Transcribed from the 1889 W. W. Gibbings edition ,email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
W. W. GIBBINGS
18 BURY ST., LONDON, W.C.
1889
Contents:
Prefatory Note
Canobie Dick and Thomas of Ercildoun.
Coinnach Oer.
Elphin Irving.
The Ghosts of Craig-Aulnaic.
The Doomed Rider.
Whippety Stourie.
The Weird of the Three Arrows.
The Laird of Balmachie’s Wife.
Michael Scott.
The Minister and the Fairy.
The Fisherman and the Merman.
The Laird O’ Co’.
Ewen of the Little Head.
Jock and his Mother.
Saint Columba.
The Mermaid Wife.
The Fiddler and the Bogle of Bogandoran.
Thomas the Rhymer.
Fairy Friends.
The Seal-Catcher’s Adventure.
The Fairies of Merlin’s Craig.
Rory Macgillivray.
The Haunted Ships.
The Brownie.
Mauns’ Stane.
“Horse and Hattock.”
Secret Commonwealth.
The Fairy Boy of Leith.
The Dracæ.
Lord Tarbat’s Relations.
The Bogle.
Daoine Shie, or the Men of Peace.
The Death “Bree.”
The distinctive features of Scotch Folk-lore are such as might havebeen expected from a consideration of the characteristics of Scotchscenery. The rugged grandeur of the mountain, the solemn influenceof the widespreading moor, the dark face of the deep mountain loch,the babbling of the little stream, seem all to be reflected in the populartales and superstitions. The acquaintance with nature in a severe,grand, and somewhat terrible form must necessarily have its effect onthe human mind, and the Scotch mind and character bear the impress oftheir natural surroundings. The fairies, the brownies, the boglesof Scotland are the same beings as those with whom the Irish have peopledthe hills, the nooks, and the streams of their land, yet how different,how distinguished from their counterparts, how clothed, as it were,in the national dress!
Now it chanced many years since that there lived on the Borders ajolly rattling horse-cowper, who was remarkable for a reckless and fearlesstemper, which made him much admired and a little dreaded amongst hisneighbours. One moonlight night, as he rode over Bowden Moor,on the west side of the Eildon Hills, the scene of Thomas the Rhymer’sprophecies, and often mentioned in his history, having a brace of horsesalong with him, which he had not been able to dispose of, he met a manof venerable appearance and singularly antique dress, who, to his greatsurprise, asked the price of his horses, and began to chaffer with himon the subject. To Canobie Dick, for so shall we call our Borderdealer, a chap was a chap, and he would have sold a horse to the devilhimself, without minding his cloven hoof, and would have probably cheatedOld Nick into the bargain. The stranger paid the price they agreedon, and all that puzzled Dick in the transaction was, that the goldwhich he received was p. 2inunicorns, bonnet-pieces, and other ancient coins, which would have beeninvaluable to collectors, but were rather troublesome in modern currency. It was gold, however, and therefore Dick contrived to get better valuefor the coin than he perhaps gave to his customer. By the commandof so good a merchant, he brought horses to the same spot more thanonce; the purchaser only stipulating that he should always come by nightand alone. I do not know whether it was from mere curiosity, orwhether some hope of gain mixed with it, but after Dick had sold severalhorses in this way, he began t