Luideag, “The Rag”

At a small loch between Broadford and Sleat, in Skye, called “The Lakelet of Black Trout” (_Lochan nan dubh bhreac_), thirty or forty years ago, the figure of a young woman with a coat about her head was commonly to be seen at night in the neighbourhood of and on the public road that passes that way. She went by the name _Luideag_, _i.e._ the Rag, or slovenly female. She did not answer when spoken to, and disappeared as silently and mysteriously as she made her appearance. The place is lonely and far from houses, and there was no conceivable reason why any one, much less a female, should nightly frequent it. An excise-man passing the way once spoke to _Luideag_, first in English and then in Gaelic, but she answered not a word. A man was found lying dead on the road at the place, and she never appeared afterwards.