The Highland monthly - National Library of Scotland

738
The Highland Monthly,
the natives of neighbouring townships, and to approach it
at night would be considered a very daring act indeed. It
lies in the centre of a large tract of broken moorland, and
its dark water gleams in the moonlight like the alluring
Will-o'-the-Wisp. The scream of the curlew, and the wild
cry of the heron, are the only signs of life that break the
silence and loneliness of this dreary marsh. Tall grasses,
reeds, and flags grow in abundance on the shores of the
loch, and the wind blowing through these causes a moaning
sound like the sighs of the unblest. A more fitting locality
for the scene of a tragic event cannot be imagined. The
legend as told to me by Rob Gordon is as follows :
Many years ago when in the Highlands belief in the
supernatural was universal, and superstition held despotic
sway, two young women from a neighbouring township
had early in the summer driven their cattle to the moors
and taken up their abode in a shieling erected on a grassy
slope some distance from the loch. They were to pass
several months in this mountain hut, during which they
were to be busily engaged in all kinds of dairy work, such
as driving the cows to rich pastures in the morning and
back to the shieling again at night, feeding the calves, and
making butter and cheese. About once a week one of
them went home for a supply of food, and they were often
visited by young men from the township, who occasionally
passed several days in the shieling before returning home.
Various other huts of a similar kind and for a like purpose
were scattered here and there over the moor at a certain
distance from each other, so as to give the cattle as much
ground to roam over as possible. Thus the proximity of
the shielings to one another gave a feeling of security to
their inhabitants, and was the means of dispelling any
fears that would be likely to arise from their firm belief in
the existence of uncanny beings. In this manner the
summer months passed.
One moonlight night towards the end of August, these
two girls, whose names were Morag Cameron and Molly
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