Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 16, 1905.djvu/83

 Collectanea. 6i

The Devil in Glencoe, and other Stories.

{Ante, p. I.)

{Communicated through Mr. J. Charrington of The Grange, Shenky, Herts.)

"Dear ,

"Why do you want the story of Mr. M'Innes seeing the Devil? Luckily I wrote it down just after his wife told it me, and here it is.

" ' Weel, one night Himself and two or three of the neighbours were coming down from the Glen, and when they got to the Bridge of Coe all at once there came up over the side of the bridge a great black kin' a' beast, with eyes like yon red peats, and twice as big as a man, and there he stood in the middle o' the bridge, and they were all too scared to walk on past him. But Himself knew it was the Teffle, so he went up to him and said " I baptize ye in the name of Christ," and the Tefifle gave a great cry which woke up all the people in the houses, and then he chumped over the other side of the bridge and down into the water, and there were a lot of ducks sleeping down there, and he must have chumped in all among them and given them a fright too, for they flew about and screamed and were chust terrified, and Himself and his friends came home to their beds, and Himself did not rise from his bed for days and days after that.'

"Then I asked her how Mr. M'Innes knew it was the devil, and she looked at me with as much scorn as she was capable of putting into her gentle old face, and said, ' As if any person could meet the Teffle and not know him ! ' So I asked no more questions after that.

" I could tell you plenty of superstitions, such as curing a sick cow by tying her left ear to her left horn and her tail to her left leg with something red and leaving her like that for seven days, but the only other stories I know about the supernatural which are tangible enough to write down are chiefly about second sight. Here are two which are quite authentic.