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

INTRODUCTION. IxXXVÌÌ
the locli, and tears the horses to bits ; he is killed, and
nothing remains but a pool of water ; he falls in love
with a lady, and when he appears as a man and lays
his head on her knee to be dressed, the frightened lady
finds him out by the sand amongst his hair. " Tha
Gainmheacli anu." There is sand in it, she says, and
when he sleeps she makes her escape. He appears as
an old woman, and is put to bed with a bevy of dam-
sels in a mountain shealing, and he sucks the blood of
all, save one, who escapes over a burn, which, water
horse as he is, he dare not cross. In short, these tales
and behefs have led me to think that the old Celts
must have had a destroying water-god, to Avhom the
horse was sacred, or who had the form of a horse.
Unless there is some such foundation for the stories,
it is strange to find the romances of boatmen and
fishermen inhabiting small islands, filled with incidents
which seem rather to belong to a wandering, horse-
riding tribe. But the tales of Norwegian sailors are
similar in this respect ; and the Celtic character has
in fact much which savours of a tribe who are boatmen
by compulsion, and would be horsemen if they could.
Though the Western islanders are fearless boatmen,
and brave a terrible sea in very frail boats, very few of
them are in the royal navy, and there are not many
who are professed sailors. On the other hand, they
are bold huntsmen in the far north of America. I do
not think that they are successful farmers anywhere,
though they cling fondly to a spot of land, but they are
famous herdsmen at home and abroad. On the misty
hills of old Scotland or the dry j^lains of Australia, they
still retain the qualities wMch made a race of hunters,
and warriors, and herdsmen, such as are represented
in the poems of Ossian, and described in history, and
even within the small bounds ■s\'hich now contain the