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

276 WEST HIGHLAND TALES.
It is drinking we were on that day.
" Tol ort a ruid ghrannda gur beag feola tha air
do chramhan."
"Tol ort !" said tlie hoodie.
A hole in thee, ugly thing ! how little flesh is on
thy bones.
Why the frog is called Gilchrist MacDugald, unless the story
was made to fit some real event, I do not know. The story used
to be told by an old Islay man, Donald Macintyre, to Hector Mac-
Lean ; and I remember to have heard part of it in my childhood.
The Hoodie has appeared in many places already, and he and
his family, the Crows, have been soothsayers time out of mind,
and in many lands. A more mischievous, knowing bird does not
exist, or one that better deserves his character for wisdom.
The old fable of the bird which dropped a tortoise on a stone,
is enacted every day by Hoodies. Any one who will take the
trouble to watch, may see hoodies on the shores of the Western
Isles, at low tide, flying up into the air and dropping down
again.
It will be found that they are trying to drop large stranded
muscles and other shells, on the stones on the beach ; and if left
to their own devices, they will go on till they succeed in cracking
the shell, and extracting the inhabitant.
Keepers who trap them most successfully, do it by beating
tlicm at their own weapons. They put a bait into a pool of water,
and make a show of hiding it, and set the trap on a knoll at some
liistance. The Hoodie makes a gradual approach, reconnoitering
the ground as he advances, and settling on the knolls which
command a view, perhaps repeating his song of silly, silly, till he
settles on the trap, and next morning his head is on the kennel
door with the mortal remains of other offenders.
I suspect that the Hoodie was made a soothsayer because of
his natural wisdom.
1 4. The Grouse Cock and his wife are always disput-
ing and may be heard on any fine evening or early
morning quarrelling and scolding about the stock of food.