Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 8, 1897.djvu/416

 380 Miscellanea.

My informant also states lliat the woman had heard of some connection between Christ and the cuckoo ; it was, perhaps, that he came with the cuckoo.

N. W. Thomas.

Folklore from the Hebrides. — II

/. — Sifhichean, sithean Chaipighill. (The Fairies of the Fairy Knoll of Caipighill.) Caipighill is a Norse word, the mean- ing of which I don't know. Caipighill, Shawbost, parish of Lochs, Lewis.

The fairy legend associated with the two Caipighill knolls is the following. A woman who happened to be passing between these two hillocks one hot summer day heard the sound of churning in the fairy knoll (chuala i fuaim maistreaidh anns an t-sitheain). She said {sotto voce) : " Is truagh nach robh mo phathadh air bean a' ghlugain " ("It is a pity my thirst was not on the churning woman "). (" Glug " is the noise of fluid in motion, but confined in a vessel.) No sooner had the words escaped her lips than a fairy woman (a 'bean shith) attired in green came out of the " sithean " with a drinking cup (a 'cuach) of buttermilk in her hand, and ofTered it to the woman to drink. At this sudden and unexpected answer to her wish she felt a good deal put out, and declined the fairy's hospitality, giving as her reason for so doing that she was not thirsty. "Why then did you wish for it?" said the fairy woman ("Carson mata a dh' iarr thu i," arsa' bhean shith). Observing the woman's embarrassment, she said : "Are you afraid it will injure you ? " (" Thubhairt i am bheil eagal ort gu'n dean i cron dhuit "). " Yes," she said (" Tha " ars' ise). "Themis- fortune of her who put the first comb in her head on Wednesday be mine if it will do you any harm " (" Galar na te a chuir a'cheud chir cheud-aoin'na ceann armsa ma ni i cron ort"). " What mis- fortune is that?" said she. "The misfortune of having neither son, nor daughter, nor grandchild, nor great-grandchild " (" Coid an galar a tha'n sin ? " ars ise. " Tha arsa' bhean-shith, galar a bhi gun mhac, gun nighean, gun odha, gun iar-odha ").^

' I once related the above fairy legend where a German happened to be present. " How strange !" he remarked. " I have been familiar with that legend from childhood in my native country."