Ossian Collection > Peat-fire flame

THE PEAT-FIRE FLAME
associated with a shepherd and his wife, who dwelt in a
lonely bothy among the Mountains of Mull.
One night the wife's labours began unexpectedly; and she
urged her husband to hasten for assistance to the nearest
human habitation — but not before she had directed him to
place by the bed-side a table, to put on the table such food
as the bothy contained, to place the reaping-hook on the
window-sill, and the smoothing iron in front of the bed.
The child was delivered ere the shepherd returned with
help. Immediately after its birth, the mother overheard
one invisible being whisper instructions to another to abduct
the infant.
" How can I," responded the other, " when there's iron
by the bed, and iron by the window, and on the table butter
that was made from the milk of a cow that ate the pearly
mo than? "
When eventually the shepherd returned to find that the
child had been born in his absence, and listened to his wife's
account of the whisperings she had overheard, he was indeed
glad that she had been so prudent for the child's safety.
•)(. ^ Sf. -ij: ii(.
Authorities are uncertain (as indeed all accepted
authorities always are!) as to what plant the Gaelic name,
mothan, was applied to. The sandwort or the bog-violet
are suggested by Alexander Carmichael in Carmina
Gadelica. Anyway, the person carrying this plant, or
having drunk the milk of a cow that had eaten it, was
regarded as immune from harm. That the mothan was
used even in Strathspey and in Glen Urquhart is shown by
the following quotation from Stewart's Highland Super-
stitions and Atnusements :
" Go to the summit of some stupendous cliff or mountain
where any species of quadruped never fed nor trod, and
gather of that herb in the Gaelic language called mothan,
which can be pointed out by any ' wise ' person. The herb
you will give to a cow, and of the milk of that cow you are
to make a cheese, and whoever eats of that cheese is for ever
after, as well as his gear, perfectly secure from every species
of fairy agency."
272