Page:Shetland Folk-Lore - Spence - 1899.pdf/153

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Shetland Folk-Lore

are given in one dose all alive and kicking. Maron has now done her duty; the cow is delivered from the power of the trows. She leaves instructions that the ashes of the taand and the tar that remain in the pot be made into three pills, and these are to be given to the cow blöd fastin on three mornings.

The writer can remember a woman who claimed to have been taken by the trows, but who was mercifully delivered from their power by the skill of a famous witch-doctor.

It happened in this wise. When the woman, whose name was Meg, was nine months old, her mother left the child asleep in the cradle, and went into the byre to milk a cow. While thus engaged, she heard the child utter a terrible scream, and rushing into the house she found the bairn struggling and crying in a most excited manner. In vain she tried to soothe the child, in vain she sang sweet lullaby. Poor Meg cries and will not be

comforted. She gets blue in the face and

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