Note 274 — Chapter XVI

See Note 2 H to "The Lady of the Lake." This May Mollach is well known in the legendary history of the Grants. Scott again refers to her in his Introduction to "The Monastery," where he asserts that she "condescended to mingle in ordinary sports, and even to direct the Chief how to play at draughts." With this may be compared Thorpe's statement ("Northern Mythology," I., 145) that the Scandinavian dwarfs, who were also hairy, used to "play at tables." There is also a story in the Island of Skye of a "brownie" who watched over and instructed one of the players in a game of "tables." (See Defoe's "Duncan Campbell," London, 1856, p. 106.) "Tables" seems to have been a comprehensive name for draughts, chess, and other games played on a chess-board; and these remarks recall the set of chessmen, carved out of walrus tusk, already referred to as having been found in the Hebrides in 1826, and of which eleven are in the Museum of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. "Chess-playing was one of the favourite amusements of the Irish chieftains," says O'Donovan ("Book of Rights," Dublin, 1847, p. lxi), and he gives illustrations of an Irish chess-man, which he states is exactly similar, "as well in style as in material," to the Hebridean specimens just mentioned.