The following tales will illustrate the character of the superstition better than a lengthened dissertation:
FARMERS AND WATER-HORSES.
Stories to the following effect are common in Mull and the neighbourhood:
A strange horse, which cannot be driven away, is seen all winter among the rest of the farm horses. In olden times horses were little housed during winter; the stable door was left open, and the horses, after eating the little straw allowed them, went out to pick up what they could. When spring work comes on the strange horse is caught like the rest and made to work. Perhaps for greater security the cow-shackle is put round its neck. It proves as docile and easily managed as any horse could be. It is the best horse the farmer has, and is fat and sleek when the rest are lean and ragged. It works thus all spring, and in summer is employed to take home peats from the moor. It is placed foremost in a string of three or seven horses, which have creels on their backs, in ancient fashion, and are tied each to the tail of the horse before it. The farmer rides the foremost of the team. On the way it becomes restive and unmanageable, and sets off at full speed, followed by the rest, towards the loch. Observing that the shackle has slipped off, the man, in passing through a narrow gateway, plants a foot against each pillar and throws himself off its back, or he tumbles on the sands of the shore, and jumping up, cuts the halter of the hindmost horse. Those that remain tied are dragged into the loch, and next day their entrails or livers come ashore.
The most celebrated tale of this class was that of the son of the tenant of Aros, in Mull.
MAC-FIR AROIS.
The heir of Aros, a young man of great personal activity, and, it is said, of dissolute manners, having an opinion of himself that there was no horse he could not ride, was taken by a Water-horse into Loch Frisa, a small lake about a mile in length in the north-west of Mull and devoured. This occurred between his espousal and marriage, and the Lament composed by his intended bride is still and deservedly a popular song in Mull. There seems to be this much truth in the story, that the young man was dragged into Loch Frisa by a mare which he was attempting to subdue and drowned. It would appear from the song that his body was recovered. The popular details of the incident vary considerably, and are of interest as illustrative of the growth of tales of superstition.
One account has it that a remarkably handsome grey mare came among horses belonging to the tenant of Aros pasturing on the rushes at the end of Loch Frisa. One day his son haltered and mounted it. The grey stood quite quietly till it got the young man on its back. It then rushed into the loch.
Another account says the young man found a mare in the hills, which he took to be one of those belonging to his father. He caught it with the intention of riding home, but the mare took out to Loch Frisa, and he was there devoured by Water-horses.
A third account says the Water-horse was kept all winter, with the cow-shackle about its neck, and remained so quiet and steady, that at last the shackle was neglected. The son of the tenant rode it one day to the peat-moss, three other horses following behind in usual form, when it suddenly rushed away to the lake, and nothing was ever seen of the youth or the horses but the livers.