The Glaistig of Fernach on Loch Awe side conveyed persons of the name of M‘Intyre across a dangerous stream in the neighbourhood. She assumed the shape of a foal.
II. THE GRUAGACH.
Gruagach, i.e. long-haired one, from gruag, a wig, is a common Gaelic name for a maiden, a young woman. In old tales and poems, particularly those relating to the times of Murchard Mac Brian, who was king of Ireland circ. A.D. 1100, the term means a chief or some person of consequence, probably a young chief. Thus, in a conversation between that king and a young woman, whose nine silk-clad brothers he had killed in battle, she says:
“I am daughter of the heir of Dublin,
I would not hide it, lord of swords,
And to the Gruagach of the Isle of Birds,
I, in truth, bore my children.”[57]
The name evidently refers to the length of the hair, which it seems to have been a custom in ancient times for men of rank and freemen to allow to grow long.
In Argyllshire, and commonly in Gaelic, the name Gruagach, applied to the tutelary being haunting farms and castles, means the same as Glaistig, and the idea attached to it is that of a long-haired female, well-dressed like a gentlewoman, looking after the servants, and particularly after the cattle. In parts of Skye, however, the fold-frequenting Gruagach is a tall young man, with long yellow hair, in the attire of a gentleman of a bygone period, having a little switch (slatag) in his hand, and with a white breast, as if he wore a frilled shirt. One of the writer’s authorities described him as in appearance like a young man fashionably dressed in a long coat and knee breeches, with a white breast like that of a frilled shirt, and having a cane in his hand. He had even heard that the Gruagach wore a beaver hat—a head-dress which in the Highlands was at one time believed to indicate a gentleman.