Blair Collection > Popular tales of the West Highlands > Volume 2

302 WEST HIGHLAND TALES,
he has done so much for me, I will marry him rather
than any one of the great men who have come to
marry me ; for many kings have tried to free me from
the spells, and none could do it hut Iain here, the
fisher's son."
Then a great war ship was fitted up, and sent for
the old carlin who had done all the evil, and for her
black slim son ; and seven fiery furnaces were set in
order, and they were burnt, and the ashes were let fly
with the wind ; and a great wedding was made, and " I
left them in the realm."
This story was first told to me on the 2d September 1859 by
MacCraw as we walked along the road. He said that he had
learned it as a child from an old wife in North Uist, whose cot-
tage was the resort of all the children for miles and miles. He
has often gone himself six or seven miles in the snow, and he
used to sit with dozens of other bairns about her fire, mute and
motionless for the best part of the night. The children brought
offerings of tobacco, which they got from older people, as best
they could, and for each bit the old woman gave a story. He
" never heard her like."
The story lasted for several miles, and my companion said
that he bad forgotten much of it. He bad forgotten nearly all
the measured prose phrases with which, as he said, the story was
garnished, and he said that he had not heard it for many years.
It seemed to resemble the story of Aladdin in some incidents,
but my companion said that he had never heard of the Arabian
Nights. He said that in Kinross and Perthshire it is the custom
for the hinds and farm-labourers to assemble and repeat stories in
broad Scotch, which closely resemble those told in the islands,
but which are not garnished with measured prose. He thinks
that as there are many Highland servants in the country, they
tell the heads of their stories, and then others repeat them in
Lowland Scotch. This may be, and in like manner the Highland
servants may pick up and carry home, and repeat in Gaelic,
scraps of such books as the Arabian Nights. Still, as such stories
do resemble books quite beyond the reach of the people, the