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THE GOLD OF FAIRNILEE. 255 |
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at home then, instead of buying it from shops; and the old nurse was a great woman for spinning.
She was a great woman for stories, too, and believed in fairies, and " bogles," as she called them. Had not her own cousin, Andrew Tarn-son, passed the Cauldshiels Loch one New Year morning ? And had he not heard a dreadful roaring, as if all the cattle on Faldonside Hill were routing at once ? And then did he not see a great black beast roll down the hillside, like a black ball, and run into the loch, which grew white with foam, and the waves leaped up the banks like a tide rising ? What could that be except the kelpie that lives in Cauldshiels Loch, and is just a muckle big water bull ? " And what for should there no be water kye, if there 's land kye ? "
Randal and Jean thought it was very likely there were " kye," or cattle, in the water. And some Highland people think so still, and believe they have seen the great kelpie come roaring out of the lake; or Shellycoat, whose skin is all crusted like a rock with shells, sitting beside the sea.
The old nurse had other tales, that nobody believes any longer, about Brownies. A Brownie was a very useful creature to have in a house. He was a kind of fairy-man, and he came out in the dark, when everybody had gone to bed, just as mice pop out at night. |
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