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

THE
CHAPTER XI
ANIMAL LORE
folk-tales concerning animals
range. They deal, on the one
are of a wide
hand, with the
monsters of immeasurable dimensions and, on the
other, with the gigelorum. In the folk-lore of the Highlands
and Islands the gigelorum is reputed to be the minutest
of all the animals in the world. So minute is it, in fact,
that it is able to build its nest in the mite's ear. " And that
is all that is known about it," concludes the Rev. J.
Gregorson Campbell.
In the Northern Highlands the natives greatly feared a
tiny creature called the lavellan, which is said to have had
the power of paralysing cattle at any range within forty
yards. Thomas Pennant, who made incjuiries both in
Sutherland and in Caithness, came to the conclusion that the
lavellan was a water shrew-mouse—the little creature that
to-day the folks of Sutherland speak of as the water-vole.
Belief that it harmed the cattle was widespread. Thus it
was that, when a specimen was caught and killed, its skin
was preserved, and ailing cattle were made to drink a little
of the water in which this skin had been dipped.
The Elusive Feolagan.
This reminds one of the feolagan, an elusive little fellow
of the mousy order. He is said to be responsible each year
for the death of great numbers of sheep pastured on the
moors of the Hebrides. They tell me that his favourite
resort in the Isles is among the hills around Kebock Head,
in Lewis. This creature resembles his more domesticated
cousin in everything except size—he is a little larger.
Shepherds in Lewis declare that a sheep is paralysed from
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