Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 10, 1899.djvu/299

 THE POWERS OF EVIL IN THE OUTER HEBRIDES.

BY MISS A. GOODRICH-FREER.

In presenting the following traditions I make no claim to offer anything which is new in folklore, but I unhesitatingly do claim that these, and a very large number of others as yet unpublished, are collected for the first time so far as the islands in question are concerned. Even the researches of Campbell of Islay did not penetrate so far as the smaller islands of the Outer Hebrides, and assuredly they are as remote from less adventurous inquirers as the snows of Alaska or the monasteries of Thibet. Every year boat- loads of tourists visit the shores of remote S. Kilda, and the inhabitants reap their harvest in a fashion worthy of Italy or Switzerland, but I could count on the fingers of one hand the number of strangers who have visited Eriskay in the last five years, and other islands familiar to me are even less frequented.

Moreover, these stories are all recent, and in nearly every case the name of the informant and the approximate date of any incident has been recorded. The language used is, as far as possible, that, or a translation of that, of the in- formants, and variants have always been carefully noted.

Such gatherings are not easily made. The Celt must know and trust well those whom he admits into his inner life, and though in our wanderings in the islands we have long since learnt to feel at home and among friends, I could never myself have accomplished such a collection, and have to acknowledge most cordially and fully the help of the Rev. Allan Macdonald, Priest of Eriskay, to whose patience, erudition, and perhaps even more his friendship with the people, these records are mainly due.^

' The reader may be referred to " Christian Legends in the Hebrides," in the Contemporary Review for September, 1898 ; to " The Norsemen in the Hebrides," Saga Book, of the Viking Club, 1898; and to "Unwritten Memories of The '45 in Eriskay," in a forthcoming number oi Blackwood's Magazine.

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