CALLUM CLARK AND HIS SORE LEG.
Some six generations ago there lived at Port Vista (Port Bhissta), in Tiree, a dark, fierce man, known as Big Malcolm Clark (Callum mòr mac-a-Chleirich). He was a very strong man, and in his brutal violence produced the death of several people. Tradition also says of him that he killed a water-horse, and fought a Banshi with a horse-rib at the long hollow, covered in winter with water, called the Léig. In this encounter his own little finger was broken. When sharpening knives, old women in Tiree said, “Friday in Clark’s town” (Di-haoine am baile mhic-a-Chleirich), with the object of making him and his the objects of Fairy wrath. One evening, as he was driving a tether-pin into a hillock, a head was popped up out of the ground, and told him to take some other place for securing his beast, as he was letting the rain into ‘their’ dwelling. Some time after this he had a painfully sore leg (bha i gu dòruinneach doirbh). He went to the shï-en, where the head had appeared, and, finding it open, entered in search of a cure for his leg. The Fairies told him to put ‘earth on the earth’ (Cuir an talamh air an talamh). He applied every kind of earth he could think of to the leg, but without effect. At the end of three months he went again to the hillock, and when entering put steel (cruaidh) in the door. He was told to go out, but he would not, nor would he withdraw the steel till told the proper remedy. At last he was told to apply the red clay of a small loch in the neighbourhood (criadh ruadh Lochan ni’h fhonhairle). He did so, and the leg was cured.