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

CHAPTER IX
STORM-KELPIES
the Duke of Anjou was laying siege to a
WHEN stronghold on the coast of Naples in 1381, a
necromancer constructed a bridge that carried
ten soldiers abreast, until any that passed over the said
bridge made " the sign of the crosse on hym, then all went
to nought," according to Froissart, " and they that were on
the bridge fell into the sea."
The Gizzen Briggs.
This legend has a parallel in the folk-lore of Ross and of
Sutherland. So tired became the kelpies of crossing the
Dornoch Firth in cockle-shells between Dornoch and Tain
that they decided to build a bridge. Piles for the central
and only pier of this bridge were to be driven down into that
quicksand and whirlpool at the entrance to the Dornoch
Firth known as the Gizzen Briggs. Forthwith the kelpies
applied themselves to this gigantic undertaking. When the
structure was nearing completion, however, a native of the
country, in passing over it, raised his hands in awe, and
called upon God to shower his goodness on the bridge and
its builders. At sound of ' The Name,' both work and
workmen were engulfed by the tide; and a perilous shoal
then commenced to accumulate round the wreckage.
To this day the Gizzen Briggs present a danger to ships
navigating in this locality. I well remember how, when I
was holidaying as a school-boy near Tain, some twenty
years ago, the auxiliary engine of a small sailing-vessel,
laden with timber and coal, making for Bonar-Bridge, at
the head of the Dornoch Firth, failed, and how the vessel
consequently was carried out by the tide, and swept into the
Gizzen Briggs and perdition. My recollection is that,
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