![[…] were in the birch-woods that still cluster round the southern end of that loch and extend up the sides of the high ridge to the west. There are grassy glades, dense thickets, and rocky fastnesses in these woods that look just the very place for fairies. Loch a Druing is on the north point, about two miles from the present Rudha Reidh lighthouse. The Gille Dubh was so named fromthe black colour of his hair. His dress, if dress it could be called, was merely leaves of trees and green moss. He was seen by very many people and on many occasions during a period of more than forty years in the latter half of the eighteenth century. He was, in fact, well known to the people, and was generally regarded as a beneficent fairy. He never spoke to anyone except to a little girl named Jessie Macrae, whose home was at Loch a Druing. She was lost in the woods one summer night. The Gille Dubh came to her, treated her with great kindness, and took her safely home again next morning. When Jessie grew up she became the wife of John Mackenzie, tenant of Loch a Druing farm, and grandfather of the famous John Mackenzie who collected and edited the Beauties of Gaelic Poetry.
It was after this that Sir Hector Mackenzie of Gairloch invited Sir George Mackenzie of Coul, Mackenzie of Dundonnell, Mackenzie of Letterewe, and Mackenzie of Kernsary, to join him in an expedition to repress the Gille Dubh. These five lairds repaired to Loch a Druing armed with guns, with which they hoped to shoot the fairy. Most of them wore the Highland dress, with dirks at their side. They were hospitably entertained by John Mackenzie, the tenant. An ample supper was […]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:vmd2oqboco524fhpqdu7pnbn/bafkreihwmvmewqjrjshxdng36ffswfj43o734uo7lo4lpji5qzjyhj6dqq)
[…] were in the birch-woods that still cluster round the southern end of that loch and extend up the sides of the high ridge to the west. There are grassy glades, dense thickets, and rocky fastnesses in these woods that look just the very place for fairies. Loch a Druing is on the north point, about two miles from the present Rudha Reidh lighthouse. The Gille Dubh was so named fromthe black colour of his hair. His dress, if dress it could be called, was merely leaves of trees and green moss. He was seen by very many people and on many occasions during a period of more than forty years in the latter half of the eighteenth century. He was, in fact, well known to the people, and was generally regarded as a beneficent fairy. He never spoke to anyone except to a little girl named Jessie Macrae, whose home was at Loch a Druing. She was lost in the woods one summer night. The Gille Dubh came to her, treated her with great kindness, and took her safely home again next morning. When Jessie grew up she became the wife of John Mackenzie, tenant of Loch a Druing farm, and grandfather of the famous John Mackenzie who collected and edited the Beauties of Gaelic Poetry.
It was after this that Sir Hector Mackenzie of Gairloch invited Sir George Mackenzie of Coul, Mackenzie of Dundonnell, Mackenzie of Letterewe, and Mackenzie of Kernsary, to join him in an expedition to repress the Gille Dubh. These five lairds repaired to Loch a Druing armed with guns, with which they hoped to shoot the fairy. Most of them wore the Highland dress, with dirks at their side. They were hospitably entertained by John Mackenzie, the tenant. An ample supper was […]
![[…] served in the house. It included both beef and mutton, and they had to use their dirks for knives and forks, as such things were very uncommon in Gairloch in those days. They spent the night at Loch a Druing, and slept in John Mackenzie's barn, where couches of heather were prepared for them. They went all through the woods, but they saw nothing of the Gille Dubh!
The existence of water-kelpies in Gairloch, if perhaps not universally credited in the present generation, was accepted as an undoubted fact in the last. The story of the celebrated water-kelpie-it was sometimes spoken of as the Each Uisge, and at other times as the Tarbh Oire-of the Greenstone Point is very well known in Gairloch. The proceedings for the extermination of this wonderful creature formed a welcome topic even for the Punch of the period. The creature is spoken of by the natives sometimes as " The Beast." He lives, or did live in the fifties, in the depth of a loch, called after him Loch na Beiste, or Loch of the Beast, which is about half-way between Udrigil House and the village of Mellan Udrigil.
Mr. Bankes, the then proprietor of the estate on which this loch is situated, was pressed by his tenants to take measures to put an end to the beast, and at length was prevailed upon to take action. Sandy Macleod, an elder of the Free Church, was returning to Mellan Udrigil from the Aultbea church on Sunday in company with two other persons, one of whom was a sister (still living at Mellan Udrigil in 1886) of the well-known John Mackenzie of the Beauties, when they actually saw the "Beast" itself. It looked something like a big boat […]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:vmd2oqboco524fhpqdu7pnbn/bafkreicdkq2rfvj3djewv74ljveye75rpa5nxudopdljqkwtlqflifkx74)
[…] served in the house. It included both beef and mutton, and they had to use their dirks for knives and forks, as such things were very uncommon in Gairloch in those days. They spent the night at Loch a Druing, and slept in John Mackenzie's barn, where couches of heather were prepared for them. They went all through the woods, but they saw nothing of the Gille Dubh!
The existence of water-kelpies in Gairloch, if perhaps not universally credited in the present generation, was accepted as an undoubted fact in the last. The story of the celebrated water-kelpie-it was sometimes spoken of as the Each Uisge, and at other times as the Tarbh Oire-of the Greenstone Point is very well known in Gairloch. The proceedings for the extermination of this wonderful creature formed a welcome topic even for the Punch of the period. The creature is spoken of by the natives sometimes as " The Beast." He lives, or did live in the fifties, in the depth of a loch, called after him Loch na Beiste, or Loch of the Beast, which is about half-way between Udrigil House and the village of Mellan Udrigil.
Mr. Bankes, the then proprietor of the estate on which this loch is situated, was pressed by his tenants to take measures to put an end to the beast, and at length was prevailed upon to take action. Sandy Macleod, an elder of the Free Church, was returning to Mellan Udrigil from the Aultbea church on Sunday in company with two other persons, one of whom was a sister (still living at Mellan Udrigil in 1886) of the well-known John Mackenzie of the Beauties, when they actually saw the "Beast" itself. It looked something like a big boat […]
The Gille Dubh is a woodland fairy from around Gairloch in NW Scotland. Although shy, he can be helpful, especially to lost children – so naturally a bunch of #C18th landlords decided to try to shoot him
—Osgood Mackenzie, 100 Years in the Highlands
#FolkloreThursday
archive.org/details/hund...
