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

72 WEST HIGHLAND TALES.
liad the arrow for a long time ; it was slender like a straw
for thickness. He himself drew it out of the temple of
the other man, where it was stuck in the skin through the
bomiet. They were then miles from shore, fishing. A
man, whom the fairies were in the habit of carrying about
from island to island, told him that he had himself thro\vn
the dart at the man in the boat by desire of them; " they
made him do it."
]\Iy informant e\'idently believed he was speaking
truth, as my more educated friends do when they tell me
sgeulachd al:)out IMr. Himie.
For my own part, I believe all my friends ; but I
cannot believe in fairies, or that my forbears have become
slaves of a table to be simimoned at the will of a quack.
I believe that there is a stock of old credulity smovilder-
ing near a store of old legends, in some corner of every
mind, and that the one acts on the other, and produces a
fresh legend and a new belief whenever circumstances are
favourable to the growth of such weeds. At all events, I
am quite sure that the fairy creed of the peasantry, as I
have learned it from them, is not a whit more unreason-
able than the bodily appearance of the hand of Napoleon
the First to Napoleon the Third in 1860, as it is described
in print ; and the grave books which are written on
"Spiritual Jklanifestations" at home and aljroad. "What ia
to be said of the table which became so familiar with a
young lady, that it followed her up stairs and jumped on
to the sofa.