I obtained some additional evidence at first hand published in Longman's Magazine.
{239b} The sources for this tale are two Gaelic accounts, one of which is printed in the Gael, vol.vi., p.

142, and the other in the Glenbard Collection of Gaelic Poetry, by the Rev.A.Maclean Sinclair, p.

297 ff.

The former was communicated by Mr.D.C.Macpherson from local tradition; the latter was obtained from a tailor, a native of Lochaber, who emigrated to Canada when about thirty years of age.
When the story was taken down from his lips in 1885, he was over eighty years old, and died only a few months later.
{246} John Arnason, in his Icelandic Folklore and Fairy Tales (vol.
i., p.

309), gives the account of this as written by the Sheriff Hans Wium in a letter to Bishop Haldorr Brynjolfsson in the autumn of 1750.
{249} Huld, part 3, p.