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

THE PEAT-FIRE FLAME
In the real story, however, the MacGregor contestant
gave his foeman a fairer fighting chance, and a more
generous means of escape, than did Roderic, who, without
any warning or pretext, threw down the gauntlet before
the unsuspecting Knight of Snowdoun, and provoked him,
" man to man and steel to steel."
Apart from tales such as that of MacGregor of Glen
Strae, there are some that tell of Highland Hospitality at
the hands of mysterious and elusive persons like the Wife
of Ben-y-Ghloe, or at the hands of hosts who committed
what was regarded among the Celts of the Highlands and
Islands as one of the most unpardonable of all crimes—that
of treachery to one's guest.
The Wife of Ben-y-Ghloe.
Upon a time, two men known throughout AthoU as
Donald and Big Iain were poaching on the slopes of Ben-y-
Ghloe, when they were caught in a storm. They lost their
way; but they came at evening to a hollow, in which was
a bothy. In the bothy they found a woman, whose large
and unprepossessing features aroused their curiosity. As
she neither welcomed their entry, nor expressed displeasure
at it, Donald and Big Iain presumed that everything was all
right. They therefore seated themselves comfortably before
her fire. When they asked the woman for food, she set
fresh trout before them, remarking in so doing that little did
they anticipate hospitality at the hands of one, of whose
existence they were completely unaware. When, later in
the evening, guests and hostess fell into conversation, she
informed them that it was she who had brought on the
storm, so as to entice them to visit her bothy.
That night Donald and Big Iain tarried there, on the
slopes of Ben-y-Ghloe. They found their unknown hostess
in every way conversant with the formalities denoting
Highland Hospitality. As they were leaving in the morning,
she revealed to them that she was the Wife of Ben-y-Ghloe,
and assured them of a welcome, if ever again they should
lose their way on this mountain.
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