This dreary common was called Mucklestane-Moor, from a huge column of
unhewn granite, which raised its massy head on a knell near the centre
of the heath, perhaps to tell of the mighty dead who slept beneath, or
to preserve the memory of some bloody skirmish. The real cause of
its existence had, however, passed away; and tradition, which is as
frequently an inventor of fiction as a preserver of truth, had supplied
its place with a supplementary legend of her own, which now came full
upon Hobbie's memory. The ground about the pillar was strewed, or rather
encumbered, with many large fragments of stone of the same consistence
with the column, which, from their appearance as they lay scattered on
the waste, were popularly called the Grey Geese of Mucklestane-Moor. The
legend accounted for this name and appearance by the catastrophe of a
noted and most formidable witch who frequented these hills in former
days, causing the ewes to KEB, and the kine to cast their calves, and
performing all the feats of mischief ascribed to these evil beings. On
this moor she used to hold her revels with her sister hags; and rings
were still pointed out on which no grass nor heath ever grew, the turf
being, as it were, calcined by the scorching hoofs of their diabolical
partners.

Once upon a time this old hag is said to have crossed the moor, driving
before her a flock of geese, which she proposed to sell to advantage
at a neighbouring fair;--for it is well known that the fiend, however
liberal in imparting his powers of doing mischief, ungenerously leaves
his allies under the necessity of performing the meanest rustic labours
for subsistence. The day was far advanced, and her chance of obtaining
a good price depended on her being first at the market. But the geese,
which had hitherto preceded her in a pretty orderly manner, when they
came to this wide common, interspersed with marshes and pools of water,
scattered in every direction, to plunge into the element in which they