Even the Wicked

It is said that a priest of great learning came to Skye to bless the countryside. He blessed the villages, and the fields, and the hills one by one, until at last one wild hill by the sea was all that remained.

He was halfway up that hill when he heard a small voice. He looked about and saw nothing. But this is what it said:

"Please, Father, go back; for even the wicked must have some place to live."

He did not bless the hill that day. And in every place he blessed thereafter, he left some part untouched.

It is said that a modern man of great learning came to Skye and tramped about the countryside. He surveyed the villages, and the fields, and the hills one by one, until at last one wild hill by the sea was all that remained.

He was halfway up that hill when he heard a small voice. He looked about and saw nothing, and he chuckled loudly at the wind.

"I measured every inch of that hill," he told the villagers before he left, "and nothing lives there."

And so it was.

On the ferry back, he wondered how the war was going.

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