Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 9, 1898.djvu/411

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Miscellanea.
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home one night when they distinctly saw a train proceeding along the present route; they could hear the noise and see the smoke. This happened many years before the train came to Inverness."


The following is perhaps noticeable among dream-stories, from the fact that it led to nothing, notwithstanding the recurrence of the dream at regular intervals.

VII. "There lived an old woman at Durness, who dreamed one night that under a certain stone at Inshore, near Cape Wrath, there was a pot of gold concealed, which she would find by digging under the stone. She went to the place, but found no treasure.

"Exactly twelve months after, she had the same dream, and again went to the place, accompanied by a shepherd. They removed the stone, but found nothing.

"Another twelve months went past, and again she had the same dream. She returned to the spot, and searched all round the stone, but could find no trace of the gold. This woman was well known in the place by the name of 'Iúraidh óir' (Gold Dorothy). She dreamed no more about the treasure."


The next tale is a fairly common one in Scotland, but it may not be amiss to give it in its Sutherland form:

VIII. "One time a corpse was laid out in a room, and the watchers had retired to another apartment to partake of some refreshment, shutting the door of that in which the body lay. While they were eating they heard a great noise in the room where the body was; no one would venture in to see the cause of this, and they finally sent for the minister. He went in, Bible in hand, and closed the door after him. The noise then ceased, and in about ten minutes he came out, lifted the tongs, and went back to the room. On his return he held in the tongs a glove, which was seen to be bloody, and put it into the fire. He would not tell them what he had seen and heard."


To these Sutherland legends I may add a few scraps from other quarters of the Highlands. The following was told me by a native of Glenlyon, who admitted that he was no lover of folklore, and professed to have forgotten all the stories that the old people used to tell.

"There is a pool in Glen Dochart in which people who had gone out of their mind were dipped, and it was believed that this was a