Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 8, 1897.djvu/274

 250 Ghost Lights of the West Highlands.

in inflammation of the lungs, and I saw the last of her going away through the plantation in the white-mounted little coffin, just in the direction I saw in the year previously the dreag disappearing after it left my house. My dear child was five years of age, and I was struck by the similarity of length between the shell and the apparition of the dreag!'

The following dreag was seen by Mr. A. MacL., mason, in the Sound of Mull, about fifteen years ago while crossing the channel with a boat-load of fine sand. Another man was in the boat with him :

" In the gloaming we saw a light shining on the sand in the boat. Looking upwards there was a whitish checkered shimmer about the length of a fishing rod, and as thick as the upper part of a big man's thigh, about twice the height of the mast above us, and with its white and green ribbons, swinging ropes, and pendants about it. It was moving gently and quietly at the same height as we saw it at first, and the great white lump before it and that white shining thigh directly below it in the sea. It is a thing that put a great withering of fear on us, be it what it chose."

The following is the Gaelic of the reciter :

" Chunnaic sinn a'm beul n' n'anamaich (gloaming) soilse (light) tighinn air a'gheannaich sa bhata. Air sealtuinn suas dhuinn bha'n driomleach gheal bhreac ud ann a sud (there) mu fhad slat iasgich agus cho garbh ri cas duine mhoir sios o' bh'mhas (buttocks) mu dha ard 'a crann a bhata os a'r cionn, 'us le a chuid ribinnean 'us a chuid ghrealagan, 's chluigaiman, geal 'us uaine mu'n cuairt dha. Bha e suibhail, 'us a falbh gu ciuin le shocair aig, n' cheart airda 's 'a facaidh sinn an toiseach e, agus a mhaol mhor gheal ud air thoiseach dhe, agus a lias geal soillear ud dirach fodha 'san fh'airgaidh. 'Se rud e chuir crion- neachadh mor eagaill oirne, biodh e na roighinn."

The following was also seen in Mull by another Mrs. MacD., who stayed not far from a churchyard. This was