BLACK WILLIAM THE PIPER.
William M‘Kenzie was weaver to the Laird of Barcaldine. He and a friend were going home with two gallons of whisky in jars strapped on their backs. They saw a hillock open and illuminated, and entered. William’s companion stuck a knife in the door when entering. They found inside an old man playing the bagpipes, and a company of dancers on the floor. William danced one reel, and then another, till his companion got tired waiting, and left. When, after several days, M‘Kenzie did not turn up, the other was accused of having murdered him, and was advised, if his story was true, to get spades and dig into the hillock for his missing friend. A year’s delay was given, and when the hillock was entered M‘Kenzie was found still dancing on the floor. After this adventure he became the chief weaver in the district; he did more work in a shorter time than any other. At the first throw of the shuttle he said, “I and another one are here” (mise ’s fear eile so!). He also began to make pipes, but though a better weaver and piper than he had been before, he never prospered. He became known as “Black William of the Pipes” (Uilleam du na pìoba).
It is said in Sutherlandshire that a weaver, getting a shuttle from the Fairies, can go through three times as much work as another man. (Cf. Tale of M‘Crimmon, p. 139.)
THE HARRIS WOMAN AND HER BAKING.
A woman in Harris was passing Creag Mhanuis, a rock having on its face the appearance of a door, which she saw opening, and a woman dressed in green standing before it, who called to her to come in to see a sick person. The woman was very unwilling to go, but was compelled, and went in without taking any precaution. She found herself among a large company, for whom she was immediately to begin baking bread, and was told that when the quantity of meal, not very large, given her was entirely used, she would be allowed to go away. She began to bake, and made all possible haste to finish the work, but the more she strove the less appearance there was of the labour being finished, and her courage failed when day after day passed, leaving her where she began. At last, after a long time, the whole company left for the outer world, leaving her, as she thought, alone. When the last tramp of their footsteps could no longer be heard, she was startled by hearing a groan. On looking through an opening which she found in the side of the dwelling, she saw a bed-ridden old man, who, on seeing her head in the opening, said, “What sent you here?” “I did not come by my own will,” she replied. “I was made to come to attend to a sick person.” He then asked what work was given her to do. She told him, and how the baking was never likely to be finished. He said she must begin again, and that she was not to put the dusting meal (an fhallaid) at any time back among the baking. She did as he told her, when she found her stock of meal soon exhausted, and she got out and away before the others returned, much to their discomfiture.
A woman in Skye was taken to see a sick person in a dùn, and after attending to her patient, she saw a number of women in green dresses coming in and getting a loan of meal. They took the meal from a skin bag (balgan), which seemed as if it would never be exhausted. The woman asked to be sent home, and was promised to be allowed to go, on baking the meal left in the bag, and spinning a tuft of wool on a distaff handed to her. She baked away, but could not exhaust the meal bag; and spun, but seemed never nearer the end of her task. A woman came in, and advised her to “put the remnant of the meal she baked into the little bag, and to spin the tuft upon the distaff as the sheep bites the hillock”[19]—i.e., to draw the wool in small tufts, like sheep bites, from the distaff. On doing this, the task was soon finished, the Fairies saying, “A blessing rest on you, but a curse on the mouth that taught you.”[20] On coming out, the woman found she had been in the dùn for seven years.
LIFTED BY THE FAIRIES.
Black Donald of the Multitude (Dòmhnull du an t-sluaigh), as he was ever afterwards known, was ploughing on the farm of Baile-pheutrais, in the island of Tiree, when a heavy shower came on from the west. In these days it required at least two persons to work a plough, one to hold it, and one to lead the horses. Donald’s companion took shelter to the lee of the team. When the shower passed, Donald himself was nowhere to be found, nor was he seen again till evening. He then came from an easterly direction, with his coat on his arm. He said the Fairies had taken him in an Eddy wind to the islands to the north—Coll, Skye, etc. In proof of this, he told that a person (naming him) was dead in Coll, and people would be across next day for whiskey for the funeral to Kennovay, a village on the other side of Bally-pheutrais, where smuggling was carried on at the time. This turned out to be the case. Donald said he had done no harm while away, except that the Fairies had made him throw an arrow at, and kill, a speckled cow in Skye. When crossing the sea he was in great terror lest he should fall.
Nial Scrob (Neil the Scrub), a native of Uist, was on certain days lifted by the Fairies and taken to Tiree, and other islands of the Hebrides, at least so he said himself. Once he came to Saälun, a village near the north-east end of Tiree, and at the fourth house in the village was made to throw the Fairy arrow. There is an old saying—
“Shut the north window,