A few years ago a boat was lost coming from Raasa to Skye. The witches, who caused the calamity, were seen at work in the Braes of Portree, beside a stream. Three of them were engaged in the evil task, and a man was present along with them. Jobs of the kind require the presence of a man. A cockle-shell (slige coilleig) was placed floating in a pool, and a number of black stones were ranged round the edge of the pool. When the incantation was at its height, the black stones barked like dogs, and the cockle-shell disappeared.
A farmer in Mull and his little daughter were walking along an eminence that overlooked the Sound, through which a number of ships were passing at the time. The little girl asked, “What will you give me, father, if I sink all these ships?” Thinking she was in fun, he asked her how she would do it. She stooped down, and looked backwards between her legs at one of the vessels. The ship whirled round and sank. In this expeditious manner all the ships in sight were sunk, but one. The man asked why this one did not sink. The girl said it was because there was rowan-tree wood on board, and she could not touch it. He then asked who had taught her all this? She said it was her mother. The man, who was a good man, and before ignorant of his wife’s dabbling in witchcraft, gathered his neighbours and burned herself and daughter.
A witch was engaged to destroy a boat coming to Tiree. Another witch, however, wished its safety. The former came in shape of a gull, that hovered about the boat, and kept it back (a head wind?). The other came as a cormorant (sgarbh), followed in the wake of the boat (an uisge na stiùirceach, lit. the waters of the rudder), and saved it. (Favourable tide?)
A former Lord Macdonald (Mà-Cònuill) was on his way by boat to Uist, and experienced very unfavourable weather. When near his destination, a towering wave, or, as it is called in Gaelic, ‘a drowning sea’ (muir bhàite), nearly overwhelmed the boat, and two birds, a skua (croma-ritheachar) and an ordinary gull, were observed fighting in the air. The one was Yellow Claws, daughter of Donald, son of Cormac (spòga Buidhe ni’ a Dò’uill ’ic Cormaig), the other Hump-backed Blue-eye from Cràcaig (Gorm-shùil chrotach a Cràcaig), both celebrated witches. The former was for sinking the boat, the latter for saving it. Sometime after Blue-eye met Lord Macdonald in Edinburgh, and reminded him of the incident, and her own services on the occasion. He just remarked, “There was indeed such a circumstance.”
A ship, sailing from Greenock, was to be destroyed by the Captain’s wife and two other witches. An apprentice overheard them planning this, and saying that they would come upon the ship on a certain day as three rolling waves, and the ship would be sunk, unless the waves were cut with a sword. At the time said the apprentice was allowed the command of the vessel, and standing in the bow with a drawn sword, cleft the waves, and defeated the witches.
A boat from Hianish, Tiree, went out fishing on the day before the New Year. The morning was calm, but when the boat was returning the wind rose and the sea became very heavy. The best steersman in the boat took the helm. Another, sitting on the hindmost thwart (tota shílidh), after looking for a while towards the stern, asked the helm from him, and being again and again refused, at last took it by force. When he got the rudder below his arm, he said, “Now, come on!” and the boat reached shore in safety. He then explained that he had been seeing a gull, unseen by the first steersman, following the boat, and had recognised her as a woman of the neighbourhood. This woman had an illegitimate child by the first steersman, and it was thought her object in raising the storm and following so close in the wake of the boat, was to snatch her seducer with her and drown him.
Ian Garve (stout John), laird of Raasa (Iain Garbh Mac-ille-Challum Ratharsa), a man celebrated in Highland song and legend for his great personal strength, was drowned by a witch who had this mysterious power of raising storms. The event occurred on Easter Monday (Di-luain Càisge), in the great ‘storm of the Borrowing Days,’ of which a contemporary historian says “the like of this tempest was not seen in our time, nor the like of it heard in this country in any age preceding,” A.D. 1625; yet the traditions of the event are still fresh in popular memory. The witch was Ian Garve’s own foster-mother (muime), and resided on the islet of Trodda (Trodaidh), on the east of Skye. She overheard a friend of hers say he wished Ian Garve, who was known to have gone to the Lewis, was drowned, and took up seriously words spoken only in jest. Others say she was bribed by an enemy to effect the hero’s destruction. He left Loch Sealg in Lewis to proceed home on a calm day. The witch was dairymaid (banachag) in Trodda, and, seeing the boat coming, put milk in a large dish, and a small empty dish floating in it. A boy was placed standing in the doorway, where he could see both the milk-pan and Ian Garve’s boat. She herself stood with her foot in the ‘swey’ or chimney crook, and began her unholy incantations. Soon the dish in the milk-pail began to be violently agitated. The boy reported it first as going round sunwise (deiseal), then as going round against the sun and striking the sides of the basin, and finally as being capsized and floating bottom upwards (air a bial foidhpe). The storm had been all this time increasing, till at last it blew a perfect hurricane. That night the heap of shingle on East-side (Du-sear), called Moll-stabhan, was washed ashore. Ian Garve’s boat disappeared simultaneously with the capsizing of the bowl, and all on board perished. Three ravens hovered about the boat as the storm was rising, and it became afterwards known that these three were Yellow Claws (Spòga Buidhe) from Màiligeir on East-side, Hump-backed Blue-eye (Gorm-shùil chrotach) from Cràcaig near Portree, and Doideag from Mull. When the boat was between Bare Skerries (Sgeire maola) and Trodda twenty birds flew about, and some of them assumed the shape of frogs (muileacha màg) on the deck. All the witches in Scotland were there, but were unable to sink the boat till Ian Garve said to the frogs, “What the brindled one has brought you here?”[8] After that he became distracted from the number of birds and frogs coming upon him. A raven lighted on the gunwale of the boat, and Ian Garve, striking at it with his sword, cleft the boat to the water’s edge. The first news of the drowning was heard on Minigeig Hill (Monadh mhinigeig) in Badenoch, and the particulars became known by the telling of other witches. Another account says the hero appeared that night to his wife in her dreams, and said:
“On Monday the wind arose,