Page:Shetland Folk-Lore - Spence - 1899.pdf/155

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Shetland Folk-Lore

were sons are each solicited for an offering of three articles of food, to be used during the convalescence of the patient who has been thus snatched from the power of the trows. Meg lived to a good old age, and often related the story of her recovery to the writer.

The Wart o' Cleat in Whalsay was inhabited by trows, and many fair damsels were lured to this fairy abode, where they lived and brought forth children, who were changed into a sort of semi-spiritual existence. Consequently the service of skilled women of the daughters of men was in frequent demand.

Once it happened that the trows of Cleat sent a messenger to the mainland to fetch a howdie who dwelt in Lunna Ness; but the woman delayed to cross the Sound owing to the raging of the sea. At last, however, she consented to follow her guide, and setting out, bearing two kits of faavers (dainty meats) for the

patient, they reached the eastern side of

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