oiteag sluaigh

When the sìth leave home in companies, the travel in eddies of wind. The eddy is known as "the people's puff of wind" (oiteag sluaigh) and its motion "traveling on tall grass stems" (falbh air chuiseagan treòraich). In these eddies people going about on a journey at night have been lifted up, and spent the night rushing through the sky, although others have been carried in elfin eddies in daylight from one island to another. The whirlwind that raises the dust on roads is also called "a furl o' fairies' ween."

References

Source

  • Campbell, J.G. (1900). Superstitions of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. Glascow: James MacLehose and Sons, p. 25.