EDWARD, our Spanish donkey, I suppose you could say, is virtually a pet. He'll strike a photogenic pose in the manse field for visitors to Papa Westray and on demand will set up a suitably extravagant braying.

He once caused dismay when a bagpiper visiting the island stood in celtic splendour outside the guest house and as a coloursplash sunset decorated the Atlantic edge he treated us to a haunting lament.

Hell's bells, you should have heard the din that Edward, no respecter of the Scottish heritage (he's from Andalucia of course) and billeted just over the dyke, set up in competition.

Talk about embarrassing! I hid in my rock shelter at Skate Geo for three days until the fuss had died down.

Try getting Edward into the stable when he fancies another half-hour on the cud, or persuade him to part company from his bosom buddy, Rebecca the goat, even for a couple of minutes - he won't budge. He's virtually impossible. Yes, a pet can be for strife.

Now it was no surprise at all to learn that it was the Japanese who came up with the idea of a virtual pet, a jumble of circuits and quartz displays about the size of a wrist watch. It's their sort of thing isn't it?

The basic principle of this wee gadget is that it needs to be loved and cared for, sung to, clapped, rectal temperature checked regularly. It is endlessly obedient and never kicks or bites you.

Fed a proper diet of crunched numbers and fussed over, it will last a lifetime. Forgotten at the back of a drawer or in the pocket of that old jacket, it dies. There is no other way to say it - it shuffles off its electronic coil.

These strange devices which surely would have convinced our ancestors that mankind is now wandering in the spiritual wilderness seemed to pop up everywhere. In recent weeks an ailing virtual pet even featured in the top-rated US hospital drama er.

However, over the years in this column we've seen how history is never anchored in the past but echoes back and forwards across the centuries, offering cross-correspondences and parallels which give you the distinct feeling that there is really nothing new under the sun, my boy.

This piece of home-spun philosophy returned to me as I read of the Highlander, straight out of the glens, who was with Bonnie Dundee in the campaign of 1689 which culminated in the battle of Killiecrankie.

On some unnamed raid, this Highland laddie, as his share of the booty, found himself the proud possessor of a beautiful pocket watch.

According to the tale, he ''being unacquainted with its use, listened with equal surprise and pleasure to the ticking sound with which his new acquisition amused him''.

Ahah, you're way ahead of me. After a few hours the watch wound down, and the marvellous ticking which had enchanted the hairy-kneed Highlander ceased. He decided to conceal the misfortune which had befallen him and to move the watch on should he find anyone gullible enough to part with a penny or two for it.

Find such an individual he did but after striking a deal could not resist unmasking his scam and shouted triumphantly as he made off: ''Why, she died last night.'' The moral is - beware a pet which ticks. Come to think on it, mucking out a virtual pet might be more fun.