DEER KILLED AT NIGHT.
Big Hugh, of Ardchyle (Eòghan mòr àird-a-chaoil), in the east of the island of Mull, a noted deer-hunter in his day, killed a deer at Torness (Torr-an-Eas, the eminence by the ravine), some seven miles away in Glenmore, and conveyed it home at night. He was accompanied by a man of the name of Sinclair. Sinclair asked him if the deer was heavy, and Big Hugh said he felt as if he had a house on his back. Sinclair then stuck his pen-knife in the deer, and asked again if the burden felt heavy. Big Hugh said it was now so light he could hardly believe he had a burden on his back at all. The weight had been laid on by the Fairies.
FAIRIES AND GOATS.
In Breadalbane and the Highlands of Perthshire it is said the Fairies live on goat’s milk. A goat was taken home by a man in Strathfillan, in Perthshire, to be killed. In the evening a stranger, dressed in green, came to the door. He was asked to enter and rest himself. He said he could not, as he was in a hurry, and on his way to Dunbuck (a celebrated Fairy haunt near Dunbarton), an urgent message having come for him. He said that many a day that goat had kept him in milk. He then disappeared. He could be nothing but a Fairy.
FAIRIES AND COWS.
A strong-minded headstrong woman in Kianish, Tiree, had a cow, the milk of which strangely failed. Suspecting that the cow was being milked by someone during the night, she sat up and watched. She saw a woman dressed in green coming noiselessly and milking the cow. She came behind and caught her. In explanation the Fairy woman said she had a child lying in the smallpox, and as a favour asked to be allowed to milk the cow for one month, till the child got better. This was allowed, and when the month was out, the cow’s milk became as plentiful as ever.
That the Fairies took away cows at night in order to milk them, and sent them back in the morning, was a belief in Craignish, Morvern, Tiree, Lochaber, and probably in the whole Highlands. When milk lost its virtue, and yielded neither cream, nor butter, nor cheese, the work was that of witches and such like diabolical agencies. When the mischief was done by the Fairies the whole milk disappeared.
FAIRY COWS.
A strong man named Dugald Campbell was one night, about the end of last century, watching the cattle on the farm of Baile-phuill, in the west of Tiree. A little red cow came among the herd and was attacked by the other cows. It fled and they followed. Dugald also set off in pursuit. Sometimes the little red cow seemed near, sometimes far away. At last it entered the face of a rock, and one of the other cows followed and was never again seen. The whole herd would have followed had not Dugald intercepted them.
A poor person’s cow, in Skye, was by some act of oppression taken from him. That night the Fairies brought him another cow, remarkable only in having green water weeds upon it. This cow throve.