Blair Collection > Popular tales of the West Highlands > Volume 1

XVni INTRODUCTION.
I see it often, hissing and sputtering, and lighting up
the bivouac with its red glare. Its ashes may he there
still, hut that tree is a tree no longer ; its origin and
wanderings cannot now he traced ; it has shared the
fate of many a popular tale. It was found and used
up.
Such a log I lately saw in South Uist. JSTo tool
mark was on it; it had lost its OAvn foliage, hut it was
covered with a brown and white marine foliage of sea-
weed and dead barnacles, and it was drilled in all
directions by these curious sea-shells, which are sup-
posed by the people to be embryo geese. It was
sound, though battered, and a worthy Celtic smith was
about to add it to the roof of a cottage, which he was
making of boulders and turf. It was about to share
the fate of many popular tales, and become a part of
something else. It may be recognized as an American
production hereafter, and its history is deeply marked
on it, though it forms part of a house by this time.
So a genuine popular tale may be recognized in a play
or a romance.
Another such tree I saw in Benbecula, with bark
still on the roots, and close to it lay a squared log,
and near that a mast with white paint and iron bind-
ings, blocks and crosstrees, still attached to it. A
few miles off was a stranded ship, with her cargo
and fittings, a wreck about to be sold, and turned to
any use that the new owners might think fit. All
these were about to be changed, and as it is with drift-
wood in the Highlands, so, as I imagine, it has been
with popular tales everywhere. They are as old as
the races who tell them, but the original ideas, like
the trees from which logs, masts, and ships are made,
have been broken up, cut, carved, and ornamented —
lost and found — wrecked, destroyed, broken, and put