And blast the rash beholder’s gaze.”
Lady of the Lake, c. iii. s. 26.
[477] Graham’s Sketches.
[478] The belief in Fairies is a popular superstition among the Shetlanders. The margin of a small lake called the Sandy Loch, about two miles from Lerwick, is celebrated for having been their favourite resort. It is said that they often walk in procession along the sides of the loch in different costumes. Some of the natives used frequently, when passing by a knoll, to stop and listen to the music of the fairies, and when the music ceased, they would hear the rattling of the pewter plates which were to be used at supper. The fairies sometimes visit the Shetland barns, from which they are usually ejected by means of a flail, which the proprietor wields with great agility, thumping and thrashing in every direction.
[479] Robertus Kirk, A. M., Linguæ Hibernii(c)æ lumen, Obiit, &c.
[480] The Fairies of Shetland appear to be bolder than the Shi’ichs of the Highlands, for they are believed to carry off young children even after baptism, taking care, however, to substitute a cabbage stock, or something else in lieu, which is made to assume the appearance of the abstracted child. The unhappy mother must take as much care of this phantom as she did of her child, and on no account destroy it, otherwise, it is believed, the fairies will not restore her child to her. “This is not my bairn,” said a mother to a neighbour who was condoling with her on the wasted appearance of her infant, then sitting on her knee,—“this is not my bairn—may the d—l rest where my bairn now is!”
[481] Graham’s Sketches.
[482] MS. No. IV. noticed in the Appendix to the Report on the Poems of Ossian, p. 310.
[483] Western Islands, 2d ed. p. 86.
[484] Martin, 2d ed. p. 112.