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

FAERY DOGS AND FAERY CATTLE
family, whose turn it was to spend the nio:ht in the open
with the cows, so as to prevent their roaming, crept into the
shieling in the small hours to enjoy the proverbial forty
winks. As they were on the point of falling asleep, they
were startled by a noise as of a number of large-pawed
creatures trampling heavily on the turfen roof, and by loud
bowlings. When the roof was examined in daylight, it
betrayed deep indentations left by the paws of faery dogs.
Faery Dogs in Benbecula.
Now, it was when the Great Clan Ranald, himself, resided
at Nunton, in the Isle of Benbecula, that two men, while
tending calves in the " long house " at night-time, sat and
talked before the glowing peats. Suddenly there rushed in
upon them a couple of faery dogs, held together by a leash
of precious metal, inlaid with precious stones that glittered
in the fire-glow. Then a mystic voice was heard without
"Slender-fay, slender-fay!
Mountain-traveller, mountain-traveller !
Black-faery, black-faery
Lucky-treasure, lucky-treasure
Grey-hound, grey-hound!
Seek-beyond, seek-beyond " ^
!
Out rushed the faery dogs, the two men following them
as soon as they had recovered their senses. And there, in
the night sky, they beheld the Slnagh, or Spirit-host, with
hounds on leash and hawks on wrist, and they on the point
of travelling westward on a hunting expedition. So
astounded were the men, says the Gaelic chronicler, that
they could recollect only a few of the sounds they had
heard, though the welkin rang with the music of bells, and
with the voices of the Slnagh calling their hounds by name.
Seaward, in the face of the Grey West Wind, sped this
multitude of departed spirits, out beyond Benbecula and the
Monach Isles, beyond Hirta and Rockall, until they arrived
at Tir-nan-Og itself—Land-of-Youth and the Land-under
Waves, far beneath the western seas. " Fortune follow
1 Carmina Gadelica, Vol. II.
39
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