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

NORSE AND VIKING FOLK-TALES
without wetting himself. Under cover of dark he was wont
to visit the wife of a tacksman on Raasay, who suppHed
him with provender. As the men of Raasay could not reach
the islet with the same facility as did Storab, they decided
to drain the loch. Storab, now realising himself to be in
danger, leapt ashore, and made for the house of the tacksman,
expecting that there he would receive asylum. But
the tacksman's wife was now afraid of the consequences
that inevitably would have followed, had the men of Raasay
realised that she secretly had been befriending Storab.
And, as he was on the point of seeking refuge elsewhere,
an arrow pierced his thigh, and wounded him fatally.
And it is said in the Hebrides that, when Biornal, Storab's
sister, learnt of her brother's death at the hands of the
people of Raasay, she harried that island with fire and
sword. And she directed that, when she died, she should be
buried at a site overlooking Raasay. To this day the folks
of northern Skye are able to locate on a rocky shelf about
the summit of the mountain called Sron Bhiornal the tomb
from which the spirit of Biornal overlooks Raasay Isle.
This story reminds one of the cairn situated on the
summit of Beinn na Caillich, not far from Broadford, in
the Isle of Skye. This cairn is believed to mark the site of
burial of a Norse princess who died at Ord. On her deathbed
this princess commanded her attendants to convey her,
when dead, to the top of Beinn na Caillich, and to bury her
there, in order that she might lie in the wake of the winds
from Norway.
It is the traditions associated with this cairn that
MacCulloch, the geologist, in his Description of the IVestern
Isles of Scotland, asks to be excused from repeating, since
he considered them, one and all, to be unworthy of regard.
But, then, MacCulloch was a most tiresome fellow ; and he
seems to have imbued most of his writings with something
of the same tiresomeness.
Well of Beothail's Bones.
The story of the burial of yet another Viking princess is
associated with Lismore, that island lying between the Lynn
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