Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review Volumes 32 and 33.djvu/522

212 of which the witch had killed him. The mother obeyed and found as he had said. The widowed bride re-married, and was alive till 1900.

(7) An old man on his way to Uig rested awhile on a bridge. While sitting there and all quiet around he heard speaking, and in his desire to see the speaker he looked under the bridge. Then he saw six cats which, while he looked at them, turned to women. One of these he knew. Having heard all that they had to say he resumed his journey home. After he had arrived there his wife went out to milk the cows. To her surprise there was an overflow of milk. She filled every vessel she possessed and still the milk came. Alarmed and astounded she ran to her husband. He at once told her what he had seen, but his tongue refused its office when he attempted to repeat the witches' words. He then went to the woman whom he had recognized, and at his request she took off the charm. This old man was the great-grandfather of a simple-minded, youngish man called Alexander Lamont, known as Appag, that is "little ape," well known to the writer.

(8) The great-aunt, only recently dead, of Mary Macdougall, one of my servants, had a brother a joiner working at Broadford. This energetic lady walked from Skirinish every week to Broadford, a distance of about thirty miles, with her brother's clean linen. One night she got belated and her brother made her stay the night in Broadford. She accordingly sat all night by the kitchen fire, but was unable to sleep. Suddenly she was aware of the presence of seven women, obvious witches, for they changed to cats, ran up the chimney and came down again. They then proceeded to brew something over the fire, something described as tea, but tea was not a common luxury in those days, so it may have been some witches' brew of their own. This they drank, accompanied with a dram. One of them noticing that the strange woman's sleep seemed suspiciously unreal, went over to her and threatened to stab her to death with pins. But the mistress of the house, who was one of them, declared that the sleep was real, and soon they all went away, the mistress going to bed. It is needless to say that the visitor never returned to that house.