DUINE SÌTH, MAN OF PEACE.
A wright in the island of Mull, on his way home in the evening from work, got enveloped in a mist. He heard some one coming towards him whistling. He entered into talk with the stranger, and was told, a legacy would be left him, and would continue in the line of his direct descendants to the third generation. His grandson is unmarried, and well advanced in years; to the credit of the whistler’s prophecy.
Davie, a south country ploughman, or grieve, was brought to Tiree, about the beginning of the present century, by the then Chamberlain or ‘Baillie’ of the Island. Ploughing one day on Crossapol farm, he saw before him in the furrow a very little man. Not understanding that the diminutive creature was a Fairy, Davie cried out in broken Gaelic, “What little man are you? Get out of that.”
A former gardener in Tìr Mhine (Meal Land) in Glenorchy, a good deal given to drinking, was crossing Loch Awe one night in a boat alone. He saw a little man sitting in the stern of the boat, and spoke to him several times but received no answer. He at last struck at the little man, and himself tumbled overboard. Now, asked the old woman, who told this story, what could the little man be, but a brughadair (i.e. one that came from the Fairy dwelling, an Elf)? To the reader the case will appear one of simple hallucination produced by ardent spirits, but it is of interest as shewing the interpretation put upon it under a belief in the Fairies.