The Fairy Churning

A woman, near Portree, in Skye, was coming home in the evening with her milk pails from the cattle fold, accompanied by a dog, which went trotting along before her. Suddenly the dog was observed to run to a green hillock, fall down on its knees, and hold its ear to the ground. The woman went up to see what the matter was, and on listening heard a woman inside the hillock churning milk, and singing at her work. At the end of every verse there was a chorus or exclamation of _hŭ_. The song was learnt by the listener, and became known as the “Song of the Hillock” (_Òran a chnuic_). The writer has not been able to fall in with a copy of it. The incident occurred three generations ago.