THE WATER-BULL (Tarbh Uirge).
This animal, unlike the Water-horse, was of harmless character, and did no mischief to those who came near its haunts. It staid in little lonely moorland lochs, whence it issued only at night. It was then heard lowing near the loch, and came among the farmers’ cattle, but was seldom seen. Calves having short ears, as if the upper part had been cut off with a knife, or, as it is termed in Gaelic, Carc-chluasach (i.e. knife-eared), were said to be its offspring. It had no ears itself and hence its calves had only half ears.[62]
In the district of Lorn, a dairy-maid and herd, before leaving in the evening the fold, in which the cows had been gathered to be milked and left for the night, saw a small ugly very black animal, bull-shaped, soft and slippery, coming among the herd. It had an unnatural bellow, something like the crowing of a cock. The man and woman fled in terror, but, on coming back in the morning, found the cattle lying in the fold as though nothing had occurred.
THE KING OTTER.
The Water Dog (Dobhar-Chù), called also the King Otter (Righ nan Dòbhran), is a formidable animal, seldom seen, having a skin of magic power, worth as many guineas as are required to cover it. It goes at the head of every band of seven, some say nine, otters, and is never killed without the death of a man, woman, or dog. It has a white spot below the chin, on which alone it is vulnerable. A piece of its skin keeps misfortune away from the house in which it is kept, renders the soldier invulnerable in battle by arrow or sword or bullet, and placed in the banner makes the enemy turn and fly. “An inch of it placed on the soldier’s eye,” as a Lochaber informant said, “kept him from harm or hurt or wound though bullets flew about him like hailstones, and naked swords clashed at his breast. When a direct aim was taken, the gun refused fire.”
Others say the vulnerable white spot was under the King Otter’s arm, and of no larger size than a sixpence. When the hunter took aim he required to hit this precise spot, or he fell a prey to the animal’s dreadful jaws. In Raasa and the opposite mainland the magic power was said to be in a jewel in its head, which made its possessor invulnerable and secured him good fortune; but in other respects the belief regarding the King Otter is the same as elsewhere.
The word dobhar (pronounced dooar, dour), signifying water, is obsolete in Gaelic except in the name of this animal.
BIASD NA SROGAIG.
This mythical animal, ‘the beast of the lowering horn,’ seems to have been peculiar to Skye. It had but one horn on its forehead, and, like the Water-bull, staid in lochs. It was a large animal with long legs, of a clumsy and inelegant make, not heavy and thick, but tall and awkward. Its principal use seems to have been to keep children quiet, and it is little to be wondered at if, in the majority of cases, the terrors of childhood became a creed in maturer years. Scrogag, from which it derives its name, is a ludicrous name given to a snuff horn and refers to the solitary horn on its forehead.