It was on the hill that Donald first met with the bocan, but he soon came to closer quarters, and haunted the…
- Date of account
- Published 1897
- Source
- The Book of Dreams and Ghosts
- Reference
- The Book of Dreams and Ghosts · selected passage 196
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English
- Record updated
- 2026-08-24
Record summary
It was on the hill that Donald first met with the bocan, but he soon came to closer quarters, and haunted the house in a most annoying fashion
Published source text
Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.
Source passage
Source text · mention onlyIt was on the hill that Donald first met with the bocan, but he soon came to closer quarters, and haunted the house in a most annoying fashion. He injured the members of the household, and destroyed all the food, being especially given to dirtying the butter (a thing quite superfluous, according to Captain Burt's description of Highland butter). On one occasion a certain Ronald of Aberardair was a guest in Donald's house, and Donald's wife said, "Though I put butter on the table for you tonight, it will just be dirtied". "I will go with you to the butter-keg," said Ronald, "with my dirk in my hand, and hold my bonnet over the keg, and he will not dirty it this night." So the two went together to fetch the butter, but it was dirtied just as usual.
Historical context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyThis material belongs to a folklore tradition. Story type, collector, community, transmission and literary editing matter when comparing it with other sources.
Modern context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyLattice compares motifs and reported features without assuming that a traditional being is a biological species or that similar stories document one external cause.
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