As so many people enjoyed the earlier post about the folk-lore collected by John Gregorson Campbell, I thought I'd share an extract from another of his books, "Superstitions of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland", which was published in 1900 a few years after his death. The little extract is about animals connected with the fairies:

"Everywhere in the Highlands, the red-deer are associated with the Fairies, and in some districts, as Lochaber and Mull, are said to be their only cattle. This association is sufficiently accounted for by the Fairy-like appearance and habits of the deer. In its native haunts, in remote and misty corries, where solitude has her most undisturbed abode, its beauty and grace of form, combined with its dislike to the presence of man, and even of the animals man has tamed, amply entitle it to the name of sith. Timid and easily startled by every appearance and noise, it is said to be unmoved by the presence of the Fairies. Popular belief also says that no deer is found dead with age, and that its horns, which it sheds every year, are not found, because hid by the Fairies. In their transformations it was peculiar for the Fairy women to assume the shape of the red-deer, and in that guise they were often encountered by the hunter. The elves have a particular dislike to those who kill the hinds, and, on finding them in lonely places, delight in throwing elf-bolts at them. When a dead deer is carried home at night the Fairies lay their weight on the bearer's back, till he feels as if he had a house for a burden. On a penknife, however, being stuck in the deer it becomes very light. There are occasional allusions to the Fairy women having herds of deer. The Carlin Wife of the Spotted Hill (Cailleach Beinne Bhric horò), who, according to a popular rhyme, was 'large and broad and tall,' had a herd which she would not allow to descend to the beach, and which 'loved the water-cresses by the fountain high in the hills better than the black weeds of the shore.' The old women of Ben-y-Ghloe, in Perthshire, and of Clibrich, in Sutherlandshire, seem to have been sith women of the same sort. 'I never,' said an old man (he was upwards of eighty years of age) in the Island of Mull, questioned some years ago on the subject, 'heard of the Fairies having cows, but I always heard that deer were their cattle.'

In other parts of the Highlands, as in Skye, though the Fairies are said to keep company with the deer, they have cows like those of men. When one of them appears among a herd of cattle the whole fold of them grows frantic, and follows lowing wildly. The strange animal disappears by entering a rock or knoll, and the others, unless intercepted, follow and are never more seen. The Fairy cow is dun (odhar) and 'hummel,' or hornless. In Skye, however. Fairy cattle are said to be speckled and red (crodh breac ruadh) and to be able to cross the sea. It is not on every place that they graze. There were not above ten such spots in all Skye. The field of Annat (achadh na h-annaid), in the Braes of Portree, is one. When the cattle came home at night from pasture, the following were the words used by the Fairy woman, standing on Dun Gerra-sheddar (Dùn Ghearra-seadar), near Portree, as she counted her charge:

'Crooked one, dun one,

Little wing grizzled,

Black cow, white cow,

Little bull black-head,

My milch kine have come home,

O dear! that the herdsman would come!'

HORSES.

In the Highland creed the Fairies but rarely have horses. In Perthshire they have been seen on a market day riding about on white horses; in Tiree two Fairy ladies were met riding on what seemed to be horses, but in reality were ragweeds; and in Skye the elves have galloped the farm horses at full speed and in dangerous places, sitting with their faces to the tails.

When horses neigh at night it is because they are ridden by the Fairies, and pressed too hard. The neigh is one of distress, and if the hearer exclaims aloud, 'Your saddle and pillion be upon you' (Do shrathair 's do phillein ort) the Fairies tumble to the ground.

DOGS.

The Fairy dog (cu sith) is as large as a two-year-old stirk, a dark green colour, with ears of deep green. It is of a lighter colour towards the feet. In some cases it has a long tail rolled up in a coil on its back, but others have the tail flat and plaited like the straw rug of a pack-saddle. Bran, the famous dog that Finmac Coul had, was of Elfin breed, and from the description given of it by popular tradition, decidedly parti-coloured :

'Bran had yellow feet.

Its two sides black and belly white;

Green was the back of the hunting hound,

Its two pointed ears blood-red.'

Bran had a venomous shoe (Bròg nimhe) with which it killed whatever living creature it struck, and when at full speed, and 'like its father' (dol ri athair) was seen as three dogs, intercepting the deer at three passes.

The Fairy hound was kept tied as a watch dog in the brugh, but at times accompanied the women on their expeditions or roamed about alone, making its lairs in clefts of the rocks. Its motion was silent and gliding, and its bark a rude clamour (blaodh). It went in a straight line, and its bay has been last heard, by those who listened for it, far out at sea. Its immense footmarks, as large as the spread of the human hand, have been found next day traced in the mud, in the snow, or on the sands. Others say it makes a noise like a horse galloping, and its bay is like that of another dog, only louder. There is a considerable interval between each bark, and at the third (it only barks thrice) the terror-struck hearer is overtaken and destroyed, unless he has by that time reached a place of safety.

Ordinary dogs have a mortal aversion to the Fairies, and give chase whenever the elves are sighted. On coming back, the hair is found to be scraped off their bodies, all except the ears, and they die soon after.

CATS.

Elfin cats (cait shith) are explained to be of a wild, not a domesticated, breed, to be as large as dogs, of a black colour, with a white spot on the breast, and to have arched backs and erect bristles (crotach agus mùrlach). Many maintain these wild cats have no connection with the Fairies, but are witches in disguise."