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

THE TWO SHEPHERDS. 93
journey. If you will go and take a look at it — the spot is there
yet — and I would like to see how soon you would manage it, let
alone the hogshead.
Poor Galium, however, was obliged, with many of his neigh-
bours, to leave Lochaber ; indeed, he was amongst the first
embarking at Arisaig for New York. The passage was a tedious
one, but it ended at last, and without any particular adventures ;
but on arriving they had to perform a quarantine of many days.
On getting j^raticjue, Galium was in the first boat which landed,
and happened to have stowed himself in the bows of the boat,
and when she grounded, was the first man to jump on shore.
Directly his feet touched the ground, who should meet him in the
shape of a goat but the Bauchau, " Ha, ha Galium, ha mi sbo air
Thoseach orst." Ha, Malcolm, I am here before thee. Here
ends our story ; but rumour says that Galium was the better of
the Bauchan's help in clearing the lands of his new settlement,
and that, till he was fairly in the way of prosperity, the Bauchan
abstained from teasing and provoking poor Galium.
The next makes the supernatural beings robbers, and is a
further argument in favour of the theory that all these traditions
are fictions founded on fact ; recollections of wild savages living
in mountain fastnesses, whose power, and strength, and cavern
dwellings were enlarged and distorted into magic arts, gigantic
stature, and the under-ground world. I translate the story from
Gaelic, written by Hector MacLean from the telling of Johanna
MacGrimmon in Berneray, August 1859. This woman is a
native of Skye, and descended from the celebrated pipers. Her
father, grandfather, and uncles were pipers. She learnt the story
from her grand-uncle Angus MacGrimmon.
7. A gentleman had aireach, a herd's dwelling, and he was
out in a far-off glen long in the year with his herd women and his
calf herd. They had every man they needed, and they were
there till the middle of summer was. Then the herd woman said
that she must go to seek things that she wanted.
The herd woman went away, and she bad a great distance to
go before she should reach the farm.
She said to the herd, in spite of the length of the path, that
she would try to be back that night. When the evening was