the seashore (for dyeing purposes). The girl refused to go, and her mother attacked her. At last the daughter went. She said that it would be in flames of fire she would return. The girl was drowned and is still to be seen." Reciter said this is to explain "an teine biorach," which is, "fire floating in the air like a bird." Compare with this the Tiree man's "eagle."
Here is another version recited by a Bernera man:
"There was a woman from Vallay, in North Uist, who went out on one occasion before the Sabbath was past to dig ruadh for dye.[1] She has never been seen by anyone since, but the prints of her feet were seen on the beach, showing that she had been made to walk backwards into the sea. After that, nothing was known of her for a long time, until one day her body was found in Harris without the head, the head having been turned into the teine mhor as a punishment for breaking the Sabbath, and it has been wandering about here and there ever since."
Another Bernera account is:
"There was a man who prohibited people from gathering the ruadh. One time he was coming home late at night, and having had a long distance to go to his house, the teine mor appeared to him as he was riding along. It kept before him all the way till he reached his own house; when he tried to go in, the fire went between him and the door; and when he tried to go in at the window, the fire went between him and the window; and so he was kept outside until the cock crew, when at once the fire disappeared. People were holding out that this was the Uist woman who had been turned into An Teine Mor taking revenge on the man for forbidding the people from digging the ruadh. It is said he took good care never to be found out late at night again."
- ↑ Ruĕ, a red dye from the roots of Galium verum (ladies' bed-straw), yields a colour not unlike a dull red heat.
