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

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“Thou dumb sharp one, thou dumb sharp,

That came from the land of the dead,

And drove the cauldron from the brugh—

Undo the Knot, and lose the Rough.”17

She succeeded in getting home before the Rough, the Fairy dog, overtook her, and the Fairies never again came for the loan of the kettle.

This story is given, in a slightly different form, by Mr. Campbell, in his Tales of the West Highlands (Vol. ii., p. 44), and the scene is laid in Sanntrai, an island near Barra. The above version was heard in Tiree by the writer, several years before he saw Mr. Campbell’s book. There is no reason to suppose the story belongs originally either to Tiree or Barra. It is but an illustration of the tendency of popular tales to localize themselves where they are told.

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A green mound, near the village of Pennygown (Peigh’nn-a-ghobhann), in the Parish of Salen, Mull, was at one time occupied by a benevolent company of Fairies. People had only to leave at night on the hillock the materials for any work they wanted done, as wool to be spun, thread for weaving, etc., telling what was wanted, and before morning the work was finished. One night a wag left the wood of a fishing-net buoy, a short, thick piece of wood, with a request to have it made into a ship’s mast. The Fairies were heard toiling all night, and singing, “Short life and ill-luck attend the man who asked us to make a long ship’s big mast from the wood of a fishing-net buoy.”18 In the morning the work was not done, and these Fairies never after did anything for any one.