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

THE PEAT-FIRE FLAME
if you insist on seeing a real, live, Highland ghost, go to
the Doune of Rothiemurchus, which is within easy reach of
Aviemore, and ask that Room 14 shall be allocated to you
The Haunted Precipice.
That silver was included among the charms used against
evil spirits is shown by the following folk-tale associated
with Kintail. The occasion, however, was one on which
silver was tried, and found wanting.
Murdoch, one of the sons of Alexander MacRae of
Inverinate, met an untimely death. It is recounted round
the peat-fires of Kintail that, when hunting in Glen Lie,
Murdoch surprised a man driving off his goats. He seized
the would-be thief ; and it is said that, as he was on the
point of leading him away under arrest, so to speak, the
thief effected his escape by shoving Murdoch over a precipice
known as the Carraig. After a search lasting fifteen days,
Murdoch's body was found at the base of the Carraig.
The death of Murdoch occasioned much speculation in
Kintail. The notion soon gained currency that the dark
deed was the work of some evil spirit. At the spot where
the body was found, strange sights were being seen, and
even stranger sounds heard—so strange, in truth, that for a
generation or two it was deemed highly dangerous to venture
near this locality after dark. When snow fell in time of
winter, it was discovered that in this neighbourhood the
surface, elsewhere smooth and untrodden, exhibited marks
as though some creature with rounded feet and long claws
had tramped upon it. These marks convinced the people of
Kintail that Murdoch had been done to death in a manner
most foul, and by some evil agency. Henceforth the Carraig
was regarded as haunted in the worst sense.
Now, it was asserted that, if there were a single person
in all Kintail who could prevail against the influence of an
evil spirit, that person was Am Breabadair Og, the Young
Weaver, who was known to carry with him wheresoever he
went a brace of pistols and a pouchful of silver bullets.
Belief in the \ulnerability of ghosts, spooks, witches, and
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