FLADDA-CHUAIN.
In this islet, which lies on the east coast of Skye, there lived at one time a native of Mull and his wife. In the place there is a burying-ground called “The Monks’ burial-ground” (Cladh a Mhanaich), the existence of which adds much to the feelings of awe natural to so lonely a place—a solitary islet several miles from land in a stormy sea. A dead body came on the shore, and was buried, after being stripped of its clothes. After this the dead man came to the hut in which the Mull man stayed regularly at midnight, and sat warming himself at the fire which was left burning all night on the floor. As he bent over the fire, and held his feet and his hands to it, he said, “I will softly warm myself, I will softly warm myself” (Ni mi mo theóghadh ’s mo theóghadh), and then add,
“Wife, who took my trousers off,
And my nice black shoes from me,
And the shirt my sister gave me,—
To it, to it, cold feet of mine,
Many a sea you’ve traversed.”[49]
After the Mull man left the place, a party of fishermen, being in the neighbourhood, sent one of their number ashore, Red-headed Donald (Dòmhnull Ruadh) to prepare dinner for them in the bothy. As Donald was bending down to kindle a fire, something struck him violently on the skull and knocked him flat. Every time he attempted to lift his head the thing knocked him on the skull again. He felt sure it must be the ghost which warmed itself at the Mull-man’s fire, the Teóghan of which his companions had warned him. Finding it would not allow him to rise, he lay on his back as he had been knocked down, and, not daring to look at his assaulter, wriggled himself along the floor till he got hold of a post, up which he clambered, to hide himself among the rafters. When his companions arrived the ghost was found to be a pet ram, addicted, like its kind, to butting.