THERE is a deep dub, or pool, on Ballacoan stream, which the children of Laxey call Nikkesen's. It is the home of Nyker, the Water Goblin. It has no bottom; and brambles and ferns are growing round it, and fir trees and hazels are hiding it from sight. No child, no grown-up person even, will go near it after dark.
A great many years ago a beautiful girl living at Ballaquine was sent to look for the calves, which had gone astray. She had got as far as Nikkesen's, when she took a notion that she heard the calves over the river in Johnny Baldoon's nuts. At once she began to call to them:
'Kebeg! Kebeg! Kebeg!' so loud that you could hear her at Chibber Pherick, Patrick's Well. The people could hear her calling quite plainly, but, behold, a great mist came and rolled down the valley, and shut it from sight. The people on one side of the valley could hear her voice yet calling through the mist:
'Kebeg! Kebeg! Kebeg!'
Then came a little sweet voice through the mist and the trees in answer:
'Kebeg's here! Kebeg's here!'
And she cried:
'I'm comin'! I'm comin'!'
And that was all.
The Fairies who live in Nikkesen's had pulled her in, and carried her to their own home.
She was never heard of again.
