To this is sometimes added, “seven Cirein Cròin are the fill of the big devil himself.” This immense sea-animal is also called Mial mhòr a chuain, the great beast of the ocean, cuartag mhòr a chuain, the great whirlpool of the ocean, and uile-bhéisd a chuain, the monster of the ocean. It was originally a whirlpool, or the sea-snake of the Edda, that encircled the whole world.
Gigelorum.—The Giolcam-daoram, or Gigelorum, is the smallest of all animals. It makes its nest in the mite’s ear and that is all that is known about it.
Lavellan.—This animal is peculiar to the north, where it is said to be able to hurt cattle from a distance of forty yards: “Lavellan, animal in Cathanesia frequens, in aquis degit, capite mustelae sylvestri simile, ejusdemque coloris, bestia est. Halitu Bestiis nocet. Remedium autem est, si de aqua bibant in quâ ejus caput coctum est.” (Sibbald’s Scot. Ill., lib. 3, fol. 11.) Pennant, when at Ausdale, Langwell, Caithness-shire, says: “I inquired here after the Lavellan, which, from description, I suspect to be the water shrew mouse. The country people have a notion that it is noxious to cattle; they preserve the skin, and, as a cure for their sick beasts, give them the water in which it has been dipt. I believe it to be the same animal which, in Sutherland, is called the water mole.” It is also mentioned by Rob Donn, the Sutherland bard, in his satirical song on “Mac Rorie’s Breeches”: “Let him not go away from the houses, to moss or wood, lest the Lavellan come and smite him.”
Bernicle Goose, Cadhan.—In the Hebrides, as in England, the Bernicle Goose was believed to grow from the thoracic worm, attaching itself to floating wood that has been some time in the water, often so closely as to hide the surface of the log. Calum na Cròige, a native of Croig in Mull, who went about the country some thirty or forty years ago, the delight of youngsters by his extraordinary tales of personal adventures and of wonders he had seen, and the energy with which, sitting astride on a stool, he raised with their assistance the anchor, hoisted sail, and performed other nautical feats, told that in the Indian seas, he and a comrade jumped overboard to swim to land. They swam for a week before reaching shore, but the water was so warm they felt no inconvenience. The loveliest music Calum ever heard was that made by Bernicle Geese as they emerged from barnacles that grew on the soles of his feet!
Eels (Easgunn).—It is still a very common belief in the Highlands that eels grow from horse hairs. In a village of advanced opinions in Argyllshire, the following story was heard from a person who evidently believed it:
“In the island of Harris, in a time of scarcity, a person went out for fish, and succeeded only in getting eels. These animals are not eaten in the Highlands and his wife would not taste them. The man himself ate several. By and by he went mad, and his wife had to go for succour to a party of Englishmen, who had a shooting lodge near. On arriving with loaded guns, the sportsmen found the eel-eater in the fields fighting a horse. He was so violent that they had to shoot him. On inquiry it turned out that the cause of his madness and fighting the horse was that the eels he had eaten had grown from horse hairs!”
Whale.—The round-headed porpoises, or caaing whales (mucun bearraich, lit. dog-fish pigs), derive their Gaelic name from being supposed to grow from dog-fish. An overgrown dog-fish, still retaining its own shape, is called Burraghlas.
Herring.—The food of the Herring is said to consist of crustacea and small fishes, but there is ordinarily so little appearance of food in their stomach that an easier explanation has been found in saying, they live on the foam they make with their own tails! A door-keeper at Dowart Castle is said to have successfully warned a M‘Kinnon from Skye of the dangers awaiting him at the banquet to which he had been invited, by asking him if they were getting any herring in the north at present, and then praising the herring as a royal fish (iasg righ) that never was caught by its mouthful of food or drink (air a bhalgum no air a ghreim). On hearing this remark M‘Kinnon turned on his heel and made his escape.
Flounder.—According to Sutherland tradition, the wry mouth of the flounders (Leòbag, as it is called in the north) arose from its making faces at the rock-cod. A judgment (which children, who make faces, are liable to) came upon it, and its mouth remains as it then twisted it. In Tiree and Iona the distortion is said to have been caused by St. Columba. Colum-Kil met a shoal of flounders and asked:
“Is this a removal, flounder?”