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

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

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NORSE AND VIKING FOLK-TALES<br />

<strong>the</strong> turning ; <strong>and</strong> his harsh <strong>and</strong> irregular grinding soon woke<br />

<strong>the</strong> sleeper. Ere Grey Somerled had had time to consider<br />

<strong>the</strong> matter <strong>of</strong> resistance, his foes were upon him. <strong>The</strong>y<br />

carried him away from Dun Gallain ; <strong>and</strong> tradition in <strong>the</strong><br />

isl<strong>and</strong>s <strong>of</strong> Argyll has it that, in great privation, he spent <strong>the</strong><br />

remainder <strong>of</strong> his days in a bee-hive house <strong>of</strong> stone, situated<br />

on <strong>the</strong> farm-l<strong>and</strong>s <strong>of</strong> Machrins.<br />

One night—so <strong>the</strong> story concludes—a huge boulder<br />

from <strong>the</strong> ro<strong>of</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> bee-hive fell in, killing its unhappy<br />

inmate. So as to identify <strong>the</strong> spot where this tragedy<br />

happened, <strong>the</strong> isl<strong>and</strong>ers raised on it <strong>the</strong> cairn now indicated<br />

on <strong>the</strong> Ordnance Survey Map, as Cam Shomhairlc Liath—<br />

that is to say, Grey Somerled's Cairn.<br />

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