ON BAUGH, TIREE.
The tenants of this farm once got the benefit of seven years’ superintendence of their cattle from a Glaistig. There is a place on the farm, still called the Glaistig’s Bed, where she died by falling in the gap of a dyke. She was seldom seen, but was often heard. When driving the horses to pasture, she called out, “Get along, get along, thou son of a mare! Betake thee to yonder white bank!” and when the herd-boy was at his dinner, she was heard shouting to the cattle, “Horo va ho whish! Did ever any one hear of cattle without a herdsman but these?” She prepared food for herself by dragging a bunch of eels (of which there is an over-abundance in the small lochs on the farm) through the fire-place of a kiln used for preparing corn for the hand-mill. One night, when engaged at this work along withGoean(i.e.a perky little fellow), her son as is supposed, some one came behind and gave her a rap on the head with a stick. She and her son fled, and as they were going away, Goean was overheard saying to his mother, “Your old grey pate has been rapped, but see that you have the bunch of eels.”
In appearance, this Glaistig is said to have been a thin sallow-looking little object, with ringletted yellow hair that reached down to her heels. She had short legs, and in person was not unlike a dwarf.