There was a time in the olden days when the cormorant and the bat took counsel together to do something for the poor, as they had compassion on them, and they went into the glens gathering wool to make clothing for them. When they had a quantity gathered they took a boat and put out to sea. It happened as they were sailing that a storm came on, and the waves were breaking over the vessel, insomuch that the poor bat had to leap from place to place to escape the water, and in the darkness he was cast out of the boat clinging to an oar. At daybreak he was near the shore and flew unto dry land. A seagull, standing near by, inquired:
‘Och, lil bat vogh, what’s there doin on thee that thou are all of a thriddle of thrimblin like this?’ When he heard the bat’s story, he said:
‘As sure as can be, if he will happen on thee, he will take thy life.’ They had given each other a promise that one would not leave the other until they had completed their task.
The bat was so frightened that he hid himself in an old ruin until the darkness came on; and from that time until now he will only venture out under covering of the night.
The cormorant held on to the boat until she filled with water and sank to the bottom of the sea. At last he flew to a rock, and there sat for hours together, day after day, looking out for the bat. At other times he would go for a season into the glens; and in this way they continue from that storm to the present time—the one hides himself, and the other seeks him.
CAILLAGH-NY-FAASHAGH, OR THE PROPHET WIZARD
In the old days when there were wizards and witches in the Isle of Mann, the greatest Wizard of all was Caillagh-ny-Faashagh. He did not live above ground, but in a quarry, in a hole under the rock on the lonely mountain side, and that is why the people called him the Prophet Wizard of the Wilderness. At dark he would roam over the mountains, and people walking there, when night was drawing on, would hear him crying ‘Hoa, hoa, hoa!’ like the bellow of a goat, in a voice so terrible and strong that the earth, and all who heard it, trembled with fear. He could change himself into any shape he liked; sometimes he would be a goat with big, fiery eyes; at other times a tall, tall man. Once, when he was a goat, he followed a man that was walking along the mountain road, and that time he had eyes in him as big as two dishes. The man was carrying a lantern, and as he shifted it from one hand to the other the goat followed it from side to side. The man was terrified and began to run. As soon as he left the mountain road the beast roared after him: ‘Hoa, hoa, hoa!’
Another time, in the shape of a tall, tall man, as tall as two men, he followed a woman who struck across the mountain at Garey mooar, and he had great, big, burning eyes, as big as two plates, in his head. The woman ran with all her might, for life or death, and he ran roaring after her: ‘Hoa, hoa, hoa!’ But when she turned down from the mountain he came no further.
He was a great soothsayer, but he would not foretell what was to happen unless some person asked him. It seems that he must have lived for hundreds of years, for he foretold a battle that was fought in 1098. This was the Battle of Santwat, ‘Sand Ford,’ between the north and south Manx. He said: