The peat-fire flame : folk-tales and traditions of the Highlands & Islands

THE PEAT-FIRE FLAME
the fold at morning, they found that no harm whatever had
befallen the cows. So they concluded that the strange
visitor of the previous evening must have been the
tarbh-tiisge.
A Water-bull Slain on St. Kilda.
The water-bull of Lome reminds one of the story of the
St. Kildan woman who was descending the hollow behind
the village with a creel of peats, when a tiny door opened
in the side of a conical mound. With great presence of
mind, the woman stuck a knife into the ground close to the
tiny door. And, as she gazed into the interior of the
mound, behold ! a speckled cow came out and dropped a
speckled calf. And in due course this speckled calf grew up
to be a speckled cow ; and this speckled cow gave birth to a
speckled calf without ears.
Highland tradition, as I have mentioned elsewhere, says
that the progeny of the water-bull inhabiting innumerable
lochans is easily distinguishable because of its having no
ears at all, or very, very short ones.
High up on the Mullach Sgar of St. Kilda is a lochan
marked on Mathieson's map, the site of which I could not
locate during my stay on St. Kilda at the time when it was
evacuated, owing to the fact that it exists only in wintertime.
But the natives used to tell the story of how a man,
passing by this tarn at a time remote, slew the water-bull
with a bow and arrow.
On Boreray Isle, one of the St. Kilda group, is an
ancient structure called Stallar House, of the origin of
which little is known. But the old folks used to affirm that
one, Stallar, headed a rebellion against the steward of St.
Kilda, which, considering how he oppressed the natives until
about eighty years ago, was not surprising. Stallar is said
to have retired to Boreray with sixteen persons, and to have
lived in the ancient dwelling still identified with his name.
On an occasion on which the St. Kildans were living in
Stallar House during the annual fowling and ' rueing
excursion, they were threatened with a shortage of
provisions. And, no sooner had one of their number
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