A changeling in Hianish (some say Sanndaig), Tiree, was driven away by a man of skill who came, and, standing in the door, said:
“Red pig, red pig,
Red one-eared pig,
That Fin killed with the son of Luin,
And took on his back to Druim-derg.”[35]
Drim-derg, or the Red Ridge, is a common in the neighbourhood of Hianish. Fin’s sword, ‘the son of Luin,’ was of such superior metal that it cut through six feet of whatever substance was struck by it, and an inch beyond. Its peculiar virtue was “never to leave a remnant from its blow.” When the changeling heard the bare mention of it, with the aversion of his race to steel, he jumped, like a fish out of the water (thug e iasg-leum as), rushed out of the house and was never seen again. The real child was found outside the house.
A woman was told by her neighbours that her child, which was not thriving, was a changeling, and that she ought to throw it in the river. The imp, frightened by the counsel, advised the contrary in an expression, which is now proverbial, “Whether it be fat or lean, every man should rear a calf for himself” (Air dha bhi reamhar na caol, is mairg nach beathaicheadh laogh dha fhéin).
TAKING AWAY COWS AND SHEEP.
A farmer had two good cows that were seized one spring with some unaccountable malady. They ate any amount of food given them, but neither grew fat nor yielded milk. They lay on their sides and could not be made to rise. An old man in the neighbourhood advised that they should be hauled up the hill, and rolled down its steepest and longest incline. The brutes, he said, were not the farmer’s cows at all, but two old men (bodaich) the Fairies had substituted for them. The farmer acted on this advice, and at the bottom of the descent, down which the cows were sent rolling, nothing was found, neither cow nor man, either dead or alive.