Blair Collection > Popular tales of the West Highlands > Volume 4

WEST HIGHLAND .STORIES. 335
terror to herself, and worked away till the man fell
asleep, as he was with his head on her knee. Then
she untied her apron strings, and slid the apron quietly
on to the ground with its burden upon it, and then she
took her feet home as fast as it was in her heart.
(This incident I have heard told in the Isle of Man and
elsewhere, of a girl and a supernatural.) Now when she
was getting near the houses she gave a glance behind
her, and there she saw her " caraid " (friend) coming
after her in the likeness of a horse.
He had nearly reached her, when the old woman
who saw what was going on called out to open the door
of the Avild bull's house, and in a moment out sprang
the bull.
He gave an eye all round about him, and then
rushed off to meet the horse, and when they met they
fought, and they never stopped fighting till they drove
each other out into the sea, and no one could tell which
of them was best. Xext day the body of the bull was
found on the shore all torn and spoilt, but the horse
was never more seen at aU.
The narrator prefaced this story by remarldug that
it was " perfectly'" true," for he had it from a lobster
fisher, Avho heard it from an old man who witnessed
the whole scene. It was suggested to him that the
"old woman" was a witch, but he would have his story
told in his own waj', and said " "Well, I suppose she
Avas a witch, but I did not hear it."
!Mr. Pattieson, who wrote down this version, regrets
that he did not get a fuUer description of the
animals. I have a fuller description of them, and of