This story is from Edmondston and Saxby, quoted by Black and Thomas in 1903. Katherine Fordyce died, folk thought, at the birth of her first child. A neighbour's wife dreamed that Katherine said she had taken the milk of the neighbour's cow, and would repay it if the woman gave her what she would soon know about. The neighbour later had a child and called her Katherine Fordyce. The trowbound Katherine then appeared again and said all would prosper while that child stayed in the family.
She said she was comfortable among the trows but could not get out unless someone saw her and had the presence of mind to call on God's name. Her friends had failed to sain her, to guard her with spells, at the birth.
The household prospered until the girl married. On her wedding night a great storm came, and the sea ran over the skerries at the broch and killed the bride's father's sheep, in which some folk saw old men with white beards reaching out of the surf.
John Nisbet later saw a hole open in the side of a daal. Inside Katherine sat in a queer armchair in her brown wedding gown, with a bar of iron in front of her and a baby on her knee. She asked what brought him there, and said she was well but could not leave because she had eaten their food. He did not say the saving words, and the scene was gone. The account does not give the parish in Unst.
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