Shetland Folk-Lore
possessed of like passions as we are. They married and were given in marriage. They indulged their appetites in the good things of this life even as we do. They even required the services of the children of men for fiddlers, howdies, gulyas, and nurses, and there are alive to this day persons whose forebears were said to be so employed.
They, however, were not always friendly with men. They sometimes set covetous eyes on sheep and cattle, and on women and children. When they wished to take a nice mert (fat cow), they did not remove the animal to their own subterranean abodes, leaving no trace above ground; but the cow, to all appearance, was still in the possession of its owner, pining away under some unknown disease, and was said to be “elf-shot.”
A crofter in a certain parish had a cow supposed to be “hurt frae da grund,” and
an old woman called Maron o' Nort'-a-Voe—a famous witch doctor—was sent for.
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