Away with the fairies on Muck

The Muck MacDonalds - the Sandys - were great storytellers and you’d come out of their house at night afraid of meeting a bócan (bogie) lurking behind a rock.

“One of the stories the Sandys were famous for was the time they had been away with the fairies. The story was that the four of the boys had been away all day playing on the shore. Evening came, and none of them were home for their tea, so a search party was sent out to look for them. They were finally found at the edge of the shore, as in a trance.

"They said they had been away in a fairy boat and the fairies had a small white dog with them. They gave them biscuits to eat that made them small enough to go on the boat and they’d been away with them and now they were back on the shore where the fairies had left them!

"The story went far and wide until one day, a lady from the Edinburgh Society for Psychic Research came to interview them, and she heard the same story from each of them. The four Sandys never diverted from their tale, although as they grew older, the biscuits and the dog tended to get smaller and smaller the more drams they had! They had been away with the fairies and that was that.”

As told by Catriona White, farmer

More information on visiting the area can be found here.