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

GHOST TALES AND HAUNTED PLACES
hounds. The men were watching the rising stream, which
ever}^ moment was becoming less and less fordable. In
doubt as to which of the pathways they should pursue as a
short-cut to their destination, Mr Faed addressed himself to
one of the men, who, in pointing upstream, said : " Your
road lies that way." At this same moment Mrs Faed paused
to pat one of the deer-hounds. For an instant she felt the
creature's coat beneath her hand. And then everything
changed : men
and dogs were gone.
Somewhat
destination.
alarmed, the Faeds now hurried to their
On arrival, their hostess asked them which
they described the glen through
way the}- had taken ; and
which they had passed.
" Oh, then, you came through the Haunted Country " ! she
replied without any hesitation. And, when they told her of
their eerie experience, she informed them that they were by
no means the first to encounter such.
The Hidden Ploughshare.
Associated with Lochaber is a ghost tale illustrative of the
widely established belief in the protective power of iron and
other metals. The presence of iron was regarded as a sure
preventive against the wiles and whims of the Little Folk,
for instance ; and in the Outer Hebrides, even to this day,
one comes upon examples of where a horse-shoe or a rusty
nail is religiously kept above the lintel or the mantel-shelf,
in order to protect the inmates of the house against faery
interference, or against the evil eye and similar expressions
of the supernatural.
Blacksmiths, because they worked with iron, were
considered more immune to harm than were those employed
in other directions ; and in warfaring times men swore on
their dirks because they found in them the piece of cold
metal most convenient at the time.
The story is told in Lochaber of a man who, having
hidden the iron ploughshare of a neighbour, died without
disclosing its whereabouts, with the result that he could not
rest in his grave, and continually roamed through the
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