Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 22, 1911.djvu/366



[The following tale is told in almost the exact words of my old nurse, Agnes M'Intosh, now aged 75. She knew Christina, or Kirstie, Murray, when the latter was an old, old woman, and my nurse only a young girl. Christina Murray's husband taught my nurse's father the tailoring trade. Glen Garr is four miles from my home.]

Christina Murray, or " Kirstie " they called her, was always fair rampageous for a man, and used to try Hallowe'en spells, and all they things. She was a farm servant at Niverton (near Bankfoot, Perthshire).

Christina Murray met her sweetheart in Glen Garr, close to Niverton, and He gave Himself out as a merchant from Perth. They had several meetings, and Kirstie agreed to elope with Him. She boasted of her fine sweetheart to the neighbours, who, remembering her old Hallowe'en tricks, asked her what kind of feet He had, and Kirstie, when she got the chance to look, saw it was cloven feet He had. This put her in a awful state of mind, and the day she was to elope with Him she was in such a state the farm people questioned her, and, when they heard what was wrong, sent off for the minister of Auchtergaven, their parish minister. He could make nothing of her, so he sent for Dr. Irving of Little Dunkeld parish, about 6 miles off. He came down, and he could make nothing of her. While he talked, a knock came at the window, and there was her sweetheart come for her. He and Dr. Irving quarrelled about it, and Dr. Irving made a circle on the floor with chalk and put her in the centre of