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

WITCH TALES AND THE EVIL EYE
Years passed, during which the child—Oighrig
MacSweyn by name— grew into a beautiful young woman,
who eventually plighted her troth. Those were the days
when the now ruined and moss-covered parish church at
Eynort was the place of worship to which all the Glen Bretil
folks went : those were the days, moreover, when in the Isles
the bride-to-be did not attend church between the time of
her betrothal and her marriage. It was a long, long way
from Rudh' an Dunain to service at Eynort; but Norman
MacSweyn and his old wife thought nothing of a twelvemile
tramp to church, even in the most inclement weather.
And anyone familiar with the locality of Glen Bretil knows
how fiercely the storm can rage in this part of Skye
Well, one Sabbath, when Norman and his wife had gone
over to worship at Eynort, Oighrig was tempted to examine
the contents of the kist that for so many years her mother
had guarded so jealously. Having forced it open, she
teemed out everything, until she found at the bottom of the
kist a strange piece of cloth, in which was wrapped a caoran,
or little peat. Oighrig could not conceive what had
possessed her mother to keep in her kist such a common
thing as a caoran, for, apart from the fact that it would
burn, she knew of no other use to which it might be put
though, by the way, a little peat frequently is used in the
Hebrides as a nucleus round which wool or yarn is wound.
And, therefore, Oighrig innocently threw the caoran on the
hearth, where it soon became ignited. As it continued to
smoulder away, she began to feel increasingly ill. When the
folks returned from church at Eynort, they found their
beautiful daughter in the grip of death, and the kist lying
open beside her, its precious contents all scattered higgildypiggildy
about the room. Nowhere to be seen was the caoran
that the wicked banshee had cursed; and ere long the fate,
that by her mother's presence of mind had been avoided in
her infancy, overtook Oighrig. And she was laid to rest in
the old burying-ground at Eynort.
A Mother's Prudence.
The folk-tale of the three scheming banshees, who visited
the shepherd's wife at Rudh' an Dunain, recalls one
271
!
—