Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 8, 1897.djvu/247

Rh description, and the woman heard a great noise as of the emptying of stones out of a cart. After a good while one of the dogs returned without any hair on its legs, but the other was never again heard tell of. The bad man was not an immoral man or a sheep-stealer; he was a warlock no doubt, and two other depilatory anecdotes distinctly connect this result with witchcraft.

This, recited by a native of Tiree, "relates the case of a lad who told her on one occasion how he was annoyed by a certain woman, who was wishful that he should marry her daughter, and tried every way she could to bring him and the girl together. He knew the woman to be a witch, and did not wish to have anything to do with her or her daughter. Having been away somewhere some day, he was making his way home after nightfall accompanied by his dog, when what appeared to be an eagle came down with a swoop and hovered above his head. The dog made a jump at the eagle, but missed it. For a time the bird (?) went whirling and flapping about the lad's head, but the dog kept it off and at last got hold of it, and would have torn it to pieces if it had not got away. The lad got home safely, but the dog lost all its hair in the fight. It was known that the girl's mother was out that night, and the lad was quite certain that it was she who attacked him in the shape of the eagle."

Another very similar tale to that from Tiree was got in Islay:

"A man, riding at night through a known haunted place, was accosted by a woman who suddenly appeared beside him, asking him to let her ride behind him. His dog, which had accompanied him, had disappeared; and he put her off, urging as a final excuse that she should wait till he had whistled three times for his dog. He whistled, but his dog did not answer, although the rider thought he heard a noise as if it were making an effort to get loose, being chained. Having delayed as long as he could with his other calls,