Hector MacLean (Eachann Ban) talks about funeral customs; the story of `Blar nan Sguab`; a premonition of cars; the building of the wall at Crossapol; stories of a hand and a money box and about stealing the goodness from milk; stories about fairies, water-horses and mermaids; how emigrants had to leave their cattle at Island House; spinning sìoman; harvest customs; Iain Kennedy and his stories; droving; coal boats; whisky making; a story about a wolf and a fox; shebeens and his work as a steward.
Hector MacLean (Eachann Ban) talks about funeral customs; the story of `Blar nan Sguab`; a premonition of cars; the building of the wall at Crossapol; stories of a hand and a money box and about stealing the goodness from milk; stories about fairies, water-horses and mermaids; how emigrants had to leave their cattle at Island House; spinning sìoman; harvest customs; Iain Kennedy and his stories; droving; coal boats; whisky making; a story about a wolf and a fox; shebeens and his work as a steward.
Donald Sinclair (Dòmhnall Chaluim Bhàin) of Balephuil sings a lament, a lullaby and a song about a wedding, talks about his great-grandfather, ghosts, fairies and fairy dogs, sings a sailor’s song, the weather, fishing grounds, tells a fairy story, talks about Tiree peat bogs in the Ross, strange happenings, the Balemartine area, sings a Gaelic songs, tells a story about William Ross’s broken heart and sings a love song.
Donald Sinclair (Dòmhnall Chaluim Bhàin) of Balephuil sings a lament, a lullaby and a song about a wedding, talks about his great-grandfather, ghosts, fairies and fairy dogs, sings a sailor’s song, the weather, fishing grounds, tells a fairy story, talks about Tiree peat bogs in the Ross, strange happenings, the Balemartine area, sings a Gaelic songs, tells a story about William Ross’s broken heart and sings a love song.
Audio cassette recording of David MacClounnan of Balephuil talking to John Donald MacLean in June 1998.
David MacClounnan (Dàibhidh na Croige) of Balephuil talks to John Donald MacLean (Teòn Dòmhnall a’ Mhuilinn) of Crossapol about himself and Flòraidh Bhàird going home by bicycle, fishing, the caves around ‘cowrie shell beach’, the hanging island, a mermaid found at Diobadal in Hynish, Hynish pier and Skerryvore lighthouse, a well in Balephuil, beach-combing, forts, second sight, the first tractor in Tiree, a fairy woman, old funerals and funeral costs.
Hardback book `Superstitions of the Highlands & Islands of Scotland` by John Gregorson Campbell. The following extract is a transcription from the book.
Fairy dogs (‘Cu sith’)
The fairies often kept hounds as watchdogs, which sometimes accompanied fairy women on their expeditions or roamed about alone, making their lairs in the clefts of rocks.
Rev. John Gregorson Campbell described these dogs as being ‘as large as a two-year-old stirk’ with, in some cases, ‘a long tail rolled up in a coil on its back…Its immense footmarks [were] as large as the spread of a human hand…’ Some said its motion was silent; others that it made a noise like a galloping horse.
‘There is a considerable interval between each bark, and at the third (it only barks thrice) the terror-struck hearer is overtaken and destroyed, unless he has by that time reached a place of safety.’
