“To-night has well prospered with us,
The big urchal-erchal has been slain.”
A kitten that was listening rose and said, “Has Bald Entrails of the Cats been killed? If it were not the many nights I have got meat and milk in your family, I would have your long brindled weasand in my claws. Tell Streaked Foul-Face, that Bladrum is dead,”[14] and saying this the kitten went away, and was never seen afterwards.
Near Vaul in Tiree, a man riding home at night, with his son, a young boy, seated behind him, was met by a number of cats. The boy had his hands clasped round his father, and the man, pressing them to his sides, to make surer of the boy’s hold, urged his horse to its speed. The cats sprang, and, fastening on the boy, literally devoured him. When the man reached home, with his horse at full gallop, he had only the boy’s arms left.
A Wexford legend of the same kind (the two stories might have been originally identical), said to be at least as old as 1584, will be found in the Dublin University Magazine for September, 1869.
A woman detected a strange cat drinking the milk in her kirn, caught it by the back of the neck, and rapped its nose against the floor. It went about mewing in a melancholy manner, till the woman took pity on it, and called it, saying, “Puss, puss, till you get a drop” (Puis, puis, gus am faigheadh tu diar). The cat answered, “It is not a drop I want, but the way my mouth is, Mary” (Cha-ne diar tha mi’g iarraidh ach mar tha mo bhial a Mhàiri). It then went away, but came back through the night with two other cats. One said they would take the back of their paws to the woman, but the second said the front of their paws. This resolution was carried by the casting vote of the injured cat, and the woman was torn in shreds.
A man, going in the evening to see a girl he was courting, was met at a lonely part of the road (near the end of Balefetrish Hill in Tiree) by seven cats, and was so terrified that he turned back and thereby lost his sweetheart. She married an old man from the village of Hianish, where a noted witch dwelt. The old man got the blame of bribing the witch to send the cats.
In olden times a cat belonging to the tenant of Heynish in Tiree was much addicted, like the rest of its kind, to stealing cheese. It was caught in the act, and, as a punishment for the past and a lesson for the future, its ears were taken off. The tenant had occasion to go from home, and on his return found the cat lying dead, having been hung for theft in his absence. He took it in his lap, and thus addressed it:
Did I not tell you, little Duncan,
You had needs of being wary;
When you went where the cheeses were,
The gallows would teach you how to dance.
Evil is it, earless cat,
They you have killed, because of cheese;
Your neck has paid for that refreshment,
At this time, after your death.
On hearing these expressions of sympathy, the cat began to revive, and the man went on:
A hundred welcomes wait you, cat,
Since in my lap you’ve chanced to be;
And, though I do not much liberty allow,
Many have you greatly loved.
Are you the untamed cat that Fionn had,
That hunted wild from glen to glen?
Had Oscar you at the battle of Bla-sguinn,
And left you heroes wounded there?
You drank the milk Catherine had,
For entertaining minstrel and meeting;
And why should I praise you?
You ought to be, like any kitten,
On the hillside seeking mice,
’Neath greyish grassy stems and bramble bushes.
On hearing this the cat ran away and was never again seen.
A Tiree boat was tacking out of a loch in the north. A man met it at a point of land near which it came, and asked to be taken to the other side. One of the boatmen was willing, but the rest were not, as they would thereby lose time. Next tack back, the man met the boat again, with the same result. “Well, then,” he said, “perhaps you will repent it.” At the mouth of the loch the boatmen heard a howling as of innumerable cats. A storm arose, and with difficulty they reached shelter at the island of Eigg.
WITCHES AS RATS.
A Tiree boatman, bringing a load of peats from the Ross of Mull, was met at the Treshinish Isles by two rats sailing along on dry cowsherds. As good luck did not direct him, he threw a piece of peat at the rats, and upset their frail barks. A storm sprang up, and with difficulty he got to land. The rats were witches, and he should not have meddled with them.
WITCHES AS GULLS.
A witch assumed the shape of a gull, delighting in storms, not only to bring danger or safety to a boat, as already told, but also for payment to bring back news of fishing boats driven away in a storm.
A boat from Tiree, going for a cargo of wood, was caught in a violent gale and driven north past Ardnamurchan Point. With difficulty the boatmen, four in number, secured her in a creek. They remained in a cave for four days, till the storm abated. The suddenness and violence of the gale caused much anxiety to their friends, and two women, one of whom had two sons and a son-in-law in the boat, and the other, a widow, her youngest and only surviving son, consulted a famous witch, Nic-ill’-Dòmhnuich, in Caolas, as to their fate. The witch told them to come next day, and she would tell them. Early next morning the widow went. “Yea,” said the witch, “they live, and they had no little amusement last night fighting for the Fallaid bannock, and your son had his own share of it.” When the young men came home, they were questioned as to their seeing anything the night the witch was sent for news. They said a grey gull was seen by them sitting on the edge of the rocks that overhang their place of shelter and peering down at them. One was for throwing stones at it, but the rest dissuaded him. It was only seen that night and next morning.
WITCH AS CORMORANT.
A man named Campbell, in the Long Island, as the outer Hebrides are called, had two sweethearts, for one of whom he did not very much care. They were both to be present at a gathering of women for fulling cloth, and he resolved to go and see them. When he arrived he found only the one he least liked. He left shortly, and set off to where the other was. On the way he had to cross a ford on large stepping-stones. As he was doing so a cormorant (sgarbh) came, and splashed him fiercely with water. He had a cudgel in his hand, and gave the strange bird a whack on the back. He then passed on, and the distance being considerable did not return till next day. When returning he had to pass the house of the slighted damsel. Her mother met him at the door, and said, she could not understand what was wrong with her daughter; she had got suddenly ill last night, and was very bad with a sore back. Campbell said he knew the reason, and would have nothing further to say to her daughter. The woman then threatened him, but no evil ever came of her threat.
WITCHES AS WHALES.