This story is taken from Folk tales and fairy lore in Gaelic and English by James Macdougall and George Calder (1910– pages 280-283). It has several interesting features, which I’ll discuss after the tale has been told.
“Some time during the nineteenth century, a man of the clan MacKenzie was a tenant at Onich, in Nether Lochaber, in Argyllshire. He found that his cattle began to get out of their fold at night and to trespass in the corn field, where they did much damage. No one knew how the fold kept being broken down night after night’ one thing only was certain, and that was that neither the neighbours nor the cattle themselves were to blame.
At last MacKenzie suspected that the local faeries were involved and for that reason he sent word to his brother, the One-eyed Ferryman, to come and watch the fold with him one night, to see whether or not he was right in his conjecture. The brother was asked to help because he had the second sight.
The Ferryman arrived, and as soon as it was dark, they penned up the cows inside the fold and secured it as well as they could. Then they sat down nearby and waited to see what would happen. After a good part of the night had passed, they thought they heard the stakes being broken on the farther side of the fold. The One-eyed Ferryman got up immediately and headed in the direction from which the sound came. He had gone only a short distance when he saw a dun-polled cow throwing the stakes out of their place with her head and then going into the fold, where she got cow after cow up on their feet, and whence she drove them all through the gap she’d made into the corn field.
The Ferryman followed the dun-polled cow until she arrived at the Fairy Knoll of Derry MacBrandy. The knoll opened up before her, and she entered. The Ferryman hastened after her as far as the door, and to keep it open, drove his knife into one of the jambs. He was then able to see the inside of the Fairy
Knoll; it was lit up with a brilliant light, and on the middle of the floor was a large fire with an iron cauldron hanging over it; around the fire was a circle of big old grey-haired men resting on their
elbows.
The farmer now came to the door of the Fairy Knoll but saw nothing until he placed his foot on that of the One-eyed Ferryman. But as soon as he did that, the Fairy Knoll opened for him and he saw everything inside. This put him in such great fear that he begged the Ferryman to come away without delay. The Ferryman paid him no attention whatever. Instead, he called in a loud voice to the faeries, warning that if their dun-polled cow should ever again trouble Onich fold, he would take out everything inside the knoll and throw it out on Rudha na h-Oitire. Having said this he drew his knife out of the door jamb, and
straight away the door shut against him and his brother.
After that they returned home; and from that night the dun cow of Derry MacBrandy has never been seen
in an Onich fold.”
The one-eyed ferryman is an intriguing character, because it appears that his second sight is related to his disability. The text doesn’t spell this out, but the simple fact that his loss of an eye is mentioned suggests to me that it’s crucial. Now, we’ve seen before how second sight can be obtained- it can be acquired by accident from faery ointment, it can be a gift from the faeries, it can be transferred by touch (as happens in this story) or a person may be born with it. The power can be taken away as well, especially if the faeries think that it’s acquisition was ‘fraudulent’ or against their wishes. This generally happens in cases where a midwife or wet nurse has been charged to anoint a faery new-born with the special ointment and- despite specific injunctions to the contrary- she then touches her own eye with some of the salve. The punishment for this is nearly always blinding: whether by blowing in the eyes, a touch or some more violent injury. This being so, I can’t help wondering if the ferryman has been through such an experience and yet has retained the power in one eye- or even if he ‘bought’ the second sight at the expense of one of his eyes.
I need hardly say much about the cow, given my several postings on the subject of faery cattle. The dun-polled cow is either one of the crodh sith, or is a faery in disguise. I think we can assume that the faeries are using the beast to lure away the human herd into the corn so as to fatten them up, either because they are taking the cows’ milk or because their plan is to steal and slaughter one (or more) of the cattle.
As for the visit to the knoll, what we have here is a fairly typical description of a tulman or tolman, a small hillock inhabited by the sith folk. In Popular Tales of the West Highlands, J. F. Campbell tells the story of a woman who tries to tether some cattle on a mound during a storm. As she’s hammering in a metal peg, a faery woman looks out and complains “What business have you, troubling this tulman in which I make my dwelling?” The location is not at all unusual- nor, for that matter, is the involvement of an iron item. In the Campbell incident, the faery’s grievance is as much that a hole is being made in the roof during a downpour, and is interfering with her cooking pot hanging over the fire (and note that she seems to have her own iron cauldron- just like the faeries at Derry MacBrandy). In the account of the Ferryman, though, the steel knife itself is of powerful significance: once it’s stuck in the doorway, the faeries can’t move it and can’t close their door because of their known aversion to human iron. This is key in this particular confrontation, but it’ll be clear that faery iron, made and possessed by faeries, apparently doesn’t cause the same problems…
Finally, the sith folk described are “big old grey-haired men;” whatever our preconceptions about small faeries, beings who are often said to have the stature of children, these particular individuals sound like they’d be a match for the two human males if they wanted a fist fight. Even so, threats and a bit of counter-magic seem to be sufficient to prevail- then and thereafter. Lastly, just for clarity, the Ferryman says he’ll take all their belongings and chuck them out on Rudha na h-Oitire; this is a narrow point of land that juts out into Loch na Droma Buidhe, on the east side of An Fhaoiliun (on the south side of the mouth of Loch Sunart). The English meaning of the name is ‘Point of the Sand Bank.’ It’s not an especially significant location, other than the fact that it’s low lying and exposed- and not a good place to leave all your furnishings…
British Fairies 