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

THE PEAT-FIRE FLAME
house in which their dilatory companion Hved. They
discovered that the landlady still had to prepare breakfast
for her lodger. They pleaded with her that she should
waste no time, as they were anxious to draw in the nets
they had set the previous evening.
" You need be in no hurry to-day," she coolly retorted,
" for you won't be getting your nets for several days to
come." And she added by way of consolation that, when
they did recover their nets, they would find that in no way
were they damaged.
Regardless of what she had said, the fishermen made an
attempt to reach the fishing-grounds, only to be compelled
once more to beat hastily for shelter at Camustianavaig.
When the seas had subsided after several days of tumult,
the teller of this story got word that the nets in question
had been sighted a mile or two beyond Ollach, in the Braes
of Portree. He and his companions now sailed out to look
for them ; and they duly recovered them in perfect
condition, as foretold.
Their friend's landlady proved to be one of the
Camustianavaig witches !
The belief that witches had the power of raising storms
at sea was by no means confined to the fisher-folks of the
Highlands and Islands. As late as 1590, a certain Agnes
Sampson, commonly known as " the wise wife of Keith,"
was beheaded, having deponed in the presence of King
James VI. and his Council that, while the King was
returning from Denmark with his bride, she seized a cat,
christened it, and then " bound to each part of that cat the
chiefest parts of a dead man and several joints of his body."
And she confessed, moreover, that on the following night
she and her witch companions sailed out in their baskets
into the Firth of Forth, cast the cat into the midst of the
sea, " and so left the said cat right before the town of
Leith."
And it was declared that, as the direct result of these
acts, there arose a storm that swamped a vessel conveying
precious jewels and sundry gifts that were to have been
presented to the new Queen of Scotland, when she
disembarked at Leith.
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