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

THE WATER-HORSE AND KINDRED MONSTERS
Colann has confined himself to Beinn Eadarra, in the north
of Skye; and to this very day the natives of Trotternish
sing the song that he sang as he flew from the grips of
Iain Garbh.
The Sea-Serpent.
According to Highland and Island folk-lore, the largest
creature in the world was the sea-serpent. This creature
was known sometimes as the Great Whirlpool of the Ocean
and its internal capacity was defined in the old rhyme which
said that
whales.
it could contain in its belly no fewer than seven
Mr Iain, a former minister of the Parish of Glen Elg,
who died in 1875, was fond of sailing, and often put out to
sea in his yacht. One day, while sailing with his two
daughters and another clergyman, and a boy named Donald
MacCrimmon, who assisted him with the sails, a huge
monster rose ciuite close to the side of the yacht, putting
such a wave aboard her that she was nearly swamped. The
monster, my informant in Glen Elg assured me, " was as
big and as round as a herring barrel, and of great length.
And it went wriggling up and down through the water,
zigzag, right and left like."
Greatly frightened, the occupants of the yacht kept on
their course down toward the Sandaig Isles, at the mouth
of Loch Hourn. Meanwhile the monster, which they now
realised was a sea-serpent, continued to disport itself
dangerously close to the yacht. Once they had steered into
Loch Hourn, they saw it no more that day. They tarried
some time at Arnisdale. When, on the morrow, they were
about to return, one of Mr Iain's daughters insisted on
being allowed to go home to the Manse of Glen Elg, on
foot, a distance of thirteen miles, accompanied by a little
terrier she had with her. The others returned by yacht;
and again they encountered the sea-serpent at the mouth of
Loch Hourn. " In fact," concluded my story-teller, " they
truly thought it had been waiting for them there. Och, I
don't think it, though. Anyway, they got past it, and
safely home after an exciting adventure !
"
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