Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 6 1888.djvu/235

Rh : whereupon he flung himself into a chair. She gave an angry cry. "This do I willingly," he said, "when the mistress bids me." She was very much provoked, and taking out a bannock, as white and as round as the moon, began to eat without taking any more notice of him. "Your piece seems a dry one, mistress," he said at last. "Ah, the fat side is towards me," gruffly answered the witch, who had indeed spread one side with butter almost an inch thick. "The side that is to you shall be to me," cried William, and, making a dash at the cake, he ran out of the hut, carrying the witch's supper with him as a trophy. The old woman began to curse, and to hope that the morsel might kill him; but William was too wise to eat anything that was fashioned by such uncanny hands. The witch it was who ate up in a fury all that her visitor did not carry off, so she died of her unhallowed meal, to the great joy of Lord Reay and of all her neighbours.

x.—.

A herd-woman of the parish of Criech had "that coming to see her which we dare not name." One Saturday morning she was observed to dress herself with great care, as if for church. Her daughter said, "Why, mother, it is not Sabbath to-day." "No," she said, "but I am going out to meet a man I am acquainted wi'." The neighbours, thinking this suspicious, followed her, but when she came to the Alt-na-Criech, a rough, rapid burn, she went out of sight, and was never seen again, nor were her clothes recovered, which her family seemed to consider as the greater misfortune of the two.—(Peggy Munroe.)

xi.—.

A boddach, or wise-man, lives in a rock called The Raven's, in one of our woods. He frightens people extremely in the evening (the rock commands a long hill on the road), but there is no proof that he has killed any one as yet.—(D. M.)