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

RIEVERS AND CATERANS TALES
saw no white boat, but a black one, or perhaps a green
one. The confusion Iain Gearr maintained by his frequent
recourse to the paint-pot did much to keep him out of the
clutches of those who would have dragged him to account.
Iain Gearr's mother, on her husband's death, married a
native of Mull, an island on which Iain's rieving exploits
had rendered it unsafe for him to land. As it happened,
his mother eventually died on Mull, and was about to be
interred there. But the idea that her remains should rest
in Mull soil sorely troubled Iain Gearr ; and so he resolved
to get possession of the body, and bring it home for
interment in the old burying-place of his kinsfolk, at
Kilchoan. A dark and stormy night (so essential a setting
for a story of this nature !) was selected for the voyage to
Mull. When Iain Gearr and two accomplices arrived at
the house of the dead, they found it unoccupied. Having
made a large hole in the turf wall, they wrapped the corpse
in a. plaid, and hastened off with it to their boat by the
shore. They rowed ; and they rowed ; and in course of time
they came under the lee of Ardnamurchan. As they sat
resting awhile on the shore with the corpse beside them,
one of Iain Gearr's companions noticed that something was
moving under the plaid.
" Iain, yer mother's no' dead yut " ! exclaimed the
companion.
" Iss she no' ? " enquired Iain.
" No, she's no' ! " came the reply.
" Well, then, she damnt soon will pe whateffer !
" retorted
Iain Gearr, as he proceeded to stick his dirk deep into the
moving thing beneath the plaid.
An agonising scream now reverberated along the
cavernous shore of Ardnamurchan. On removing the plaid
to make sure that the old woman was quite dead this time,
Iain discovered that what he had dirked was a large otter
which had concealed itself in the folds of the plaid.
Re-assured that his mother was really dead, he and his
attendants hurried on their journey, anxious to commit the
remains to earth ere any other weird experiences befell
them.
The folks of Ardnamurchan still point to the stones
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