Ossian Collection > Peat-fire flame

THE PEAT-FIRE FLAME
her doom by the wiles of the Bkie Men, for they are deft
deceivers as well as deft riders of the storm.
The person from whom the Rev. John Gregorson
Campbell obtained his information about the Blue Men of
the Minch was insistent that he himself had seen one of
them. He described him thus : " A blue-coloured man, with
a. long, grey face, and floating from the waist out of the
water, followed the boat in which he was for a long time,
and was occasionally so near that the observer might have
put his hand upon him." ^ The Rev. John Gregorson
Campbell was minister of Tiree from 1861 until 1891, and
collected, entirely from oral sources, a vast quantity of
material dealing with the legends and superstitions of the
Highlands and Islands.
According to another authority on matters Celtic,^ the
chief of the Blue Men reared himself waist-high among
the billows, and shouted couplets to the skipper of any
passing vessel likely to fall into his mesh. But sometimes
the skipper was able to answer him back in telling couplets,
as is shown by the following free translation of a poetic
conversation that took place in the Gaelic :
Blue Chief: Man of the black cap, what do you say
As your proud ship cleaves the brine?
Skipper: My speedy ship takes the shortest way,
And I'll follow you line by line.
Blue Chief: My men are eager, my men are ready
To drag you below the waves.
Skipper: My ship is speedy, my ship is steady ;
If it sank, it would wreck your caves.
Never before had the chief of the Blue Men been
answered so aptly, so unanswerably. And so he and his
kelpie brethren retired to their caverns beneath the waves
of the Minch, unable to inveigle to its destruction the vessel
navigated by that particular skipper.
1 The Superstitions of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, by
J. G. Campbell (MacLehose, 1900).
2 Scottish Folk-lore and Folk Life, by Donald A. MacKenzie (Blackie,
1935).
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