[82] "West Highland Tales," iii, 394-5.
[83] So spelt in the English translation given by the Rev. John G. Campbell, minister of Tiree, in The Scottish Celtic Review, Glasgow, 1885, pp. 184-90.
[84] Referring to the component parts of Fin's army on a certain occasion, Mr. Charles de Kay remarks ("Early Heroes of Ireland," Century Magazine, June 1889, p, 200): "The battalion of 'middle-sized men' and that of 'small men' we may understand as recruited from the true hunter and fisher tribes, who gave the name Fenian to the army itself, and Fion to the folk-hero."
[85] Trow is the favourite form among the Shetlanders; but other forms are given by Edmondston in his "Glossary," such as drow, troll, troil, troilya, and trolld. The Shetland terms are, therefore, also variants of the Scandinavian troll, following a common Scotch tendency, which modifies boll, knoll, poll, roll, etc., into bow, know, pow, row, etc. (the vowel sound being as in now). But whichever form may be the oldest, it is manifest that trow or drow, and troich or droich, are radically one.
[86] Rev. J. Russell, "Three Years in Shetland." Paisley and London, 1887, pp. 135-6.
[87] See the Society's "Memoirs," 1865-6, vol. ii, pp. 294-338.
[88] The spelling pight, which Dr. Hunt uses above, must clearly represent the guttural and vowel sound of licht, micht, dight, etc., in "broad Scotch." Without this caution, the reader would naturally infer the sound of pite.
[89] Rev. J. Bryden: see "Anthrop. Soc. Mem." ut supra.
[90] Close to Kettlester there is a noted haunt of the "trows," which bears the name of Houlland. With this may be compared Troil-Houlland, which adjoins Seffister, of "trow" memory. This very common Shetland termination "ster" or "setter" is the Icelandic setr, a dwelling; and these two names resolve themselves respectively into dwellings of Kettle and Seffi. The former name at once recalls the ninth century Ketil Flat-nose of the Sagas, and this "setr," still associated with dwarfs (otherwise trows or pechts), may have been one of his dwellings.
[91] Mrs. Saxby, in "Folk-lore from Unst, Shetland" (part v), contributed to The Leisure Hour, 1880. (For another reference to the boats of the Picts, see pp. [178]-[9], post.)