This book is a fabulous treasury of legend and wonder; tales of monsters who dwell in lakes, of small people who trap humans in earthen mounds where time stands still; of dark, shape-shifting spirits whose cloak of human form is betrayed by the sand and shells which fall from their hair.
In the absence of a written tradition, for generations of Skianachs, these tales, handed down orally, contained the very warp and weft of Hebridean history. They take us far beyond Christian times, to the edge of the Iron Age, and interweave with threads from the wider Atlantic tradition of Gaelic heroic myth and legend.
Otta Swire was born in 1898 and spent many happy childhood holidays in Skye, where she became captivated by the island's rich history of folklore and began recording them in notebooks. She had these formally published in 1949, after she had moved to Skye to live permanently. She died in 1973.
Formerly a lecturer in Celtic in Glasgow and Edinburgh universities, Ronald Black is Gaelic Editor of The Scotsman. In addition to numerous academic articles he is the author or editor of Mac Mhaighstir Alasdair: The Ardnamurchan Years, An Tuil: Anthology of 20th Century Scottish Gaelic Verse, An Lasair: Anthology of 18th Century Scottish Gaelic Verse and Eilein na h-Òige: The Poems of Fr Allan McDonald.
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