20 NETHER LOCHABER. 



And ever he saw that his maidens paid 



To the fairies their due on the Fairy Knowe, 

 Till the emerald sward was under the tread 



As velvet soft, and all aglow 

 With wild flowers, such as fairies cull, 



Weaving tteir-garlaiids-and wreaths for the dance when the 

 moon is full ! 



And lo ! at last he took him a wife, 



A comely and winsome dame, I trow, 

 Who shed a sunshine over his life, 



I And silvered the wrinkles upon his brow. 



'Twas well with the kine, and well with the dairy, 

 Nor dreaded he ought from witch or fairy ; 

 (He had one of his own she was hight Wee Mary!) 

 And often they went to the cot by the linn, 

 Where mavis and merle made merry din. 



The English reader will probably require to be informed that 

 oe the Gaelic ogha signifies a grandchild, while sliian (Gaelic 

 sithean) is a fairy knoll. To show what a .power fairies were at 

 one time in the land, and how wide-spread was the belief in them, 

 we have only to consider that there is perhaps not a hamlet or 

 township in the Highlands or Hebrides without its sliian or green 

 fairy knoll so called. Within half a mile of our own residence, for 

 example, there is a Sithean Beag and a Sithean Mor, a Greater and 

 Lesser Fairy Knoll ; there is, besides, a Glacan-t' Shithein, the Fairy 

 Knoll Glade, Tobar-an-f Shithein, the Fairy Knoll Well ; and a 

 deep chasm, through which a mountain torrent plunges darkling, 

 called Leum-an-t' Shithiche, the Fairy's Leap, with which there is 

 probably connected some very wonderful story, although we have 

 been unsuccessful hitherto in meeting with any one able or willing 

 to repeat it. The truth is, that a belief in fairies and fairyland, or 

 faery faint, no doubt, and ill-defined now-a-days still lingers ghost- 

 like, the shadow of its more substantial former living self, in our 

 straths and glens ; and, in accordance with the old superstition, it 

 is considered that the " good people " should only be spoken of on 



