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

THE TEAT-FIRE FLAME
such islanders as were eager to go into service in that
country.
Now, a girl belonging to the Isle of Pabbay and another
from Mingulay had planned secretly that they would avail
themselves of the first opportunity offered of going over to
Erin. One day, while the Mingulay girl was lifting a creel
of peats on her back, she beheld a strange man standing in
front of her. How he had come to remote Mingulay
without her knowing it was a mystery to her. She passed
the time of day with him ; and
in the course of a brief
conversation he referred to the voyage to Erin contemplated
by herself and her Pabbay companion. He foretold that,
while she would settle contentedly in her new surroundings,
her Pabbay friend would die in Ireland of fever.
While speaking to the stranger, the Mingulay girl
chanced to observe a sailing-vessel some miles off the coast.
In a trice this vessel capsized; and all its occupants were
precipitated into the sea. Screaming with shock, she strove
to draw the stranger's attention to the scene of the fatality.
But he assured her that the incident she had just witnessed
had no application whatsoever to people then living—the
grand-parents of those thrown into the sea, he explained,
were not yet born.
When the girl returned home with her creel of peats,
she told her people of the interview with a man unknown
to her, and of the weird apparition she had beheld. And
on the locality, in which she declared the incident to have
occurred, her people put the name of Ciian a' Bhdchdain,
Ocean of Spectre.
About forty years ago a small fishing-vessel capsized in
this neighbourhood, and all hands perished.
And now to the sequel.
While stationed in Northern Ireland, a soldier belonging
to Barra, and in his day widely known in these parts as
the Pearsanach Mor, deserted the army. In the course of
his flight, he came to a cottage that was being re-thatched.
Upon entering, he told the housewife that he was a native
of the Isle of Barra; and he confessed to his being a
military deserter. He pleaded with her to conceal him, since
the militarv police were hot in pursuit of him. The good-
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