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

STORM-KF.LPIES
despite frantic efforts to reach the doomed ship hy life-boats
from both sides of the Firth, the crew perished, and the
skipper was rescued only after he had clung to the top-mast
for three days and three nights. This mishap filled the
countryside with a sense of tragedy; and everyone spoke
freely of the fate that had befallen both vessel and crew
at the evil hands of the Gizzen Briggs kelpies.
Fate of the Rotterdam.
Of the Gizzen Briggs, yet another folk-tale is told,
recalling the legend of The Flying Dutchman.
There sailed the Seven Seas long ago a wicked captain
in a ship which he himself had built in the hope of subduing
the world by his tyrannies. To his ship this captain gave
the name of the Rotterdam. Once she was launched and
manned, he boasted that he now feared neither God nor
man. So large was this vessel that on her deck were a
garden in which grew all manner of fruit and vegetable,
and fields in which cattle and sheep grazed freely.
In expectation of discovering some north-west passage,
the reckless captain turned his bow toward the Dornoch
Firth. But, knowing neither the fairways nor the perils
of this region, he ran his ship on to the Gizzen Briggs. To
this day, it is claimed, the fishermen dwelling by these shores
identify the spot where the Rotterdam came to grief, for at
times they see her top-gallant and her bargee floating on the
tide. They are of opinion, moreover, that the wicked
captain and his crew must still be alive beneath the waves,
since in calm weather they believe that they hear them
praying and singing the psalms alternately, in the trust that
on the Day of Judgment the captain may receive pardon
for all the sins he committed throughout the world, on land
and sea.
Kelpies of the Corrievreckan.
Between the islands of Jura and Scarba, off the west
coast of Argyll, runs the Gulf of Corrievreckan. This
treacherous tide-way of currents and whirlpools is said to be
haunted by the fiercest of the Highland storm-kelpies.
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