Another Burgess tale reprinted in 1903. It was a current belief that a person attacked by trows who called on God in a certain set form would see them disappear, and in some districts people said that on revisiting the spot they would find something of value.
A man in Walls was surrounded by trows one night on a lonely hillside. He tried to frighten them off with shouting and wild gestures and failed. Then he recalled what he should have done and said, earnestly, Gud be aboot me an aa at I see, God be about me and all that I see. The trows absconded at once and he saw nothing more of them.
He remembered the belief about finding something valuable, and next day he went back to the spot. Lying on the ground, half hidden in the heather, he found a beautifully made trowie dart or arrow. He took it home, and it stayed in his family for a long time as a talisman against all kinds of evil spirits.
The finds called elf-arrows in Shetland were prehistoric flint arrowheads, and the same collection reports a bronze knife from Northmavine used as a trow's sword for magical purposes. The place is only given as the parish.
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