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

THE PEAT-FIRE FLAME
birlinn approaching under a favourable wind. When it came
fairly close inshore, she rushed home and instructed her
daughter to stir the water in the tub. Soon it was noticed
by those assembled by the shore, awaiting Iain Garbh's
arrival, that the birlinn was in serious straits. A squall
enveloped her ; and she sank with all hands. And the natives
of Skye used to say that, on the anniversary of Iain Garbh's
drowning, the incoming tide always made a great commotion
just at the spot where he and his men fell victim to
witchcraft.
But some time afterwards the witch and Donald Gorm
fell out. Not long after the drowning of Iain Garbh, she
folks of Skye and of the adjacent Isles had a
the
shrewd
herself was found drowned by the shore of Raasay ; and
suspicion that Donald Gorm was responsible.
A Witch Caught Red-footed.
There once lived in the Sleat of Skye a dairymaid who
was continually pestered by a cat that, for its size, had an
abnormal capacity for milk. For years this creature had
been helping itself to milk ; and every precaution to exclude
it from the dairy proved futile. Futile, too, were all attempts
to capture it.
At last the long-suffering dairymaid was able to get her
revenge, for one day the cat, having consumed so much milk
that it scarcely could crawl, was caught red-footed ! With
a chopper that lay to hand, the dairymaid chopped off one
of its ears.
Not long afterwards she was aghast at finding that a
woman living but a few doors away had lost an ear. And
so ashamed of herself was the victim that she never ventured
across her own threshold except when her head was
completely covered by a plaid or shawl.
Shod with Horse-shoes.
Loch Bracadale also has its witch story. Angus, the
favourite man-servant of the tacksman of Ullinish, had an
extraordinary experience. At all times he and his employer
were the best of friends ; but, albeit they had the utmost
confidence in one another, Angus was loth to tell his master
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