A shepherd, living with his wife in a bothy far away among the hills of Mull, had an addition to his family. He was obliged to go for assistance to the nearest houses, and his wife asked him, before leaving her and her babe alone, to place the table beside the bed, and a portion of the various kinds of food in the house on it, and also to put the smoothing-iron below the front of the bed and the reaping-hook (buanaiche) in the window. Soon after he had left the wife heard a suppressed muttering on the floor and a voice urging some one to go up and steal the child. The other answered that butter from the cow that ate the pearlwort (mòthan) was on the table, that iron was below the bed, and the ‘reaper’ in the window, how could he get the child away? As the reward of his wife’s providence and good sense the shepherd found herself and child safe on his return.
A man in Morvern, known by the nickname of the ‘Marquis’ (a mor’aire), left a band of women watching his wife and infant child. On returning at night, he found the fire gone out, and the women fast asleep. By the time he had rekindled the fire he saw a Banshi entering and making for the bed where his wife and child were. He took a faggot from the fire and threw it at her. A flame gleamed about his eyes and he saw the Fairy woman no more. His wife declared that she felt at the time like one in a nightmare (trom-a-lidhe); she heard voices calling upon her to go out, and felt an irresistible inclination to obey.
A woman from Rahoy (Ra-thuaith) on Loch Sunartside was taken with her babe to Ben Iadain (Beinn Iadain), a lofty hill in the parish of Morvern, rising to a height of above 2000 feet, and at one time of great note as an abode of the Fairies. Her husband had laid himself down for a few minutes’ rest in the front of the bed, and fallen asleep. When he awoke his wife and child were gone. They were taken, the woman afterwards told, to the ‘Black Door’ (a chòmhla dhu), as the spot forming the Fairy entrance into the interior of the mountain is called. On entering, they found a large company of men, women, and children. A fair-haired boy among them came and warned the woman not to eat any food the Fairies might offer, but to hide it in her clothes. He said they had got his own mother to eat this food, and in consequence he could not now get her away. Finding the food offered her was slighted, the head Fairy sent off a party to bring a certain man’s cow. They came back saying they could not touch the cow as its right knee was resting on the plant bruchorcan (dirk grass). They were sent for another cow, but they came back saying they could not touch it either, as the dairymaid, after milking it, had struck it with the shackle or cow-spancel (burach). That same night the woman appeared to her husband in his dreams, telling him where she was, and that by going for her and taking the black silk handkerchief she wore on her marriage day, with three knots tied upon it, he might recover her. He tied the knots, took the handkerchief and a friend with him, entered the hill at the Black Door, and recovered his wife and child. The white-headed boy accompanied them for some distance from the Black Door, but returned to the hill, and is there still in all probability.
Another wife was taken from the neighbourhood of Castle Lionnaig, near Loch Aline (Loch Aluinn, the pretty loch), in the same parish, to the same hill. She was placed in the lap of a gigantic hag, who told her it was useless to attempt escaping; her arms would close round her
“As the ivy to the rock,
And as the honeysuckle to the tree;
As the flesh round the bone,
And as the bone round the marrow.”[27]
The woman answered that she wished it was an armful of dirt the Fairy held. In saying so, she made use of a very coarse, unseemly word, and, as no such language is tolerated among the Fairies, the big woman called to take the vile wretch away, and leave her in the hollow in which she had been found, (an lag san d’ fhuaradh i) which was done.