The Birds of Rhiannon: Gaelic Folklore (5): Ceasg

Ceasg

The ceasg is a mermaid in Scottish Folklore with the upper body of a beautiful woman merging with the tail of a grilse (a young salmon).

What follows are some descriptions and tales from old sources:

The Mermaid is known in Gaelic as the ceasg, maighdean na tuinne (maid of the wave) and maigddean mhara (maid of the sea) A ceasg is a half-woman, half-grilse, who haunts rivers and streams and is said to be very beautiful but dangerous. The maid of the wave, if caught, can be prevailed upon to grant three wishes. There are stories of men marrying mermaids who left off their skin coverings. Like the swan maidens, they recover their hidden skins and escape, but they always take interest in their human descendants, shielding them in storms or guiding them to the best fishing grounds. Families of pilots are reputed to be descended from mermaids. The maid of the wave is in some tales a fierce demon. It may be that the maid of the wave was originally a sea-goddess to whom humans, especially children, were sacrificed.

Scottish Folk-Lore and Folk Life - Studies in Race,

Culture and Tradition, by Donald Mackenzie, 1935

Black Mere, at Morridge, near Leek, in Staffordshire, was credited with the power of frightening away animals. Cattle would not drink its water, and birds would not fly over it. A mermaid was believed to dwell in its depths.

In the south of Scotland the very names of these sea-spirits have a far-off sound about them. No one beside the Firths of Forth and Clyde expects nowadays to catch sight of such strange forms sitting on rocks, or playing among the breakers; but among our Northern Isles it is otherwise. Every now and again (at long intervals, perhaps) the mysterious mermaid makes her appearance, and gives new life to an old superstition. About three years since, one was seen at Deerness in Orkney. She reappeared last year, and was then noticed by some lobstermen who were working their creels. She had a small black head, white body, and long arms. Somewhat later, a creature, believed to be this mermaid, was shot not far from the shore, but the body was not captured. In June of the present year another mermaid was seen by the Deerness people. At Birsay, recently, a farmer’s wife was down at the sea-shore, and observed a strange creature among the rocks. She went back for her husband, and the two returned quite in time to get a good view of the interesting stranger. The woman spoke of the mermaid as “a good-looking person”; while her husband described her as “having a covering of brown hair.” Curiosity seems to have been uppermost in the minds of the couple, for they tried to capture the creature. In the interests of folklore, if not of science, she managed to escape, and was quickly lost to sight beneath the waves. Perhaps, as the gurgling waters closed over her, she may have uttered an au revoir, or whatever corresponds to that phrase in the language of the sea.

The following story about a mermaid, published in 1886, is fully credited in the district where the incident occurred:—“Roderick Mackenzie, the elderly and much respected boat-builder at Port Henderson, when a young man, went one day to a rocky part of the shore there. Whilst gathering bait he suddenly spied a mermaid asleep among the rocks. Rorie ‘went for’ that mermaid, and succeeded in seizing her by the hair. The poor creature in great embarrassment cried out that if Rorie would let go she would grant him whatever boon he might ask. He requested a pledge that no one should ever be drowned from any boat he might build. On his releasing her the mermaid promised that this should be so. The promise has been kept throughout Rorie’s long business career—his boats still defy the stormy winds and waves.” Mr. Dixon adds, “I am the happy possessor of an admirable example of Rorie’s craft. The most ingenious framer of trade advertisements might well take a hint from this veracious anecdote.”

There is, or was a belief at Chapel-en-le-Frith, in Derbyshire, that on Easter Eve a mermaid appears in a certain pool; and at Rostherne, in Cheshire, that another mermaid comes out of the lake there on Easter Day and rings a bell.

Folklore of Scottish Lochs and Springs, By James M. Mackinlay, 1893.

Of all the old mythological existences of Scotland, in his there was none with whom the people of Cromarty were better acquainted than with the mermaid. Thirty years have not yet gone by since she has been seen by moonlight sitting on a stone in the sea, a little to the east of the town; and scarcely a winter passed, forty years earlier, in which she was not heard singing among the rocks or seen braiding up her long yellow tresses on the shore.

The Dropping-Cave ninety years ago was a place of considerable interest; but the continuous shower which converted into stone the plants and mosses on which it fell, and the dark recess which no one had attempted to penetrate, and of whose extent imagination had formed a thousand surmises, constituted some of merely the minor circumstances that had rendered it such. Superstition had busied herself for ages before in making it a scene of wonders. Boatmen, when sailing along the shore in the night-time, had been startled by the apparition of a faint blue light, which seemed glimmering from its entrance: on other occasions than the one referred to in a former chapter, the mermaid had been seen sitting on a rock a few yards before it, singing a low melancholy song, and combing her long yellow hair with her fingers; and a man who had been engaged in fishing crabs among the rocks, and was returning late in the evening by the way of the cave, almost shared the fate of its moss and lichens, when, on looking up, he saw an old greyheaded man, with a beard that descended to his girdle, sitting in the opening, and gazing wistfully on the sea.

Scenes and Legends of the North of Scotland, Hugh Miller, 1850

The Sea-Maiden

here was once a poor old fisherman, and one year he was not getting much fish. On a day of days, while he was fishing, there rose a sea-maiden at the side of his boat, and she asked him, "Are you getting much fish?"

The old man answered and said, "Not I."

"What reward would you give me for sending plenty of fish to you?”

"Ach!" said the old man, "I have not much to spare."

"Will you give me the first son you have?" said she.

"I would give ye that, were I to have a son," said he.

"Then go home, and remember me when your son is twenty years of age, and you yourself will get plenty of fish after this."

Everything happened as the sea-maiden said, and he himself got plenty of fish; but when the end of the twenty years was nearing, the old man was growing more and more sorrowful and heavy hearted, while he counted each day as it came. He had rest neither day nor night. The son asked his father one day, "Is any one troubling you?"

The old man said, "Someone is, but that's nought to do with you nor anyone else."

The lad said, "I must know what it is."
His father told him at last how the matter was with him and the sea-maiden.

"Let not that put you in any trouble," said the son; "I will not oppose you."

"You shall not; you shall not go, my son, though I never get fish any more."

"If you will not let me go with you, go to the smithy, and let the smith make me a great strong sword, and I will go seek my fortune."

His father went to the smithy, and the smith made a doughty sword for him. His father came home with the sword. The lad grasped it and gave it a shake or two, and it flew into a hundred splinters. He asked his father to go to the smithy and get him another sword in which there should be twice as much weight; and so his father did, and so likewise it happened to the next sword—it broke in two halves. Back went the old man to the smithy; and the smith made a great sword, it’s like he never made before.

"There's thy sword for thee," said the smith, "and the fist must be good that plays this blade."

The old man gave the sword to his son; he gave it a shake or two. "This will do," said he; "it's high time now to travel on my way."

On the next morning he put a saddle on a black horse that his father had, and he took the world for his pillow. When he went on a bit, he fell in with the carcass of a sheep beside the road. And there were a great black dog, a falcon, and an otter, and they were quarrelling over the spoil. So they asked him to divide it for them. He came down off the horse, and he divided the carcass amongst the three. Three shares to the dog, two shares to the otter, and a share to the falcon.

"For this," said the dog, "if swiftness of foot or sharpness of tooth will give thee aid, mind me, and I will be at thy side."

Said the otter, "If the swimming of foot on the ground of a pool will lose thee, mind me, and I will be at thy side."

Said the falcon, "If hardship comes on thee, where swiftness of wing or crook of a claw will do good, mind me, and I will be at thy side."

On this he went onward till he reached a king's house, and he took service to be a herd, and his wages were to be according to the milk of the cattle. He went away with the cattle, and the grazing was but bare. In the evening when he took them home they had not much milk, the place was so bare, and his meat and drink was but spare that night. On the next day he went on further with them; and at last he came to a place exceedingly grassy, in a green glen, of which he never saw the like. But about the time when he should drive the cattle homewards, who should he see coming but a great giant with his sword in his hand?

"HI! HO!! HOGARACH! " says the giant. "Those cattle are mine; they are on my land, and a dead man art thou."

"I say not that," says the herd; "there is no knowing, but that may be easier to say than to do."

He drew the great clean-sweeping sword, and he neared the giant. The herd drew back his sword, and the head was off the giant in a twinkling. He leaped on the black horse, and he went to look for the giant's house. In went the herd, and that's the place where there was money in plenty, and dresses of each kind in the wardrobe with gold and silver, and each thing finer than the other. At the mouth of night he took himself to the king's house, but he took not a thing from the giant's house. And when the cattle were milked this night there was milk. He got good feeding this night, meat and drink without stint, and the king was hugely pleased that he had caught such a herd. He went on for a time in this way, but at last the glen grew bare of grass, and the grazing was not so good. So he thought he would go a little further forward in on the giant's land; and he sees a great park of grass. He returned for the cattle, and he put them into the park.

They were but a short time grazing in the park when a great wild giant came full of rage and madness. "HI! HAW!! HOGARAICH!!!" said the giant. "It is a drink of thy blood that will quench my thirst this night." "There is no knowing," said the herd, "but that's easier to say than to do."

And at each other went the men. There was shaking of blades! At length and at last it seemed as if the giant would get the victory over the herd. Then he called on the dog, and with one spring the black dog caught the giant by the neck, and swiftly the herd struck off his head.

He went home very tired this night, but it's a wonder if the king's cattle had not milk. The whole family was delighted that they had got such a herd. Next day he betakes himself to the castle. When he reached the door, a little flattering carlin met him standing in the door.

"All hail and good luck to thee, fisher's son; 'tis I myself am pleased to see thee; great is the honour for this kingdom, for thy like to be come into it—thy coming in is fame for this little bothy; go in first; honour to the gentles; go on, and take breath." "In before me, thou crone; I like not flattery out of doors; go in and let's hear thy speech." In went the crone, and when her back was to him he drew his sword and whips her head off; but the sword flew out of his hand. And swift the crone gripped her head with both hands, and puts it on her neck as it was before. The dog sprung on the crone, and she struck the generous dog with the club of magic; and there he lay. But the herd struggled for a hold of the club of magic, and with one blow on the top of the head she was on earth in the twinkling of an eye. He went forward, up a little, and there was spoil! Gold and silver, and each thing more precious than another, in the crone's castle. He went back to the king's house, and then there was rejoicing.

He followed herding in this way for a time; but one night after he came home, instead of getting "All hail" and "Good luck" from the dairymaid, all were at crying and woe. He asked what cause of woe there was that night. The dairymaid said "There is a great beast with three heads in the loch, and it must get someone every year, and the lot had come this year on the king's daughter, and at midday tomorrow she is to meet the Loudly Beast at the upper end of the loch, but there is a great suitor yonder who is going to rescue her."

"What suitor is that?" said the herd.

"Oh, he is a great General of arms," said the dairymaid, "and when he kills the beast, he will marry the king's daughter, for the king has said that he who could save his daughter should get her to marry."

But on the morrow, when the time grew near, the king's daughter and this hero of arms went to give a meeting to the beast, and they reached the black rock, at the upper end of the loch. They were but a short time there when the beast stirred in the midst of the loch; but when the General saw this terror of a beast with three heads, he took fright, and he slunk away, and he hid himself. And the king's daughter was under fear and under trembling, with no one at all to save her. Suddenly she sees a doughty handsome youth, riding a black horse, and coming where she was. He was marvelously arrayed and full armed, and his black dog moved after him.

"There is gloom on your face, girl," said the youth; "what do you here?"

"Oh! that's no matter," said the king's daughter. "It's not long I'll be here, at all events."

"I say not that," said he.

"A champion fled as likely as you, and not long since," said she.

"He is a champion who stands the war," said the youth. And to meet the beast he went with his sword and his dog. But there was a spluttering and a splashing between himself and the beast! The dog kept doing all he might, and the king's daughter was palsied by fear of the noise of the beast! One of them would now be under, and now above. But at last he cut one of the heads off it. It gave one roar, and the son of earth, echo of the rocks, called to its screech, and it drove the loch in spindrift from end to end, and in a twinkling it went out of sight.

"Good luck and victory follow you, lad!" said the king's daughter. "I am safe for one night, but the beast will come again and again, until the other two heads come off it."

He caught the beast's head, and he drew a knot through it, and he told her to bring it with her there tomorrow. She gave him a gold ring, and went home with the head on her shoulder, and the herd betook himself to the cows. But she had not gone far when this great General saw her, and he said to her, "I will kill you if you do not say that 'twas I took the head off the beast."

"Oh!" says she, "'tis I will say it; who else took the head off the beast but you! "

They reached the king's house, and the head was on the General's shoulder. But here was rejoicing, that she should come home alive and whole, and this great captain with the beast's head full of blood in his hand. On the morrow they went away, and there was no question at all but that this hero would save the king's daughter.

They reached the same place, and they were not long there when the fearful Loudly Beast stirred in the midst of the loch, and the hero slunk away as he did on yesterday, but it was not long after this when the man of the black horse came, with another dress on. No matter; she knew that it was the very same lad. "It is I am pleased to see you," said she. "I am in hopes you will handle your great sword to-day as you did yesterday. Come up and take breath."

But they were not long there when they saw the beast steaming in the midst of the loch. At once he went to meet the beast, but there was Cloopersteich and Claperstich, spluttering, splashing, raving, and roaring on the beast! They kept at it thus for a long time, and about the mouth of night he cut another head off the beast. He put it on the knot and gave it to her. She gave him one of her earrings, and he leaped on the black horse, and he betook himself to the herding. The king's daughter went home with the heads. The General met her, and took the heads from her, and he said to her, that she must tell that it was he who took the head off the beast this time also.

"Who else took the head off the beast but you?" said she. They reached the king's house with the heads. Then there was joy and gladness.

About the same time on the morrow, the two went away. The officer hid himself as he usually did. The king's daughter betook herself to the bank of the loch. The hero of the black horse came, and if roaring and raving were on the beast on the days that were passed, this day it was horrible. But no matter, he took the third head off the beast, and drew it through the knot, and gave it to her. She gave him her other earring, and then she went home with the heads. When they reached the king's house, all were full of smiles, and the General was to marry the king's daughter the next day. The wedding was going on,

and every one about the castle longing till the priest should come. But when the priest came, she would marry only the one who could take the heads off the knot without cutting it.

"Who should take the heads off the knot but the man that put the heads on?" said the king.

The General tried them, but he could not lose them and at last there was no one about the house but had tried to take the heads off the knot, but they could not. The king asked if there were any one else about the house that would try to take the heads off the knot. They said that the herd had not tried them yet. Word went for the herd; and he was not long throwing them hither and thither.

"But stop a bit, my lad," said the king's daughter; "the man that took the heads off the beast, he has my ring and my two earrings."

The herd put his hand in his pocket, and he threw them on the board.

"Thou art my man," said the king's daughter.

The king was not so pleased when he saw that it was a herd who was to marry his daughter, but he ordered that he should be put in a better dress; but his daughter spoke, and she said that he had a dress as fine as any that ever was in his castle; and thus it happened. The herd put on the giant's golden dress, and they married that same day.

They were now married, and everything went on well. But one day, and it was the namesake of the day when his father had promised him to the sea-maiden, they were sauntering by the side of the loch, and lo and behold! she came and took him away to the loch without leave or asking. The king's daughter was now mournful, tearful, blind-sorrowful for her married man; she was always with her eye on the loch. An old soothsayer met her, and she told how it had befallen her married mate. Then he told her the thing to do to save her mate, and that she did. She took her harp to the sea-shore, and sat and played; and the sea-maiden came up to listen, for sea-maidens are fonder of music than all other creatures. But when the wife saw the sea-maiden she stopped. The sea-maiden said, "Play on!" but the princess said, "No, not till I see my man again." So the sea-maiden put up his head out of the loch. Then the princess played again, and stopped till the sea-maiden put him up to the waist. Then the princess played and stopped again, and this time the sea-maiden put him all out of the loch, and he called on the falcon and became one and flew on shore. But the sea-maiden took the princess, his wife.

Sorrowful was each one that was in the town on this night. Her man was mournful, tearful, wandering down and up about the banks of the loch, by day and night. The old soothsayer met him. The soothsayer told him that there was no way of killing the sea-maiden but the one way, and this is it—

"In the island that is in the midst of the loch is the white-footed hind of the slenderest legs and the swiftest step, and though she he caught, there will spring a hoodie out of her, and though the hoodie should be caught, there will spring a trout out of her, but there is an egg in the mouth of the trout, and the soul of the sea-maiden is in the egg, and if the egg breaks, she is dead."

Now, there was no way of getting to this island, for the sea-maiden would sink each boat and raft that would go on the loch. He thought he would try to leap the strait with the black horse, and even so he did. The black horse leaped the strait. He saw the hind, and he let the black dog after her, but when he was on one side of the island, the hind would he on the other side.

"Oh! would the black dog of the carcass of flesh were here!"

No sooner spoke he the word than the grateful dog was at his side; and after the hind he went, and they were not long in bringing her to earth. But he no sooner caught her than a hoodie sprang out of her. "Would that the falcon grey, of sharpest eye and swiftest wing, were here!"

No sooner said he this than the falcon was after the hoodie, and she was not long putting her to earth; and as the hoodie fell on the bank of the loch, out of her jumps the trout.

"Oh! that thou wert by me now, oh otter!" No sooner said than the otter was at his side, and out on the loch she leaped, and brings the trout from the midst of the loch; but no sooner was the otter on shore with the trout than the egg came from his mouth. He sprang and he put his foot on it.

'Twas then the sea-maiden appeared, and she said, "Break not the egg, and you shall get all you ask." "Deliver to me my wife!" In the wink of an eye she was by his side. When he got hold of her hand in both his hands, he let his foot down on the egg, and the sea-maiden died.

Celtic Fairy Tales, by Joseph Jacobs, 1892

Mermaid Traditions.

The manner in which the seal-women of the Western Isles and of Ireland and the lady-trows of the Northern Isles immediately returned to the sea, on recovering their hidden skins, recalls similar traditions of the maighdean-mara or mermaid, a creature of the sea, half-woman and half-fish, with long, dishevelled hair which she sometimes might be seen combing at dawn or dusk, while seated on a rock offshore. Mermaids have been known to put off the fish-like covering of their lower limbs; and, if the finder of such covering can keep it hidden, the owner is unable to return to her life in the sea. Both in Ireland and in the Scottish Highlands and Islands, folk-tales are told of how ordinary men have detained mermaids by hiding their covering, have married them, and have had large families by them. Eventually some member of the family, discovering the mother's covering, brings it to her in surprise, thus enabling her to desert her human home for the sea. Such mermaids are said to spend much of their time in pursuing vessels, just as do the Blue Men of the Minch. Celtic tradition has it that, in order to rid themselves of her company, mariners have been known to cast overboard a number of empty barrels. While the mermaid continued to be distracted by examining these barrels, the vessel was sailing beyond her reach. Upon a time, a native of a Harris township, that goes by the Gaelic name signifying Unripe Island, captured a mermaid, and retained her in close confinement for a year. How ultimately the mermaid effected her escape is not recorded. And a Skye-man, likewise, caught a mermaid, whom he released only when she had granted him his three wishes—that he should have the faculty of foretelling the future, that he should be able to cure scrofula or the king's evil, and that he should acquire the art of music. Belief in the mermaid was widespread among the seafarers of the north-east coast of Scotland. Many of the fisher-folks held the opinion that the caves penetrating the more inaccessible parts of the coast were tenanted by mermaids. "Some old men, remember a mermaid pitching upon the bowsprit of a small vessel belonging to Peterhead, which was driven among the rocks near Slains Castle, and all hands perished save one man who bore the tidings to land."

A Merman Sighted.

In the year, 1814, a merman was sighted off Port Gordon, in Banffshire. According to an account supplied by the schoolmaster of Rathven, two fishermen, whose testimony was above suspicion, were returning from the fishing " about three or four o'clock yesterday afternoon, when about a quarter of a mile from the shore, the sea being perfectly calm, they observed, at a small distance from their boat, with its back towards them, and half its body above the water, a creature of a tawny colour, appearing like a man sitting, with his body half-bent. Surprised at this, they approached towards him, till they came within a few yards, when the noise made by the boat occasioned the creature to turn about, which gave the men a better opportunity of observing him. His countenance was swarthy, his hair short and curled, of a colour between a green and a grey: he had small eyes, a flat nose, his mouth was large, and his arms of an extraordinary length. Above the waist, he was shaped like a man, but as the water was clear, my informants could perceive that, from the waist downwards, his body tapered considerably or, as they expressed it, like a large fish without scales, but could not see the extremity." The creature did not give the observers much time to examine him closely, for, although he gazed at them intently for a moment or two, he suddenly dived out of sight. A little later he reappeared at some distance from the boat, accompanied by what the fishermen concluded to be a female of the same species. Somewhat alarmed at the sight of this merman, the fishermen pulled for the shore with all haste. used to relate a mermaid story told him by a shepherd dwelling in a lonely glen in South Uist. According to the shepherd, two local fishermen, when drawing their net about twenty years ago, found that it had ensnared a baby mermaid. The mother mermaid pleaded with the fishermen to release her baby, promising that, if they did so, " none of them would be drowned evermore."
To the schoolmaster they gave this account without the slightest variation. My late, dearly beloved friend, John Wilson Dougal, who wandered through the Outer Hebrides

" It was strange," the shepherd used to remark, " that the mermaid could speak the Gaelic !"

A Mermaid's Burial on Benbecula.
In Barra and Benbecula and in North and South Uist are current several traditional tales about the mermaid, who sometimes is referred to in these parts as the maighdean nan tonn, the maiden of the waves. The story is told in Benbecula of how a number of Isleswomen, while cutting seaware at low tide on the Oitir Mhor, were startled by a splashing sound that came from a still sea-pool near the end of the reef. On approaching the spot, they were surprised to find in the pool a miniature woman, whose long, dark hair floated like a great cluster of seaweed upon the face of the water. Closer investigation proved that in shape the lower part of her body resembled that of a salmon, but had no scales upon it. Convinced that at long last they were beholding the maighdean-mara, the women of Benbecula raised the alarm, so that their husbands and sons might hurry to the scene, and capture the creature if possible. In their endeavour to catch her, some of the men waded into the sea after her. But the mermaid was far too nimble for them; and, had it not been for the fact that a young lad had accidentally wounded her on the head with a stone, they never would have seen her again. The mermaid succumbed to her injuries ; and, a week or so later, her body was found by the shore, not far from Nunton. And it was none other than Duncan Shaw, Clan Ranald's factor at the time of this incident, who, on examining the body of the mermaid, perceived that she was a creature worthy of reverent burial. And, so, he directed a special coffin and a special winding-sheet to be prepared for the mermaid, whose remains at length were interred in the burial-ground at Nunton, and in the presence of a great assemblage of the Hebridean people. A similar fate almost befell a mermaid on the Isle of Barra, when an old sailor, living at Kentangval, espied on a reef what he took to be an otter devouring a fish. It was not until he had picked up his glass that he discovered the creature on the reef was not an otter at all, but a mermaid holding a child.

Children of the Mermaid.
Once there lived among the sea-tangled caverns of northwestern Scotland a people called the Children of the Mermaid. Tradition in the remote sea-clachans of Sutherland maintains that the Children of the Mermaid were the offspring of a fisherman by a mermaid who, having forfeited the fish-tail-shaped seal-skin covering the lower part of her body, made it possible for her admirer to capture her and take her to his home. But there came a day when the Children of the Mermaid, while playing in the barn, chanced to discover among the rafters a seal-skin with a fish-like tail. This they instantly brought to their mother, who recognised it to be her long lost coat. Before their eyes she donned the seal-skin, and, without even bidding them good-bye, rushed away to the sea. Not since that day has the mermaid been seen by the shores of Sutherland, nor have the natives heard tell of her. But they declare that her descendants have derived from the sea richer and fuller harvests than have the ordinary inhabitants of these parts.

The Mermaid of Kessock.

Of similar nature is a story told in the locality of Inverness and the Black Isle about a mermaid known traditionally as the Mermaid of Kessock. One Paterson to name, when strolling along the shore by the Kessock Ferry, came upon a mermaid, whom he sought to detain. Paterson proceeded to remove some of the scales from her tail, in conformity with the old belief that, by so doing, a mermaid was compelled to assume human form. No sooner had he removed the scales than, lo ! there stood before him a beautiful woman, whom he immediately married, and by whom he begat children. The mermaid's scales Paterson carefully wrapped up, and concealed in an outhouse. The day came, however, when one of his children discovered the scales, and took them to his mother, who thereupon made for the shore, returned to her mermaid state, and was never seen again. It is said, moreover, that Paterson's wife, long before she recovered her scales, used to plead with him to allow her to return to her original element, promising him that, if he did so, his family would be blessed at all times with a plentiful supply of fish, and that no member of it would ever be drowned at the Kessock Ferry. To this day there are folks dwelling at Kessock and elsewhere on the Black Isle, who firmly believe the story of the Mermaid of Kessock.

The Peat-Fire Flame, Folk-tales and Traditions of the Highlands & Islands By A. A. MacGregor, 1937