THE OTTER CHARMS. 119 



assumes his proper shape, and marries the always virtuous and 

 beautiful, though frequently humble, heroine of the tale. In 

 the Hebrides to this day the otter is looked upon with some 

 degree of superstitious reverence, and a bit of otter skin worn 

 by way of charm is regarded as an antidote against infection in 

 fever and small-pox, a preservative from death by drowning, and 

 of singular efficacy in bringing the labours of parturition to a 

 happy issue. A mole on a person's skin, whatever its place or 

 proportions, is in the Hebrides never reckoned a deformity. It 

 is regarded rather as a " beauty spot " than otherwise, and believed 

 to betoken a long life and good luck to the fortunate possessor. 

 In the West Highlands and Hebrides such a mark on the skin 

 is called a ball-dobhrain, an otter mark or otter spot, and is no 

 more accounted a blemish or deformity than was the mole on 

 the right lip of Dulcinea del Toboso by Don Quixote, though 

 it looked " like a whisker, and had seven or eight red hairs in it 

 above a span long ! " In some places a piece of otter skin placed 

 on the head under a woman's coif, and worn inside a man's 

 blue bonnet, is supposed to relieve the headache and prevent 

 baldness, while gentle friction along the affected part with the 

 furry side of a bit of otter skin is esteemed of sovereign efficacy in 

 erysipelas or " rose." The following is a somewhat free rendering 

 from the Gaelic of a fable occurring in an old Sgeulachd, with 

 which many of our west coast readers at least must be acquainted. 

 The moral is obvious. 



THE OTTER AND Fox. 

 4 



The otter had caught in the pool below 

 A silvery salmon so full of roe, 

 And clambering bore it over the rocks, 



i When who should he meet but his cousin the fox. 



" Friend," quoth the wily fox, ' pray go 

 And bring me a fish from the pool below 

 I 've not tasted fish for a year or mo'. 



