J. F. Campbell Collection > Popular tales of the West Highlands > Volume 2

58 WEST HIGHLAND TALES,
the meal s;he yelped out, " Braw meal, it's the top pickle of
the sin corn." It was excellent ; and what was very strange,
aU the family were advised to jaartake of it hut one ser-
vant lad, who spumed the fairy's meal ; and he dying
shortly after, the miller and his wife finnly helieved it was
because he refused to eat of the meal. They also firmly be-
lieved their first visitor was no less a personage than the Queen
of the Fairies, who having dismissed her comt, had not
one maid of honour in waiting to obey her commands. A
few nights after this strange visit, as the miller was going
to bed, a gentle tap was heard at the door, and on its being
opened by him, with a light in his hand, there stood a
little figiu'e dressed in green, who, in a shrill voice, but
very polite manner, requested him to let on the water and
set the mill in order, for she was going to giind some
com. Tlie miller did not dare to refuse, so did as she
desired him. She told him to go to bed again, and he
would find all as he had left it. He found everything
in the moming as she said he woukl. So much for the
honesty of fau-ies.
4. A tailor was going to work at a farm-house early one
morning. He had just reached it, and was going to enter,
when he heard a shrill A'oice call out, " Kep fast, will ye V
and on looking quickly romid, he was jixst in time to re-
ceive in his arms a sweet, little, smiling baby of a month
old, instead of a little lady in green, who was standing to
receive the child. Tlie taUor turned and ran home as fast
as he could, for tailors are generally nimble kind of folks,
and giving the baby to his wife, ran off again to his work,
leaving his better haK in no pleasant mood with the little
intruder, as she very politely termed the little innocent.
Having reached the farm-house, the tailor found the inhabi-
tants all tin-own into confusion by the screaming, yelj)ing,
little pest, as they called their little niu'seling, for tJie
little woman in gi-een had given in exchange this little
hopeful for their own sweet little one, which was safe -with