in the mud, in the snow, or on the sands. Others say it makes a noise like a horse galloping, and its bay is like that of another dog, only louder. There is a considerable interval between each bark, and at the third (it only barks thrice) the terror-struck hearer is overtaken and destroyed, unless he has by that time reached a place of safety.


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