Scottish Fairy and Folk Tales #224887

In his tour through the Islands, Campbell Of Isla — my authority for these particulars — visited one of the Old story-tellers in his home. The man was far advanced in years, and he lived in a rude hut on the shore at South Uist. Campbell describes the scene in detail. The hut consisted of one room only. The fireplace was the floor, and the chimney a hole above it, — so that the air was dense with peat-smoke, whilst the rafters were hung with streamers and festoons of soot. The Old man himself had the manner Of a prao tised narrator, — he would chuckle at certain places in his story, and, like an Ancient Mariner or like one of the Weird Sisters, would lay a withered finger on the listener's knee when he came to the terrifying parts. A little boy in a kilt stood at his knee, gazing in his wrinkled face, and devouring every word. Whilst the story lasted, three wayfarers dropped in, listened for a while, and then proceeded on their way. The daylight streamed down the chimney, lighting up a tract in the blue mist Of the peat-smoke and falling on the white hair and brown wrinkled face Of the Old man, as he sat On a low stool by the fire, and on the rest Of the dwelling, with its furniture of boxes and box-beds, dresser, dishes, gear of all sorts, — until at last it faded away, through shades of deepening brown, to the black darkness of the smoked roof and the corner where the peat was stored.