This tale, with unimportant variations, is known over the whole Highlands. Sometimes the young woman is sitting on the turf wall (tota) forming the end of the house when the Water-horse, in the shape of a handsome young man, comes her way; sometimes she is one of a band of women, assembled at the summer shieling—the rest are killed and she makes her escape. She detects the character of the youth by the water weeds or the sand in his hair. Many of the stories add that the young man (or Water-horse) came for her on a subsequent Sunday after dinner, or to church, to which (as in the story of the Water-horse of Loch Assapol in the Ross of Mull) she went for security rather than keep an appointment previously made with him, and took her to the loch. In Sutherlandshire the scene of the incident is laid at Loch Meudaidh in Durness, and the descendants of the woman to whom it occurred are still pointed out. She detected the young man by the sand in his hair, and on looking back, after she had got to some distance, she saw him tearing up the earth in his fury.[60]
A Water-horse in man’s shape came to a house in which there was a woman alone; at the time she was boiling water in a clay vessel (croggan), such as was in use before iron became common. The Water-horse, after looking on for some time, drew himself nearer to her, and said in a snuffling voice, “It is time to begin courting, Sarah, daughter of John, son of Finlay.” “It is time, it is time,” she replied, “when the little pitcher boils.” In a while it repeated the same words and drew itself nearer. She gave the same answer drawing out the time as best she could, till the water was boiling hot. As the snuffling youth was coming too near she threw the scalding water between his legs, and he ran out of the house roaring and yelling with pain.
THE WATER-HORSE AT LOCH BASIBOL, TIREE.
On the north side of this loch, which has been already mentioned as a haunt of the Water-horse, there was a farm, where there are now only blowing sand-banks, called the Town of the Clumsy Ones (Baile nan Cràganach) from five men, who resided there, having each six fingers on every hand. They were brothers, and it was said the Water-horse came every night, in the shape of a young man, to see a sister, who staid with them.
With the tendency of popular tales to attach themselves to known persons, this incident is related of Calum Mor Clarke and his family. Calum had three sons, Big Fair John (Iain Bàn Mòr), Young Fair John (Iain Bàn Og), and Middle Fair John (Iain Bàn Meadhonach). The four conspired to beguile the young man from the loch, who came to see the daughter, into the house, and got him to sit between two of them on the front of the bed. On a given signal these two clasped their hands round him and laid him on his back in the bed. The other two rushed to their assistance; the young man assumed his proper shape of a Water-horse and a fearful struggle ensued. The conspirators cut the horse in pieces with their dirks, and put it out of the house dead.[61]
Not far from the south end of the same loch there is a place called Fhaire na h-aon oidhch’, ‘the one night’s watch,’ said to derive its name from an incident of which the Water-horse was the hero, similar to that told of the Urisk of Glen Màili (see page 197).
THE KELPIE.
The Kelpie that swells torrents and devours women and children has no representative in Gaelic superstition. Some writers speak as if the Water-horse were to be identified with it, but the two animals are distinctly separate. The Water-horse haunts lochs, the Kelpie streams and torrents. The former is never accused of swelling torrents any more than of causing any other natural phenomenon, nor of taking away children, unless perhaps when wanted to silence a refractory child. A Shetland friend writes: “Kelpies, I cannot remember of ever hearing what shape they were of. They generally did their mischief in a quiet way, such as being seen splashing the water about the burns, and taking hold of the water-wheel of mills, and holding them still. I have heard a man declare, that his mill was stopped one night for half an hour and the full power of water on the wheel, and he was frightened himself to go out and see what was wrong. And he not only said but maintained that it was a Kelpie or something of that kind that did it.”