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

THE PEAT-FIRE FLAME
offer her, but to take it and conceal it in her clothing. He
explained to her that he and his mother had been carried
hither in like manner, and that neither of them could get
away because of his mother's indiscretion in having
partaken of the
likewise.
faeries' food, and her bidding him to do
When the faery-in-chief learnt that the woman refused
to consume any of the food supplied to her, he sent a band
of his henchman to bring in a certain man's cow. But they
returned without the cow, explaining that they could not
touch it, since its right knee was resting on the plant known
as the dirk grass. He then sent them forth for another
cow ; but they came back with the news that the milk-maid,
on her own confession, had just put an iron shackle on it.
A third time the faery henchmen sallied forth for yet
another cow ; but they learnt to their dismay that this cow
had just consumed a quantity of
the mo than.
the magical plant called
That night the woman's husband had a dream, in which
the whereabouts of his wife and child were revealed, and
in which he was instructed to tie three knots in the silk
kerchief his wife wore at her marriage, and take it to the
Black Door. Thus equipped, the husband entered the
interior of Ben ladain, and rescued his wife and infant son.
As for the lad, who had warned the woman not to
consume any of the food offered her by her captors, he still
may be held captive by the faeries, for all we know !
The Faeries of Pennygown.
In a manner not dissimilar to that in which the Brownie
of Rothiemurchus took umbrage, as told in a later chapter,
the faeries occupying the green hillock near the township of
Pennygown, in Mull, abandoned their benevolent activities.
For generations people having irksome tasks relied on the
help of the Pennygown faeries. Of nights they left by the
hillock all sorts of jobs for them to execute—material for
spinning and weaving, household utensils to repair, and the
like. When they returned to the hillock in the morning,
they always found the work done to their satisfaction.
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