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

FAIRY STORIES. 6 I
for her ; pulls the bed clothes off her, and discovers there
was a horse shoe on each hand and foot, when Harry says,
" Jenny, my lass, that did ye." Jenny played many more
similar tricks on her neiiihljoiu' lads aiid lasses.
SUTHERLAND.
In Sutherland the fairy creed is much the same as else-
where in Scotland, but there is a generic term for super-
natm-al beings, which is rarely used in West Coimtry Gaelic.
Here are a few of a large and very good collection of
Sutlierland stories.
1 . Duncan, surnamed More, a respectable farmer in Bade-
noch, states as follows : — " A matter of thirty suimners ago,
when I was cutting peats on the hill, my old mother that
was, was keeping the house. It was sowens she had in her
hand for om- supper, when a little old woman walked in and
begged a lippie of meal of her. My mother, not knowing
her face, said, 'And where do you come fi'om V 'I come
from my own place and am short of meal.' My mother,
who had plenty by her in the house, spoke her civil, and
boimd her meal on her back, following her a few steps
from the door. She noticed that a little kiln in the hill
side was smoking. The wife saw this too, and said, ' Take
back your meal, we shall soon have meal of our own.'
My mother pressed oiu'S on her ; but she left the pock
hang ; and when she came to the rimning burn went out
of sight ; and my mother just judged it was a fairy."
2. Once upon a time there was a tailor and his wife, who
o\raed a small croft or farm, and Avere well to do in the
world ; but had only one son, a child, that was more pain
than pleasure to them, for it cried incessantly, and was so
cross that notiu:ig could be done vath it. One dav the