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

GHOST TALES AND HAUNTED PLACES
the like to silver bullets was quite prevalent in the Hi^c^hlands
at one time. The weaver was persuaded to betake himself
to the Carraig, duly armed, and prepared to challenge and
shoot any living things that should happen to cross his path.
Nothing occurred on the first night of his vigil, nor on the
second. Indeed, neither supernatural sight nor sound
disturbed the solitude of the Carraig during the first
fourteen nights of the weaver's watch. On the fifteenth
night, however (the number of nights corresponding with
the number of days during which the folks of Kintail
searched for Murdoch's body ere finding it), the weaver
returned home, morose and dejected, a defeated man.
Never a soul did he tell of what he had heard or seen on
the fifteenth night. He simply declined to discuss the
incident. But it was obvious from his behaviour that the
Carraig was haunted by a spirit too evil even for the Young
Weaver and his silver bullets.
" A Piece of Silly Credulity."
The natives of South Uist believed that a valley called
Glenslyte, situated between two mountains on the east of
that island, was the abode of spirits whom they termed the
Great Men, and that all were doomed to incurable madness
who did not resign themselves entirely to the wishes of these
spirit inhabitants. The utterances whereby ordinary folks
surrendered themselves to the guidance of the Great Men
consisted of three sentences, in which the glen was named
twice. When Martin Martin toured the Hebrides toward
the close of the seventeenth century, he remonstrated with
the natives for what he described as " a piece of silly
credulity " ; but they answered him by referring to a recent
instance in which a woman entered Glenslyte without
previously having placed herself under the control and
guidance of the Great Men, with the result that " immediately
after she became mad ; which confirmed them in their
unreasonable fancy." And the Islesfolks dwelling in this
glen at shieling-time used to declare that " they sometimes
heard a loud noise in the air like men speaking."
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