Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 10, 1899.djvu/314

 274 ^^^^ Powers of Evil in the Outer Hebrides.

with his boot. As he was going away, he stowed the fish in a nook where he could afterwards easily find them, and hurried off to the nearest dwelling, which was at Loch Boisdale, the house of Roderick, son of Dougal S. On his way over the moor, he was frequently thrown on the ground by some unseen power. On asking if it had any part with God, he got no answer. In the morning he returned for his fish and got none but the headless one.

Ronald Mac D. was farm servant with the Rev. John Chisholm, priest of Bornish. He had set a net in the spawn- ing-time across the little stream to the west of the house. At midnight he went to pull in the net; when he saw a man of gigantic stature at the other end of the net, and retired in terror to the house. He was pursued till he entered, and ever after believed that he had encountered t\\efuath.

One Alasdair Mor went by night to kill fish in spawning time, and was joined by some unknown person, who bargained with him that they should work together, and share and share alike. After landing a large quantity, the stranger urged Alasdair to divide the spoil, but he would not interrupt his work, and replied : " No, no, there's lots of fish in the stream yet." And so they went on till the moor- cook crew and the unknown vanished in a flame of fire, and Alasdair found that the fish were all phantoms.

Three men went to fish by night as usual on the stream at Hornary; they had cabers (long staves) for splashing and terrifying the fish into the nets. They also used these cabers as vaulting-poles when crossing the stream ; and in one spot, where there was a stone standing in the middle of the stream, it was their custom to vault to this stone, and afterwards, by another leap, to get across. As they were going to cross the stream, they perceived a man standing on the stone, who stretched out his hand and helped the first two comers over. As the third was expecting the same courtesy, the stranger said : " Thy hour is not yet come," and gave him no assist- ance. The other two men soon fell into a decline and used