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

FEARACHUR LEIGH. 3 7 1
I have no doubt tliat these men all believed what they said to
be true. It is hard to believe that they were all mistaken. Few
of them can have heard of Pontoppidan, Bishop of Bergen ; but
his book gives pictures of the sea-snake, and tells how it was seen
and shot at in Norwegian Fjords in his day. There surely are
some such creatures in the sea. Highland stories are full of sea
monsters which are called Uille bheist and Draygan, and which
have numerous heads. Surely there must be some foundation for
60 many fictions. St. George killed a Dragon ; Perseus a sea
monster ; Bellerophon the Chimera ; Hercules the Hydra ; Apollo
killed Pytho ; Fraoch killed, and was killed by, a Behir (great
snake) ; Vishnoo killed a serpent in India. " Sin, the giant
Aphophis, as 'the great serpent,' often with a human head," was
represented pierced by the spear of Horus or of Atmoo (as Ee the
Sun) in Egypt.* In short, I believe that the Gaelic serpent
stories, and the Highland beliefs concerning them, are old myths,
a part of the history of the oldest feud in the world ; the feud
with the serpent who was "more subtile than any beast of the
field that the Lord had made," for the leading idea seems always
to be that the holy, healing power overcomes the subtile destroyer.
Thus Mrs. MacTavish tells that St. Patrick coaxed the last Irish
snake into a chest by the promise that he would let him out "to
morrow," and then he put him into Lough Neagh, and there he
is still. The serpent is always asking, "is it to-morrow ?" but
a to-morrow " is never come ; and no serpents are to be found on
any place belonging to Ireland to this day.
The same belief extends to numerous small islands on the coast
of Scotland, and old ruined chapels with sculptured grave-stones
are generally to be found in them. I know one such island
where some boys (as I was told) once took a living serpent, and
it died. It is named Texa, and this legend is attached to it : —
" It is a portion of Ireland which a giant's wife took a fancy to
carry across the Channel in her apron. From a rent in the apron,
Tarsgier fell through, and the rent getting larger, Texa fell from
her, and so by degrees did all the other rocks and islets between
Texa and the point of Ardmore, where she left Eillan a chuirn,
which she did not think worth taking any further, being so much
* Eawlinson's Herod., vol. ii., p. 261.