Faery cattle can come in a couple of forms, as we shall see and they’re a subject I’ve looked at in several previous posts. Here, a few Highland Scottish examples raise interesting questions about faery temperament.
The standard faery cow (crodh sith) of the Highlands forms the dairy herds of the sith folk. They will graze during daytime on notably lush pastures on islands and the mainland, but would seem to be shut up in their byres overnight by their owners- and these shelters are underwater (just as the Welsh cattle of the gwragedd annwn in Wales emerge from lakes). An example of such beasts comes from the duns of Bracadale on Skye. These are ancient, fortified sites which are also faery dwellings. When some local labourers tried to take stones from Dun Taimh in order to build a new cattle shed for Murdo MacLeod, they were prevented by him because he understood the disaster that could befall the community as a result of such an grievous insult to the faeries. It would have been very likely that plague would have struck down and killed all his cows within his newly built byre- and very probably those of his neighbours too. In recognition of his respect and wisdom, the faeries met with Murdo to thank him and to reward him with the gift of a herd of their white cattle- which emerged from the sea and filled his new completed shed.
Across Britain, there are also accounts of magically productive cows that appear during times of famine. Sent by the faeries (often the faery queen), these provide limitless milk for people- until the gift is abused in some way. Previously, I’ve given examples from England and Wales, but two Scottish ones are of especial interest. At Callanish on Lewis, one such magic cow came out of the waves at a time of need and entered the famous stone circle, where people were able to fill pails with its milk and so stave off starvation. However, as always happens, a local witch decided to milk the cow into a sieve. As her container never filled, she managed to exhaust the cow’s ‘never-ending’ supply and- insulted by this treatment of their gift- the faeries called the animal back below the waves. The placing of this story within a megalithic circle is notable because an identical incident is described at Mitchell’s Fold circle in Shropshire, on the English-Welsh border. That the cows made themselves available within these monuments underlines the close association seen between the faery folk and the ancient sites of the land (as is the case asl well with the brochs and duns of Skye, noted above).
A second magical cow appeared at the spot known as the Quiraing on Skye. Each summer, a white cow would appear on the plateau known as the Table and the most comely virgin would be chosen locally to milk it, supplying the community with the sweetest milk they ever tasted. One year, a visiting tinker assaulted the dairymaid and then stole her clothes and left her for dead. Dressed in her garments and a wig, he went to the Table to milk the cow, but it wasn’t tricked by his disguise: it used its horns to toss him into nearby Staffin Bay, where he drowned, and then the cow vanished, once again outraged by this abuse of supernatural generosity. The girl recovered, but the cow was never seen again. This incident seems to encompass several levels of meaning: the violent rape of the girl may be an offence of the faery sense of propriety- as I described in my previous post– and reason alone for the faeries to impose sanctions. Secondly, though, I’ve noted before how men dressed in women’s clothes is, for some reason, highly objectionable to the fae. Perhaps they are aggrieved because they see it as an insult to their intelligence- they can see straight through the trick; may be it in some manner violates their notions of the correct order of things. We can’t know, but it always displeases them, that’s for sure.
British Fairies 
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