FOLK-LORE FROM UNST. 



CHAPTER II. 



Having been always keenly interested in the Trows 

 (or Drows), of whom numerous stories are extant, I 

 made friends with the husband of a witch, hoping that 

 he would be able to tell me something of their history. 

 He was employed in building a boat at the time, I 

 remember ; and I used to seat myself for hours beside 

 his simmering tar-kettle plying him with questions 

 which he answered readily enough. I never dared to 

 conjecture what his wife would have said, or done, if 

 she had known that the secrets of her profession were 

 being poured into the ears of the " doctor's bairn." 

 The following imperfect account of the Trows is chiefly 

 collected from the old boat-builder's endless yarns. 



TROWS. 



This interesting race of supernatural beings is closely 

 allied to the Scandinavian Trolls, but has some very 

 distinctive characteristics of its own. The Trow is not 

 such a mischief-making sprite as the Troll, is more 

 human-like in some respects, and his nature seems 

 cast in a morbid, melancholy mould. We cease to 

 wonder that it should be so when we learn that there 

 are no female Trows. Fancy a world peopled by men 

 alone! To be sure the Turk's heaven is such, but 

 then he admits the Houris. Now the Trows do not 

 have even pretty " puffs of gas " to enliven their 

 Paradise. They only marry human wives, and as 

 soon as the baby Trow is born the hapless young 



