The loss was not so lamentable.”[95]
THE BUNDLE OF FERN.
A shepherd in Benderloch saw a large bundle of ferns rolling down the hillside, and, in addition to the downward motion given by the incline, it seemed to have a motion of its own. It disappeared down a waterfall. Of course this was Black Donald; what else could it be?
THE PIG IN THE INDIGO POT.
A former tenant of the farm of Holm, in Skye, and his wife had gone to bed, leaving a large pot full of indigo dye on the floor. The pig came in and fell into the pot. The wife got up to see what the noise was, and on looking into the pot saw the green snout of a pig jerking out of the troubled water. She roared out that the devil was in the pot. Her husband shouted in return to put on the lid, and jumping in great excitement out of bed, he threw his weight on the lid to keep it down till the devil was drowned. His wife was remarkable for always commending what her husband did, and kept repeating, “Many a person you will confer a favour on this night, Murdoch” (Is iomadh duine d’an dean thusa feum a nochd, a Mhurchiadh). At last the noise in the pot subsided, and Murdoch nearly called up the party he had sought to drown on finding it was his own pig he had been so zealously destroying.
AMONG THE TAILORS.
It is a saying that the only trade that the devil has been unable to learn is that of tailoring. The reason is that when he went to try, every tailor left the room, and having no one to instruct him, he omitted to put a knot on the thread he began to sew with. In consequence the thread always came away with him, and he gave up the trade in despair. It is presumed that he wanted to learn the trade to make clothes for himself, as no one would undertake the making of them.
TAGHAIRM, OR “GIVING HIS SUPPER TO THE DEVIL.”
The awful ceremony to which this name was given was also known among old men as “giving his supper to the devil.” It consisted in roasting cats alive on spits till the arch-fiend himself appeared in bodily shape. He was compelled then to grant whatever wish the persons who had the courage to perform the ceremony preferred, or, if that was the object of the magic rite, to explain and answer whatever question was put to him.
Tradition in the West Highlands makes mention of three instances of its performance, and it is a sort of tribute to the fearless character of the actors that such a rite should be ascribed to them. It was performed by Allan the Cattle-lifter (Ailein nan creach)[96] at Dail-a-chait (the Cats’ Field), as it has since been called, in Lochaber, and by Dun Lachlan (Lachunn odhar) in the big barn at Pennygown (sabhal mòr Peighinn-a-ghobhann), in Mull. The details of these two ceremonies are so exactly the same that there is reason to think they must both be versions of an older legend. Nothing appears to create a suspicion that the one account was borrowed from the other. The third instance of its performance was by some of the “children of Quithen” (Clann ’ic Cuithen), a small sept in Skye, now absorbed, as so many minor septs have been, into the great family of the Macdonalds. The scene was a natural cavity called the “Make-believe Cave” (an Eaglais Bhréige), on East Side, Skye. There is the appearance of an altar beside this church, and the locality accords well with the alleged rite. The following is the Mull legend.