Book excerpt: This second volume of Tales of the West Highlands contains thirty ursgeuln, or tales, fifty riddles plus a few extra stories. As always, these are tales and stories in which something 'Fairy' or magical occurs, something extraordinary --fairies, giants, dwarfs, princes, princesses, kings and queens, speaking animals and the remarkable stupidity of some of the characters. But these aren't just a collection of amusing and entertaining stories. Just 20 years after the Elementary Education Act of 1870 these are the tales that were still being used in those far- flung reaches of the Highlands to teach the young the lessons of life. Also included are Seanachas--those old Highland stories which in their telling resemble no others, whose origins are lost in the mists of the Highlands, if not the midst of time. So take some time out and travel back to a period before television and radio, a time when tales were passed on orally-- at the drying kilns, at the communal well or in homes, where families would gather around a crackling and spitting hearth and granddad or grandma or uncle or auntie would delight and captivate the gathering with stories passed on to them from their parents and grandparents from time immemorial. A proportion of the profit from the sale of this book will be donated towards the education of the underprivileged in Scotland.