Folk-Lore of the Isle of Skye. 309
of the sacred sign and the magic circle she was saved from the creature.
(6) A great many deaths took place at a burn near Kings- burgh called the Red Burn. A herd-boy volunteered to find out the cause. A woman in the neighbourhood was suspected, and the boy went to this woman's house, told her his purpose, and showed her money which he was carrying. She asked him if he was not afraid, and he said no, for he would get help from his hip. There is some play upon words here, for the woman understood him to mean the hill Cruachan which overlooks Portree, several miles from Kingsburgh. She therefore said it would be long before help came from there. He, however, meant a short spear or dagger which he wore concealed on his hip. Returning from the errand, which was his ostensible purpose in going to the house, he was met by a pig or wild boar. He stabbed it, but could not withdraw his weapon. The pig was now transformed into the form of the woman on whom he had just been calling, and he followed her home. Arrived there, her husband bade the boy let her die. (Is this another instance of allowing a witch to bleed to death }). The boy was richly rewarded and the tragedies ceased.
Both here and in a former witch story the various deaths took place at a burn. Both these burns are in the same neighbourhood.
(7) There was once a man in the island of Raasay (the island which almost landlocks Portree Bay), and in the course of his fishing operations he caught a mermaid or, as my informant calls it, a sea-maid. Taking her home, he took off her " the long thing that was on her legs like a fish," and when this was removed she became in appearance like other women. A few years afterwards a young man in Raasay married her and they lived happily, with a numerous brood of children. One day, one of the children came to its mother, saying, " What a nice thing that is that father has got in the barn." " Bring it in, dear," said the mother, " till I will see it." The children brought it in, and the mother, immediately putting it on her feet, went away and was never seen again. Whether this fish's tail was given by her captor to her husband as a kind of dowry, my informant does not say.
