And though you will work the distaff,
I know you are a man.”
Graham (Highlands of Perthshire, p. 19, quoted by Sir Walter Scott in his Notes to The Lady of the Lake) says the Urisk “could be gained over by kind attentions to perform the drudgery of the farm, and it was believed that many families in the Highlands had one of the order attached to it.” He adds that the famous Coire nan ùruisgean derives its name from the solemn stated meetings of all the Urisks in Scotland being held there.
The Urisk, like the Brownie of England, had great simplicity of character, and many tricks were played upon it in consequence. A farmer in Strathglass got it to undergo a painful operation that it might become fat and sleek like the farmer’s own geldings. The weather at the time being frosty, it made a considerable outcry for some time after.
From its haunting lonely places, other appearances must often have been confounded with it. In Strathfillan (commonly called simply the Straths, Strathaibh), in the Highlands of Perthshire, not many years ago a number of boys saw what was popularly said to be an Urisk. In the hill, when the sun was setting, something like a human being was seen sitting on the top of a large boulder-stone, and growing bigger and bigger till they fled. There is no difficulty in connecting the appearance with the circumstance that some sheep disappeared that year unaccountably from the hill, and a quantity of grain from the barn of the farm.
In the Hebrides there is very little mention of the Urisk at all. In Tiree the only trace of it is in the name of a hollow, Slochd an Aoirisg, through which the public road passes near the south shore. The belief that it assisted the farmer was not common anywhere, and all over the Highlands the word ordinarily conveys no other idea than that which has been well-defined as “a being supposed to haunt lonely and sequestered places, as mountain rivers and waterfalls.”
THE BLUE MEN (Na Fir Ghorm).
The fallen angels were driven out of Paradise in three divisions, one became the Fairies on the land, one the Blue Men in the sea, and one the Nimble Men (Fir Chlis), i.e. the Northern Streamers, or Merry Dancers, in the sky.
This explanation belongs to the North Hebrides, and was heard by the writer in Skye. In Argyllshire the Blue Men are unknown, and there is no mention of the Merry Dancers being congeners of the Fairies. The person from whom the information was got was very positive he had himself seen one of the Blue Men. A blue-coloured man, with a long grey face (aodunn fada glas), and floating from the waist out of the water, followed the boat in which he was for a long time, and was occasionally so near that the observer might have put his hand upon him.
The channel between Lewis and the Shant Isles (Na h-Eileinean siant, the charmed islands) is called ‘the Stream of the Blue Men’ (Sruth nam Fear Gorm). A ship, passing through it, came upon a blue-coloured man sleeping on the waters. He was taken on board, and being thought of mortal race, strong twine was coiled round and round him from his feet to his shoulders, till it seemed impossible for him to struggle, or move foot or arm. The ship had not gone far when two men were observed coming after it on the waters. One of them was heard to say, “Duncan will be one man,” to which the other replied, “Farquhar will be two.” On hearing this, the man, who had been so securely tied, sprang to his feet, broke his bonds like spider threads, jumped overboard, and made off with the two friends, who had been coming to his rescue.