viii PREFACE. 



interfered, as it was almost certain to interfere, with their prima 

 cura directness of phrase and freshness of local colouring. 



In a volume dealing so largely with the Folk-Lore of the West 

 Highlands and Hebrides, there are necessarily many Gaelic rhymes 

 and phrases which at the first blink may tend to startle and repel 

 the southern reader. These Gaelic quotations, however, the 

 Author has taken care to translate into fairly equivalent English, 

 so that even in this regard it is to be hoped the volume may 

 prove equally acceptable to the Saxon, who is ignorant of the 

 language of the mountains, as to the Celt, who knows and loves 

 it as his mother tongue. 



NETHER LOCHABEK, 

 June 1883. 



