Now there was a well on the hillside, and she was always
to cover up the well with a big stone before the sun set. But one day
she had been working in the valley and she was weary, and she sat down by
the path on her way home and fell asleep. And the sun had gone down
before she reached the well, and in the night the water broke out and
filled all the plain, and what was land is now water." This, then, was
the origin of Loch Awe. It is a little like the Australian account of
the Deluge. That calamity was produced by a man's showing a woman the
mystic turndun, a native sacred toy. Instantly water broke out of the
earth and drowned everybody.
This is merely a local legend, such as boatmen are expected to know. As
the green trout utterly declined to rise, I tried the boatman with the
Irish story of why the Gruagach Gaire left off laughing, and all about
the hare that came and defiled his table, as recited by Mr. Curtin in his
"Irish Legends" (Sampson, Low, & Co.). The boatman did not know this
fable, but he did know of a red deer that came and spoke to a gentleman.
This was a story from the Macpherson country. I give it first in the
boatman's words, and then we shall discuss the history of the legend as
known to Sir Walter Scott and James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd.
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