Witchcraft & Second Sight in the Highlands & Islands of Scotland / Tales and Traditions Collected Entirely from Oral Sources

CHARM FOR RHEUMATIC PAINS.

Eòlas Galar Tholl (lit. perforating disease).

Otherwise:

CHARM FOR CONSUMPTION.

(Eòlas na Caitheamh.)

This was to be said on a Thursday and on two Sundays.As in the case of other charms, some days of the year were more favourable than others, and the top of the ninth wave should be used in sprinkling the patient:

FOR AFFECTIONS OF THE CHEST.

(’Air Son Iomairt Cléibh.)

CHARM FOR TOOTHACHE.

(Eòlas an Déide.)

It is not difficult to persuade a man distracted with toothache to try any remedy in reason that offers any hope of relief.It would be curious if a charm were not forthcoming.The writer has recovered only a portion of the Gaelic version.The following English charm was obtained ten years ago in Tiree, and probably came originally from the Isle of Man.It was to be sewn up in the clothes and worn about the person, and was given to those who applied for it for a small consideration.This was to be on Sunday, and payment was not to be asked for.If that had to be done, the charm was useless.The copy is word for word:

“In the name of lord petter sat on a marble stone aweeping Christ came by and said what else you petter petter said o lord my god my dok toockage christ said o lord petter be whole and not thou only but all that carry these lines in my name shall never have the toock Christ cure the toockaig.”

MADE FOR MERRION MACFADYN.

In a small tract called Peacock’s Guide to the Isle of Man (p. 66), the following version is given as in use in that island:

The Gaelic is to the same effect:

CHARMS FOR CATTLE.

These were even more numerous than those for the distempers of men.Cattle are nowadays better housed, fed, and attended to, and hence are not so liable to ill-understood ailments that gave persons of ‘skill’ employment.

In the case of any beast being seized with distemper, this short charm might prove of use:

A more obstinate case demanded the charm for the Evil Eye, water in which stones of virtue were dipped etc.

When a newly purchased animal is brought home, its return to its former home is prevented, and its allurement to its new haunts is secured by blowing into its ear, and saying:

When a cow loses its milk, as is sometimes the case, whatever be the cause (perhaps the eating of a noxious weed), it is necessary to procure the pearlwort and two other plants known to people of skill, to bring back the milk. The following words are to be said when pulling the plants:

CHARM AGAINST DANGER (Sian).

The seun or sian, Scot. sain, was used for the protection of both man and beast from particular dangers, such as being taken away by an enemy, being drowned, or struck by sword, or arrow, or bullet in battle.It consisted of rhymes, or parti-coloured strings, or plants, and in many cases its nature remained a mystery.It was said over cows and sheep when leaving them for the night; it was put round the necks of infants; given by the fairy mistress (leannan sìth) to her earthly lover; sewn by the foster-mother (muime) in the clothes of a beloved foster-son (dalta) about to leave her, etc. After it was once given or said, the two, the giver and the recipient, must not see each other again. If they did the charm lost its power. Usually there was some unforeseen danger of the class which the charm was intended to provide against that proved fatal. Thus, it is said, a young woman gave a sian to her soldier lover, who was leaving for foreign wars, telling him the only thing he had to guard against was his own arms. He went scatheless through a protracted war, but after his return scratched his forehead with a pin which he carried in his clothes, and died from the effects.

THE OLD WIFE’S CHARM FOR HER COW.

(Sian na Caillich mu Bò.)

When a stone was tied to the cow’s tail, and these mystic words were uttered, the animal was safe to be found in the same spot in the morning.This was believed to be as much owing to the words as to the anchor astern.

CHARM FOR A SHEEP IN ITS COT.

(Sian na Caora mu’n chrò.)

AGAINST DROWNING AND IN WAR.

(Sian roi’ bhàthadh ’s an Cogadh.)

A native of the Island of Coll, who served in the British army from the taking of Copenhagen, throughout the Peninsular and continental wars, and only died this year (1874), a most kind-hearted and powerfully built man, attributed his safe return from the wars in some measure to having learned this charm in his youth:

CHARM AGAINST DANGERS IN WAR.

The following is taken from the Gaelic periodical, Cuairtear nam Beann, for January, 1842.It is said to have been got about the year 1800 from an old man in Glenforsa, in Mull.

A smith in Torosa, Mull, was said to have got a charm of this kind from his father.He afterwards enlisted, and was in thirty battles.On coming home without a wound, he said he had often wished he was dead, rather than be bruised as he was by bullets.They struck him, but could not pierce him because of the charm.

Red Hector of the Battles (Eachunn Ruadh nan Cath), a celebrated chief of the M’Leans of Dowart, had a sian, which made him invulnerable in the many conflicts, from which he derived his designation.It failed him at the battle of Inverkeithing, in 1652, when he fell with 1500 of his clan.Surrounded by overwhelming numbers, and sorely wounded, he maintained a hopeless struggle, his gallant clansmen defending him to the last, “each stepping where his comrade stood the instant that he fell,” and calling out, in an expression which has been since proverbial in his native island, “Another for Hector!” (Fear eile air son Eachuinn).

The charm, which his fairy mistress gave to Thinman (Caoilte), the fastest hero of the Fians, has been already referred to.

When washing new-born babes wise women made use of these words:

CHARM FOR CLOTH.

After being fulled, new cloth was folded and placed on a table.The women, who had been engaged in the fulling, then gathered round it and sang the following charm seven times.During the singing they kept time to the music by raising their hands simultaneously and beating the cloth with the tips of their fingers.After each repetition of the charm the cloth was turned over end:

Then, striking the cloth faster, the singers say:

It is said there is a bone in the herring’s head that resembles a deer’s foot.Some say the word should not be “deer’s shank” (Lurg an fhéidh), but “deer’s antlers” (Cuibhn’an fhéidh).The part of the song within brackets seems to belong to the music more than to the meaning.The final wish is that the cloth when turned, or made into a second suit, may prove as good as new, and not, like cloth found on dead bodies, a perquisite of the priest’s.In olden times the seventh yard (slat) of chequered cloth (Clò Breac) was given to the factor and priest, as well as the seventh lamb from the fold.

CHARM FOR GENERAL USE.

“THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST.”

Of the same class was the charm to which this name was given.It consisted of a green string, which was kept in the mouth while the charm was muttered, and then secured to the charmed person’s right shoulder.The ceremony must be performed on Thursday or Sunday.

CHARM FOR CONFERRING GRACES.

(Oradh nam Buadh.)

CHARM FOR THE FACES OF YOUNG WOMEN.

LOVE CHARM.

The knowledge of this rhyme is very widespread.It is ascribed by some to Duncan Ban M’Intyre, the greatest of the Gaelic lyrical poets, and is printed in some editions of his poems as his composition, but others with more probability ascribe it to Blind Allan, the Glengarry bard.Allan eked out a livelihood by the practice of charms of the kind.

CHARM TO KEEP AWAY HARM IN A LAWSUIT.

When a person is pulled up at law for abusive language, let him when entering the court-house spit in his fist, grasp his staff firmly, and say the following words.There is then no danger of being found guilty.The charm was originally got from Big Allan of Woodend (Ailein Mòr cheannacoille), in Kingairloch, who had been a soldier at the time of the Irish Rebellion, and had himself learned it in his youth.The names of the saints show the charm to be very ancient.

The name “Manaman MacLeth” is probably a corruption of “Manannan MacLeirr,” the Manx magician, who is said to have covered that island with a mist, which was dispelled by St. Patrick. Ni-Mhanainnein (i.e. the daughter of Manannain) is mentioned in a Gaelic tale as having remarkably beautiful music in her house, and “the Dairy-maid, the daughter of Manannan” (Bhanachag ni Mhannainein) is mentioned in another tale as a midwife, whose residence was somewhere near the moon.

In addition to magic cures by means of rhymes, many were effected, and much security was obtained, by means of beads, stones, and plants.A collection of these formed a considerable part of the armoury of witches, black and white.

SERPENT STONE.

Of all the means of which superstition laid hold for the cure of disease in man or beast, the foremost place is to be assigned to the Serpent Stone (Clach Nathrach), also called the Serpent Bead or Glass (Glaine Nathair).It is an undoubted relique of Druidism, and as such worthy of particular attention.

Pliny (29 c.3) tells us that the Emperor Claudius put to death a knight of the Vocontian Gauls for carrying a serpent-egg (ovum anguinum) about him while engaged in a lawsuit.He also gives a description of the manner in which the egg or bead is manufactured by the serpents.In summer innumerable serpents enwrap one another, and generate the egg from the slaver of their jaws and bodies.They then, according to the Druids, cast it up into the air by their hissings, when it must be caught in a garment lest it touch the ground.The person who is bold enough to intercept it must fly away on a horse, for the serpents follow till a river intercepts them.The test of a true egg is, that it swims against the stream, even if bound in gold (si contra aquas fluitet, vel auro vinctum).The Druids further say it must be got at a particular season of the moon. The one Pliny saw was about the size of a round apple. It procures victory in lawsuits, and entrance to kings.

The tales told in modern times of the Serpent Stone, its manufacture and wonderful properties, are of a similar class, and leave no doubt that in these beads and the use made of them we have the remains of an imposture, if not instituted, at least practised by the Druids.

The ordinary Glaine Nathair (Serpent Glass) is of smaller size than is indicated by Pliny. The one which the writer saw was about the size of a gun bullet, and about 1¼ in. long. There was a hole through from end to end, and depressions on its sides, as if it had once been soft, and had been taken up gently between the finger and thumb. It is of transparent glass, but glass unlike that of the present day. There are extremely brilliant and curious streaks of colour in it. It is now merely a family heir-loom, but in olden times was in great demand for dipping in water to be given to bewitched persons or beasts. The sloughed skin (cochull) of the serpent itself was used for the same purpose.Water in which it was dipped was given to sick beasts.The tale as to the manner in which it was originally got is the same as is told of other beads of the same kind.The serpents are assembled in a coiling mass, with their heads in the air hissing horribly, slavering, and out of their slaver making the serpent stone. The spittle, in course of becoming solid, was known as meall èochdThat the story was not implicitly believed is shown by the addition that, when the bead is finished, one of the serpents puts its tail through it.Thus the hole by which it is perforated is made.

In the case of the Bead which the writer saw, the person who came upon the serpents at their work is said to have waited till the reptiles slept.He then worked the bead out of their circle with a straw or twig of heather.As he took it up between his finger and thumb, and made off with it, he observed that the pressure of his fingers marked it, it being still soft, and this made him put a straw through it to carry it home.This story fairly accounts for the shape of the bead and the marks upon it.The marks look as if they were so made when the stone was soft.Another account says that the finder came on a rock above where the serpents were at work, and, rolling his plaid into a ball, threw it down the rock near them.Instantly the serpents made a dash at the plaid, and while they were reducing it to shreds he made off with the Adder Stone.By means of a sharp-pointed stick, prepared for the purpose, and thrust through the soft bead, he raised it to the top of the rock, and, taking it between his finger and thumb, ran home.

Similar legends of the Adder Stone were current in the Lowlands.Scott says the name is applied “to celts and other perforated stones.”In the Highlands the name is not applied to stones.In Wales and Ireland the Bead is known as “Druid’s Glass.”A more than historical interest attaches to it, from the means it gives of tracing, beyond the possibility of mistake, the use of amulets and superstitious charms to the times and teaching of the much-lauded Druids, and raises, if it does not throw light upon, questions as to the early intercourse of nations.

The manufacture of serpent beads is involved in obscurity.There is nothing known to create a probability that they are of Celtic workmanship.The Phœnicians from a very early date knew the art of glass-making, and their commerce extended far and wide, and as far as the shores of the British Isles, then the remotest part of the known world.It is, therefore, possible these beads came from Phœnician sources.They are, it is said, found on the coasts of the Baltic and Mediterranean, in England and France, as well as in Ireland and Scotland, and it is possible enough their diffusion was owing to traders from Phœnicia and her colonies in Gaul and at Massilia.Similarly, idols are exported, at the present day from England to India.Fully as much, however, can be urged in behalf of a supposition that the beads are of Egyptian origin, and were obtained by the Celtic priests from the ancient Egyptian enchanters. The Egyptians from the earliest times used glass extensively, and could cut, grind, and engrave it, inlay it with gold, imitate precious stones in it, and colour it with great brilliancy. A bead found at Thebes is ascribed to B.C. 1500, and relics of a similar class are not unfrequently found in the Egyptian catacombs. If they could be said to be of exactly the same manufacture with the Celtic beads, the question is nearly set at rest. Meyer gives it as his view that the first westward stream of Celtic immigration passed through Egypt, along the north coast of Africa, and entered Europe by the Straits of Gibraltar. Ancient Irish history, if there be any truth in its fables, points to a similar conclusion. The subject is one of which nothing certain is known, and its decision is of value in showing whether the Celtic priests got their aids to superstition from their Egyptian brethren.

SNAIL BEADS (Cnaipein Seilcheig).

Snails also are said to form themselves into a mass and manufacture a stone of great virtue as a charm (Clach shianaidh).It protects its lucky possessor against all danger.Its name is “a snail bead” (Cnaipein seilcheig), or “a snail stone” (Clach na seilcheig).Four or five snails are engaged in the manufacture of each stone.Water in which it is dipped is good for sore eyes and for mouths broken out with tetter.

FROG STONE.

The King Frog has in its head a stone of immense value.“The Frog Stone” (Clach nan gilleadha cràigein) is said by Pennant to be merely a kind of fossil tooth, known as bufonite.It has been made the best known of this class of physical charms, from Shakespeare’s comparison of adversity to the toad, which, though “ugly and venomous,” yet “wears a precious jewel in its head.”

The swamp at Achagaval in Morvern was tenanted by a King Frog or Toad, the reputation of which was widespread. It was called Seid, a word of which the usual meaning is “a truss of hay or straw.” One, who stayed in the neighbourhood of the fen, said, he heard, not once but scores of times, the cry of the animal from as great a distance as the top of a neighbouring hill, Beinn nam Bearrach, and he could compare it to nothing so much as the yelping of “a soft mastiff whelp” (bog chuilein tòdhlair). The part of the fen which the King Frog most frequented was called Lòn na Seid, and in winter, when it was frozen over, a tame otter was let down through a hole in the ice in the hope of driving the frog to the opening.Otters must come occasionally to the surface to breathe, and the one in question having come for that purpose, its owner, in his eagerness to secure the jewel, mistook it for the King Frog, and gave it a rap on the head that killed it on the spot.

STONES.

In addition to jewels found in animals, superstition made use of stones of various forms, spherical and pointed, plain and ornamented, of unknown origin, but bearing evidence of having been reduced to form by human art. These were carefully preserved in families as heirlooms, and are found in tumuli, graves, and road-cuttings, dredged from rivers, and turned up by the plough. They are undoubted relics of a remote past, and have been referred by antiquaries to a prehistoric age and savages who lived before iron was invented. The ingenuity of those who advocate this view of their origin is sufficiently tested in finding a practical use for the stones as weapons of war or the chase, as employed in games of chance, or as articles of domestic use, corn-crushers, hatchets, or personal ornaments. No doubt many of them were originally intended for such purposes; but the uselessness of others and the absence of fitness for any known or conceivable purpose of utility, indicate a different origin. It is not easy, for instance, to assign any ordinary use to such a stone-ball as that pictured in Wilson’s Prehistoric Annals of Scotland, i., 195, and to many others of still more curious appearance and with more elaborate ornaments.The incised ornaments forbid the idea of their being of ordinary service, and the prevalence of witchcraft, with its armoury of curiously-shaped stones and mysterious natural productions, among all savage tribes, makes it highly probable they were the implements of the prehistoric conjurer’s craft, and were from the first associated with strange virtues. As a lethal weapon the first stone picked up from the ground was as serviceable. They have been associated with the popular superstitions of very modern times. It is not unlikely that from the beginning they were so associated.

FAIRY ARROW.

The most common of these primitive relics was the Fairy Arrow or Elf-bolt (saighead shith, pron. saït hee), which was believed to be thrown by the Fairies at cattle and men.It was said in the Highlands the elves could not throw it themselves, but compelled some mortal, who was at that time being carried in their company, to do so.When friendly, he missed his aim, and so disappointed his instigators.A person struck instantaneously lost the power of his limbs, and was taken to the Fairy dwelling.Only his semblance remained.He appeared to die, or an old Elf was substituted for him, to animate the powerless frame and receive the kindness bestowed by mortals on what they thought was their afflicted friend.Similarly elf-struck cattle devoured all the food and gave all the trouble of healthy cattle, but yielded no return; they neither gave milk nor grew fat.

The Elf-bolt is a flint flake reduced with patient ingenuity to the form of an arrow-head, and is in length from one to six inches.Archæologists say these flints formed the arrow and the lance heads of a primitive stone race, but their unsuitableness for being firmly secured to a proper shaft alone makes this supposition not always likely.An arrow with a flint for a head must have been too weighty at one end, and the Allophylian (if there was such a person) must have been very destitute of ingenuity if he could not make a more serviceable arrow-head from bone splinters or hardened wood.When men believed in Fairies these flint heads made their appearance as readily as images do under a system of idolatry.

Whoever had one of these arrows in his possession was safe from Fairy attacks, and water in which it was dipped restored to health man or beast struck with sudden illness.

Similar virtues were ascribed to the Fairy Spade (Caibe sìth), a smooth, slippery, black stone (mìn sleamhuinn du), supposed to resemble a spade.It was also put in water to be given to sick people and cattle.

CRUBAN STONE.

The Cruban Stone (Clach a Chrùbain) cured diseases in the joints. It is said by Pennant to have been that species of fossil-shell called gryphite. Its name is from crùban, a sitting, or squatting, or crouching attitude in man or beast, the result of a disease in the feet that makes them unable to stand. A stone of this kind in Breadalbane was lent only under a pledge of two cows (an geall càraid cruidh).If the stone was not returned the cows were to be forfeited.

VARIOUS.

A round stone, exactly resembling the one above referred to, as pictured by Wilson, with six regularly arranged circles carved upon it, was long in the possession of a family in Knapdale, and is now in Tiree.It was used for the relief of colic pains and other internal gripings, and was believed to cast a skin (tilg rusg) when put in the water to be used. It was called Clach a Ghreimich, the Gripe Stone. There was a companion stone of the same size for the cure of the Evil-Eye. Mary Macintyre, the noted Fort-William witch, a native of Barra, had a stone called Clach na Léig, the pebble of healing virtues, with a hole in it, through which she thrust her tongue previous to making divinations.It was of a blue colour, and by means of it Mary could give young women accounts of their sweethearts, secure for seamen and others who came to Fort-William with flesh and other commodities a sale for their goods, etc.

There is a stone in Caolas, Tiree, called Clach na stoirm, the Storm Stone, almost entirely buried in the ground.If taken out of the ground, cleaned, and set upright, it will cause a storm to arise.

The Ardvoirlich Stone (in Perthshire) was used for the cure of murrain in cattle.A person going for it must not speak, or sit, or enter a house, or be found outside a house after sunset.He must take up his quarters for the night before the sun sets.

Soisgeul, GOSPEL.

A “Gospel” consisted of a verse of Scripture, or a hymn, or some good words, usually got from the priest, and sewn in the clothes to keep the wearer from weakness of mind, and as a protection from spite (air son inntinn lag ’s droch rùn).When going for it, a person must not speak to anyone on the way, and must take up his lodgings for the night before the sun goes down.

MISCELLANEOUS CURES.

Besides all these magic cures, there were others practised by boys and resorted to by the superstitious, without much thought as to there being magic in them or not.The cure in many cases was supposed to be effected or the desired gift conferred by natural means.

WARTS (Foineachun).

These were cured by putting in a bag as many knots or joints of straw or grass (glùinean shop) as there were warts to be banished, and leaving them on the public road.The first person who lifted the bag was to have the warts in future.Another equally efficacious plan was to take a grain of barley (spilgein eòrna) for every wart and bury it in some retired spot, where it was never to be disturbed.Should both these simple cures fail, pig’s blood was applied to the warts and rubbed off with a clout.This cloth was made up into a parcel and left on the road.The warts were removed to the hands of the first person who opened it.

STYE (Neònagan).

A stye on the eye (pron. sleònachan) was cured by putting one end of a stick in the fire, pointing the burning end towards the sore eye, and whirling it round rapidly in a circle, saying, “A stye one, a stye two, a stye three,” etc., down to “a stye nine,” and then adding, “take yourself off, stye.”The charm was also performed by repeating, while the stick was being whirled, “Go back, go back, go back, stye” (air ais, air ais, etc.).Others placed great faith in rubbing the eye with gold.

TETTER (Teine-dé, HERPES LABIALIS).

Boys troubled with eruptions on the mouth were infuriated by a rhyme:

The first part of the name is teine, a fire, and a curious question arises as to what dé is. It occurs also in dearbadan dé, a butterfly. It looks like the genitive of dia, god.

HICCUP (an aileag)

was cured by accusing the person who had it of theft.This stands somewhat to reason in the case of children.If they be ingenuous, such an accusation skilfully made rouses their nature to such an extent that the hiccup disappears.

HOOPING-COUGH (an trigh, an trîugh).

It was a saying: “Whoever drinks mare’s milk with an aspen spoon will have hooping-cough but slightly” (Fear sam bi dh’ òlas bainne capuill le spàin chrithionn, cha ghabh e’n trigh ach aotrom).

STIFF NECK,

such as may be got from sleeping with too high a pillow or the head awry, was cured by squeezing the neck between the legs of the tongs.

TOOTHACHE (Déide).

This excruciating disease was supposed to be capable of cure by putting a dead man’s finger or a coffin nail in the mouth, and people have been known in their agony to try both expedients.The person resorting to this cure must go for the nail or dead man’s finger to the graveyard (roluig), though very likely this part of the experiment was rarely tried.As in the case of those who go to have a tooth pulled, the pain disappeared on the way.

FALLING SICKNESS (an tuiteamas).

When a new-born child is being washed, a straw rope (sioman) twined round it, and then cut in pieces, is a safeguard during life against epilepsy, falling sickness (tinneas tuiteamas), or as it was euphemistically called, “the out sickness” (an tinneas a-muigh).In Sutherlandshire, a second attack was supposed to be prevented by burying a cock alive when the first occurred.

MADNESS.

In the Highlands, as elsewhere, rough usage (often amounting to brutality) was believed to be the most suitable treatment for those suffering under this the greatest of human misfortunes, mental aberration.

On a Thursday (it should be no other day), a person was to take the lunatic behind him on a grey horse, and gallop at the horse’s utmost speed three times round a boundary mark (comharra criche), and then to an immovable stone.On making the madman speak to this stone the cure was complete.

A plan (of which there are traditions in the Hebrides) was to put a rope round the madman’s waist and drag him after a boat till he was nearly dead.

In Strathfillan (Srath Fhaolain), of which the common name is “the straths” (sraithibh), in Perthshire, is a pool in the river, which winds through the strath, and the ruins of a chapel at Clachan, about half a mile distant, which at one time enjoyed a wide reputation for the cure of this affliction. One who was alive a few years ago and used to assist at the ceremonies to be observed in the chapel, remembered as many as twelve madmen being left tied there at a time. Tradition says St. Fillan had in his possession a stone of marvellous virtue. Some people were taking it from him by violence when he threw it in a deep pool in the river, and from this the pool derived its miraculous virtue. Mad people were made to go three times deiseal (i.e. keeping the pool on their right hand) round the linn, and then were plunged headlong in. On being taken out, three stones were lifted from the pool and placed in a cairn, which may still be seen. A stone bowl was filled with water to be consecrated and poured on the patient’s head. The madman was taken to the chapel and placed on his back on the ground, stretched between two sticks, and laced round with ropes in a very simple manner. If he succeeded in extricating himself before morning good hopes were entertained of his recovery. The ropes were so arranged that he could do so easily. He had only to push them from him towards his feet, but if he was outrageous he was hopelessly entangled. The pool lost its virtue in consequence of a mad bull having been thrown into it. It is now known as “the bull’s pool” (linne ’n tairbh).

Màm, AXILLARY SWELLING.

A swelling of the axillary glands (fàireagun na h-achlais) is an ailment that soon subsides or breaks into an ulcer. The ‘skilful’ professed to cure it in the following manner, and no doubt when the swelling subsided, as in most cases it did, the whole credit was given to their magic ceremony. On Friday (on which day alone the ceremony was efficacious) certain magic words were muttered to the blade of a knife or axe (the more steel the better), which was held for the purpose close to the mouth, and then, the blade being applied to the sore place, the swelling was crossed and parted into nine, or other odd numbers or imaginary divisions. After each crossing, the axe was pointed towards a hill, the name of which commences not with ben, a lofty hill, but mam, a round mountain.For instance, in Mull and neighbourhood, the malady was transferred (do chuids’ air, tha sid air, do roinn-sa air, etc.) to Màm Lìrein, Màm an t-snòid, Màm Doire Dhubhaig, Màm Chlachaig, Màm Bhrathadail, etc., all hills in that island.When the swelling was ‘counted’ (air àireamh) the axe was pointed to the ground, saying, “the pain be in the ground and the affliction in the earth” (a ghoimh san làr, ’s a chrádh san talamh).

LUMBAGO (Leum droma).

When the back is strained and its nerves are affected so that motion is painful, the afflicted person is to lie down on his face, and one who was born feet foremost is to step thrice across him, each time laying his full weight on the foot that treads on the patient’s back.There is no cure unless the person stepping across has been born feet foremost.

CONSUMPTION (Caitheamh).

On the farm of Crossapol in Coll there is a stone called Clach Thuill, i.e. the Hole Stone, through which persons suffering from consumption were made to pass three times in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. They took meat with them each time, and left some on the stone. The bird that took the food away had the consumption laid upon it. Similar stones, under which the patient can creep, were made use of in other islands.

LEPROSY (Mùr).

The waterfall at Scorrybreck, near Portree in Skye, called Easa suc Con, forms in the rock a natural trough or basin about the length and breadth of a man.A daughter of Lochlin, suffering from an incurable skin disease (mùr, leprosy?), in the course of her journeys in search of a cure (there being a prophecy that her cure was to be found in a northern island), came to this waterfall.The trough was emptied, and she was placed lying in it.She lay there till it again filled, and her cure was effected.

Loch Ma Nàr,

in Sutherlandshire, if entered on the first Monday of August, was believed to cure any and every disease or sickness.

WELLS.

Throughout the Highlands there are wells to which wonderful powers in the healing of disease were ascribed in olden times.They were generally, but not always, called after some saint, and their waters were drunk on certain days or at a particular hour of the day and with certain ceremonies and offerings.The importance of these wells and the pilgrimages to them disappeared with the Roman Catholic religion, and hardly a trace now remains of their former honours beyond the name.

“The well of the Fian flag-stone” (Tobar Leac nam Fiann) in Jura cured every disease.When the sick person went to it he had to leave in it a pin, a needle, a button, or other article, and if this was afterwards taken away there was no cure.

In a cave beyond Sanna in Ardnamurchan, and near the village of Plòcaig, there was about thirty years ago a hole, holding about a bowlful, made in the floor of the cave by water dripping from the roof. The waters of this receptacle were decreed of great efficacy in making those who drank it gay and strong. It was in request by young men of a lively disposition, women rising from childbed, etc. When entering, a copper coin, a metal button, or a nail, was placed somewhere near the door, and unless this was done it was not safe to enter. At the time mentioned the shelves of the cave were full of these offerings.

In North Uist, between Loch Maddy and Dïusa in Merivale, there is a well that cures the toothache.In the islet of St.Cormick, on the east of Cantyre, there was a well that cured the jaundice till an old wife from Breadalbane asked the saint in rude or uncivil terms to cure her distemper (vide Old Statistical Account).

In Coll, near the tung or family burying-ground of the M’Leans of Coll, there is a well called “the well of stones” (tobar nan clach), and not far from it a sunken rock in the sea called CairgeinIt was a saying that as long as a person got water from the one and dulse from the other he need never die of want.

At the back of Hough Hill, in Tiree, there is a well called “the well of the nine living” (Tobar na naoi bèo), which in a season of great scarcity supported a widow and her eight children without any nourishment but itself and shellfish.Hence its name.

PLANTS AND TREES.MOUNTAIN ASH.

The efficacy of the wicken tree against witches, already described, was a widespread belief, found in England as well as in the Highlands, where it was also said to make the best rod for a fisherman.If he takes with him

he is most likely to be in luck.The reason is that no evil or envious eye will rest upon himself or his equipments (cha laidh sùil orra).

PEARLWORT (Mòthan).

The Trailing Pearlwort (Sagina procumbens), which grows in very dry places and on old walls, was one of the most efficacious plants against the powers of darkness.This efficacy was attributed to its being the first plant trodden on by Christ when He came on earth.Placed on the lintel of the door (san àrd dorus), it kept the spirits of the dead, if they returned, from entering the house.If in the bull’s hoof, at the time of being with the cow, the offspring’s milk could not be taken away by witches.When placed below the right knee of a woman in labour, it defeated the machinations of the fairy women. It must be pulled with certain words:

ST.JOHN’S WORT (Achlasan Challum Chille).

The Gaelic name of the Upright St.John’s Wort (hypericum pulchrum) means literally St.Columba’s axillary one.Why so called does not appear.To be of use it must be found when neither sought for nor wanted.If sought for, it has no efficacy more than another plant, but if accidentally fallen in with, and preserved, it wards off fever and keeps its owner from being taken away in his sleep by the Fairies.One version of the rhyme to be said in pulling it is in these words:

Another version runs:

JUNIPER (Iubhar-beinne, lit.Mountain Yew).

This plant is a protection by sea and land, and no house in which it is will take fire.It must be pulled by the roots, with its branches made into four bunches, and taken between the five fingers, saying:

The plant is also called aiteal in Gaelic.

YARROW (Chathair làir).

This plant of power was also pulled with mystic words, of which but four lines have been recovered.

In many parts of the Highlands the yarrow is called Cathair-thalanda, which means the same as c.làir, lit.the ground chair.

“THE ENTICING PLANT” (Lus an tàlaidh).

This plant grows in soft places among heather, and has a purple flower.From the descriptions given of it, it seems to be the purple orchis or wild hyacinth.It has two roots, one larger than the other, and it is in these its magic power consists.The largest represents the man, the lesser a woman, whose affections are to be gained. The plant is to be pulled by the roots before sunrise, with the face directed to the south. Whichever root is used is to be immediately placed in spring water, taking care that no part of the sun’s surface is above the horizon. If it sinks, the person whose love is sought will prove the future husband or wife. If the charm is made for no one in particular, the root reduced to powder and put below the pillow causes dreams of the person to be married.

THE DAUGHTER OF THE KING OF ENCHANTMENTS

(Neghinn Righ Sionnach).

The daughter of Righ Sionnach was found in the hunting hill by a party of hunters, as the writer heard the story, and they took her home with them. The Chief married her, and she lived with his mother in the same house, and had three children before she was heard to utter a word. Afterwards, on the occasion of a feast being prepared, they gave her a candle to hold when she said:

Her mother-in-law answered:

She replied:

By her words it was found out whose daughter she was, and whence she had come.

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CHAPTER III.
DEATH WARNINGS.

Death has always been deemed the greatest evil that afflicts humanity, and the terrors and awe which its advent inspires have given superstition its amplest scope.The “King of Terrors” no doubt throws its shadows before it, but that foreshadowing belongs to medical diagnosis.The superstition connected with it consists in making unusual appearances and natural phenomena, having no relation to it beyond an accidental proximity in time, forerunners of its dread approach.The mind loves to dwell on the circumstances connected with the death of a departed and dear friend, and amid a sparse population, death is not an event of that frequency and daily occurrence which make it to the townsman little heeded, till it affects himself and his friends.Besides, doubt and scepticism are not spontaneous in the human mind, and whenever any one states positively that he saw supernatural indications connected with the death or spirit of one departed, he naturally and readily finds credence. By being frequently told the tale becomes more and more certain, and traditions, once they have attained the rank of beliefs, are very slow in dying out. That the excitable and imaginative mind of the Celt should, therefore, have a firm belief in supernatural fore-warnings of death is not at all surprising.

Certain families and septs had death-warnings peculiar to themselves, and whenever any of them was on his death-bed, particularly when the death of a chief was at hand, some one about the house was sure to see or hear the warning.Before the death of any of the Breadalbane family, the descendants of Black Duncan of the Cowl (Donncha du a churraichd), a bull was heard at night roaring up the hillside.The bellowing grew fainter as it ascended the mountain, and died away as it reached the top.The origin of this superstition probably is, that Black Duncan is accused of having once had a bull’s head brought in at a feast as a signal for the massacre of a number of the M’Gregors, whom he had invited in a friendly manner to the castle.The clan Maclachlan were warned of death by the appearance of a little bird; a sept of the M’Gregors, known as the children or descendants of Black Duncan (Clann Dhonncha dhui), by a whistle; another family of the same clan, “the children of little Duncan” (Clann Dhonncha bhig), by a light like that of a candle.Other signals were shouting (sgairt), cries of distress, screaming (sgriachail), sounds of weeping, etc. When any of them foreboded death, it was heard where no human being could be, and there was an unearthly tone about it that struck a chill into the hearer’s heart.

Before the death of a duine wassal (duin uasal, a gentleman), a light or meteor called Dreag or rather Driug, was seen in the sky proceeding from the house to the grave in the direction in which the funeral procession was to go.It was only for ‘big men,’ people of station and affluence, that these lights appeared, and an irreverent tailor once expressed a wish that the whole sky were full of them.

HUGH OF THE LITTLE HEAD (Eoghan a chinn bhig).

This was the best known and most dreadful spectre in the West Highlands, the phantom of a headless horseman, which made its appearance whenever any of the Maclaines of Lochbuy, in Mull, were near their dissolution.The spectral horseman is mounted on a small black steed, having a white spot on its forehead, and the marks of the hoofs of which are not like those of other horses, but round indentations as if it had wooden legs.Whenever any of the sept which he follows are on their death-bed Hugh is heard riding past the house, and sometimes even shows himself at the door. He does not sit straight on his horse’s back, but somewhat to one side, and the appearance of the almost headless body is that of a water-stoup tied on the horse’s back. The history of the man who is thus doomed to attend at the death of any of his clan is curious. Tradition is not always uniform on the subject, but the following statement reconciles most of the accounts and substantially agrees with them all.

Hugh was the only son of Hector the Stubborn (Eachunn Reuganach), first chief of Lochbuy, in the fourteenth century, and brother of Lachlan the Wily (Lachunn Lùbanach), first chief of Dowart.He got the name of “Hugh of the Little Head” in his lifetime, and from the actions ascribed to him fully bears his own testimony to the truth of the adage, “A big head on a wise man and a hen’s head on a fool” (Ceann mōr air duine glic ’s ceann circ avi amadan).Sayings of his, which tradition has preserved, illustrate the curious shrewdness sometimes found in connection with limited intellect.Thus, when his mother was being carried for burial, he thought the pall-bearers were carrying the body too high, and he told them not to raise her so high, “in case she should seek to make a habit of it” (mu ’m bi i ’g iarraidh a chleachdaidh), and the phrase has since continued, “to seek to make a habit of anything, like Hugh of the Little Head’s mother.” He was married to a daughter of the house of Macdougall of Lorn; and she proved but a very indifferent wife. Tradition ascribes to her several nicknames, all of them extremely opprobrious, “The Black-bottomed Heron” (Chorra thòn du), “Stingy, the Bad Black Heron” (Gortag, an droch chorra dhu), “The Macdougall Heron” (Curra Dhùghaill), and Dubhag tòn ri teallaichHe was a fearless soldier, and altogether a very likely person to have been made a wandering spectre of after his death.

Lochbuy first belonged to the Macfadyens.Maclaine (so the family spell the name) having obtained a grant of the place from the Lord of the Isles, deceitfully asked Macfadyen for a site for a sheep-fold (crò chaoraich), and, having obtained a hillock for the purpose, proceeded to build a castle.When the place was sufficiently fortified he shot an arrow from it at Macfadyen, who sat at some distance picking bones (spioladh chnàmh) at his dinner.In the end Macfadyen had to leave his own land and go to Garmony (Gar’moin’ an fhraoich), where he supported himself by coining gold, gathered in Beinn an Aoinidh, Mull, whence his descendants became known as “the Seed of the Goldsmith’s” (Siòlachadh nan òr-cheard).After this Lochbuy and Dowart quarrelled.The properties of the two brothers adjoined, and between them lay a piece of ground, the ownership of which they disputed.A ploughman belonging to Lochbuy was ploughing on the debateable ground, when a friend of Dowart, who was out hunting, shot him. Sometime after this Dowart’s two boys were on a visit to Lochbuy, whose wife, being a relative of the murdered ploughman, went a piece of the way home with the children, and at a well, since called “The Well of the Heads” (Tobar nan ceann), took off their heads and threw them into the well, leaving the bodies on the bank.For this foul deed a deadly feud sprang up between the two houses, and Hugh’s wife, being a foster-sister (co-dhalta) of Dowart’s wife, did not care though her husband and the house of Lochbuy should be worsted.

This feud, joined to the other grievances of the “Crane,” led to there being so little peace at Lochbuy that the old chief gave Hugh a separate establishment, and allotted to him the lands of Morinish. Hugh built himself a castle on an islet in Loch Sguabain, a small lake between Lochbuy and Dowart.His wife urged him to go and get the rights (còiricheaa), i.e. the title deeds, of the lands of Lochbuy, or perhaps to go and get more, from his father, and at last he went. It was explained to him that on his father’s death he would have a right to the whole property, and he went away pacified. His wife, however, urged that it would be a small thing for Lachlan the Wily, his father’s brother, to come and take from him everything he had. He went again, an altercation ensued, and he struck his aged father a violent blow on the side of the head. This came to the ears of the old man’s brother, the chief of Dowart. Glad of an excuse to cut off the heir presumptive and make himself master of Lochbuy, and gratify his desire for revenge, Dowart collected his men and marched to take Hugh to some place of confinement or kill him. Hugh collected his own men and prepared to give battle.

Early on the morning of the fight, others say the evening before, Hugh was out walking, and at the boundary stream (allt crìche) saw an Elfin woman rinsing clothes, and singing the “Song of the M’Leans.”[28] Her long breasts, after the manner of her kind (according to the Mull belief regarding these weird women), hung down and interfered with her washing, and she now and then flung them over her shoulders to keep them out of the way. Hugh crept up silently behind her, and catching one of the breasts, as is recommended in such cases, put the nipple in his mouth, saying, “Yourself and I be witness you are my first nursing mother.” She answered, “The hand of your father and grandfather be upon you! You had need that it is so.” He then asked her what she was doing. She said, “Washing the shirts of your mortally-wounded men” (Nigheadh leintean nam fir ghointe agad-sa), or (as others say) “the clothes of those who will mount the horses to-morrow and will not return” (aodach nam fear theid air na h-eich a màireach ’s nach till).He asked her, “Will I win the fight?”She answered that if he and his men got “butter without asking” (Im gun iarraidh) to their breakfast, he would win; if not, he would lose.He asked if he himself would return alive from the battle (an d’thig mise as beò?), and she either answered ambiguously or not at all; and when going away left him as her parting gift (fāgail) that he should go about to give warning of approaching death to all his race.The same morning he put on a new suit, and a servant woman coming in just as he had donned it, praised it, and said, “May you enjoy and wear it” (Meal is caith e).It was deemed unlucky that a woman should be the first to say this, and Hugh replied to the evil omen by saying, “May you not enjoy your health” (Na na meal thusa do shlàinte).

For breakfast, “Stingy, the Black Heron,” sent in curds and milk in broad dishes.She did not even give spoons, but told Hugh and his men to put on hen’s bills (gobun cheare) and take their food.Hugh waited long to see if any butter would come, rubbing his shoes together impatiently, saying now and then it was time to go, and giving every hint he could that the butter might be sent in.At last he threw his shoe down the house, exclaiming, “Neither shoes nor speech will move a bad housewife” (Cha ghluais bròg no bruidhinn droch bhean tighe), and demanding the butter.“Send down the butter, and you may eat it yourself to-morrow” (cuir anuas an t-ìm, ’s feudaidh tu fhein itheadh a màireach).She retorted, “The kicker of old shoes will not leave skin upon palm” (Cha’n fhàg breabadair na seana-bhròig craicionn air dearnaidh).When the butter came, Hugh said he did not want her curds or cheese to be coming in white masses through his men’s sides (tighinn na staoigean geala roi’ chliathach nam fear aige), kicked open the milk-house door and let in the dogs, and went away, leaving the breakfast untouched. The fight took place at Onoc nan Sgolb, at the back of Innsri (cùl na h-Innsribh), near Ceann a Chnocain, and not far from Torness in Glenmore.As might be expected of fasting men, Hugh and his followers lost the fight.The sweep of a broadsword took off the upper part of his head (copan a chinn).Instead of falling dead, he jumped on the top of his horse, a small black steed with a white spot on its forehead, and ever since is “dreeing his weird” by going about to give warning when any of his race are about to die.[29]

The ghostly rider of the black horse (marcaich an eich dhui), crosses the seas in discharging his task. When coming to Tiree (where there are now but two or three persons claiming to be of the sept of the Lochbuy Maclaines), he takes his passage from Port-nan-amhn’ near Ru-an-t-sléibh, in Treshinish, Mull.About fifty years ago a Mull woman, living there, insisted that she had often, when a young woman, heard him galloping past the house in the evening and had seen the sparks from his horse’s hoofs as he rode down to the shore on his way to Tiree.

It is told of an old man of the Lochbuy Macleans in Tiree, that on his death-bed the noise of a horse clanking a chain after it, was heard coming to the house.Thinking it was Hugh of the Little Head, he said, “The rider of the Black Horse is clanking on his own errand” (straoilich air ceann a ghnothuich fhein).On looking out the awe-struck company found the noise was caused by a farm-horse dragging a chain tether (langasaid) after it.

On the high road between Calachyle and Salen in Mull, a strong man of the name of Maclean was met at night by Hugh.The horseman spake never a word, but caught Maclean to take him away.Maclean resisted, and in the struggle caught hold of a birch sapling and succeeded in holding it till the cock crew.The birch tree was twisted in the struggle, and one after another of its roots gave way. As the last was yielding the cock crew. The twisted tree may still be seen. The same story is told of a twisted tree near Tobermory, and a similar one is localised between Lochaber and Badenoch.[30]

Other premonitions of death were the howling of dogs, the appearance of lights, loud outcries and sounds of weeping, apparitions of the doomed person’s “fetch,” or coffin, or funeral procession, etc. These sounds and appearances were more apt to precede an accidental and premature death, such as drowning, and to understand them properly it will be necessary to enter into an examination of the doctrine of the Second Sight.

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CHAPTER IV.
SECOND SIGHT (an da shealladh).

Freed from a good deal of mystery in which an imperfect understanding of its character has involved it, the gift of second sight may be briefly explained to be the same as being “spectre-haunted,” or liable to “spectre illusions,” when that condition occurs, as it often does, in persons of sound mind.The phenomena in both cases are the same; the difference is in the explanation given of them.In the one case the vision is looked on as unreal and imaginary, arising from some bodily or mental derangement, and having no foundation in fact, while the other proceeds on a belief that the object seen is really there and has an existence independent of the seer, is a revelation, in fact, to certain gifted individuals of a world different from, and beyond, the world of sense.Science has accepted the former as the true and rational explanation, and traces spectral illusions to an abnormal state of the nervous system, exhaustion of mind or body, strong emotions, temperament, and others of the countless, and at times obscure, causes that lead to hallucination and delusion. But before optical and nervous delusions were recognised by science, while the spectres were believed to be external realities having an existence of their own, the visions were necessarily invested with an awe approaching to terror, and the gift or faculty of seeing them could not but be referred to some such explanation as the doctrine of the second sight offers.

“The shepherds of the Hebrid Isles” are usually credited with the largest possession of the gift, but the doctrine was well known over the whole Highlands, and as firmly believed in Ross-shire and the highlands of Perthshire as in the remotest Hebrides.Waldron describes it as existing in his time in the Isle of Man.It is a Celtic belief, and the suggestion that it is the remains of the magic of the Druids is not unreasonable.In every age there are individuals who are spectre-haunted, and it is probable enough that the sage Celtic priests, assuming the spectres to be external, reduced the gift of seeing them to a system, a belief in which formed part of their teaching.This accounts for the circumstance that the second sight has flourished more among the Celts than any other race.

The Gaelic name da-shealladh does not literally mean “the second sight,” but “the two sights.” The vision of the world of sense is one sight, ordinarily possessed by all, but the world of spirits is visible only to certain persons, and the possession of this additional vision gives them “the two sights,” or what comes to the same thing, “a second sight.” Through this faculty they see the ghosts of the dead revisiting the earth, and the fetches, doubles, or apparitions of the living.

The world to which apparitions belong is called by writers on the second sight “the world of spirits,” but the expression does not convey correctly the idea attached to visions of the kind.The object seen, usually that of a friend or acquaintance, the phantasm, phantom, apparition, or whatever else we choose to call it, was recognised to be as independent of the person whose semblance it bore as it was of the person seeing it.He knew nothing of the phantom’s appearance, it was not his spirit, and played its part without his knowledge or his wish.The seer, again, could not, or did not, trace it to anything in himself; it did not arise from any suggestion of his hopes or fears, and was not a reproduction of any former state of his mind or thought.As to its owing its origin to anything abnormal in himself, he was (as far as he could judge) as healthy in mind and body as other people.As long, therefore, as men believed the phantasm to be an external reality, they were compelled to believe in doubles, or semblances, that move in a world which is neither that of sense nor that of spirits. The actions and appearances of these doubles have no counterpart in any past or present event, and naturally are referred to the future and the distant.

The object seen, or phantasm, is called taibhs (pron. taïsh), the person seeing it taibhsear (pron. taïsher), and the gift of vision, in addition to its name of second sight, is known as taibhsearachd. It is noticeable that many words referring to spirits and ghosts begin with this syllable taThe following are worth noticing:

Tannas, or tannasg, a spectre, generally of the dead, and in the idea attached to it more shadowy, unsubstantial, and spiritual than a Bòchdan

Tamhasg (pron. taüsg), the shade or double of a living person, is the common name for apparitions by which men are haunted, and with which, according to the doctrine of the second sight, they have to hold assignations.

Tàchar, a rare and almost obsolete word, but the derivatives of which, tacharan and tachradh, are still in common use. The only instances known to the writer of its occurrence are in the names of places. Sròn an tàchair, the Ghost-haunted Nose, is a rock between Kinloch Rannoch and Druim-a-chastail, in Perthshire, where faint mysterious noises were heard, and on passing which the wayfarer was left by the mysterious sprite which joined him in the hollow below. Imire tàchair, in the island of Iona, is a ridge leading from near the ecclesiastical buildings to the hill, and, till the moor through which it runs was drained in recent years, formed an elevation above a sheet of water,—a very likely place to have been haunted by goblins. The natives of the island have no tradition or explanation of the name. The derivatives tachradh and tacharan are applied to a weak and helpless person: when the first syllable is long, in pity; when short, contemptuously, as, e.g., an tăchradh grànda, “the ugly wretch.”

Tàslaich, a supernatural premonition, felt or heard, but not seen. Also applied to the ghosts of the living. For instance, a native of Skye being asked the reason why dogs were barking at night near a churchyard, said it was because they saw tàslaich nan daoine beò, the ghosts of the living, the premonition of a funeral.

Tàradh, noises (straighlich) heard at night through the house, indicating a change of tenants, a premonition by mysterious sounds of a coming event.

Taran, the ghost of an unbaptised child (Dr. Macpherson, p.307), not now a common word.

Tàsg, perhaps a contraction of tamhasg, used commonly in the expression eigheach tàisg, the cry or wail of a fetch. Cf. taghairm, the spirit-call.

The whole doctrine of these apparitions of the living, or, as they are called in Cumberland, swarths, and premonitions of coming events, proceeds on the supposition that people have a counterpart or other self, an alter ego, which goes about unknown to themselves, with their voices, features, form, and dress, even to their shoes, and is visible to those who have the unhappy gift of the second sight. This phantasm, or other self, is not the life or the spirit of the person whom it represents. He has nothing to do with it; he may, at the time it is seen, be sunk in unconscious sleep, or his attention and wishes may be otherwise taken up, and death may not be at all in his thoughts. At the same time, it is not without some connection with him. Strongly wishing is apt to make one’s tàradh be heard at the place where he wishes to be, and if the person whose spectre is seen be spoken to the apparition disappears; but in general the taibhs is independent of all thought, or action, or emotion of the person whom it represents. The doctrine does not assert that all men have got such a double, much less that those who are most largely gifted with the second sight see it always, or even frequently. The spectres are visible to the seer only under exceptional circumstances, in certain situations, and at certain times. The most usual of these are after dusk and across a fire, when a sudden or violent death has occurred, or is to occur, when a friend is ill, when strangers are to come, or any event is impending calculated to make a deep impression on the mind.

Spectres are often seen with as much distinctness as external objects, and it would be a great injustice to the poor man, who claims to have visions of things that are not there at all, to say he is telling an untruth. To him the vision is really there, and it is but natural for him to think it has an existence separate from himself, instead of referring it to an abnormal state of his mind and nervous system. Some spectres “move with the moving eye,” being what the poet calls “hard mechanic ghosts”; others have their own proper motion, and probably arise in the brain. The former are the most common, and it was a test among taïshers, whether the figure seen was a wraith or not, to stoop down and raise themselves up again suddenly. If the figure did the same, it was an apparition, a tamhasg

The gift of second sight was not in any case looked upon as enviable or desirable.Seers frequently expressed a wish that they had no such gift.In some instances it ran in the family; in others, but rarer cases, the seer was the only one of his kindred who “saw sights” (chì sealladh). Some had it early in life, upon others it did not come till they were advanced in life. These characteristics alone show it to be in its origin the same as spectral illusions. It arose from hereditary disease, malformation, or weakness of the visual organs, and derangements of mind or bodily health. It was not voluntary; the visions went and came without the option of the seer, and his being visited by them was deemed by himself and others a misfortune rather than a gift.A difference was also recognised in the kinds of apparitions visible to different individuals.

When the figure of an acquaintance was seen, the manner in which the taibhs was clothed afforded an indication to the skilful seer of the fate then befalling, or about to befall, the person whose taibhs it was. If the apparition was dressed in the dead-clothes, the person was to die soon; but if in every-day clothes, his death would not occur for some time. If the clothes covered the entire face, his death would be very soon; if the face was uncovered, or partly covered, death was proportionately more remote. Others saw the dead-clothes first about the head, and lower down at each succeeding vision. When the feet were covered death was imminent. There were, however, grave-clothes of good fortune (lion-aodach àigh) as well as grave-clothes indicative of death (lion-aodach bàis), and it was considered extremely difficult for the most skilful seer to distinguish between them.He required, he said, a close view of the spectre to tell which it had on.

The time of day at which the vision was seen was also an indication.The later in the day, the sooner the death.If as late as 5 p.m., soon; but if as early as 2 a.m., the man might live for years.

If the person seen was to be drowned at sea, phosphorescent gleams (teine-sionnachain), such as are common in the Hebridean seas on summer nights, appeared round the figure, or its clothes seemed to drip, or there was water in its shoes.

The swarths, or doubles, were believed to go through all the actions and occupy the places which the originals would afterwards perform or occupy.This was particularly the case with regard to funerals.They went for the glasses to be used on the occasion, for the coffin, and even for the wood to make it, and marched in melancholy procession to the churchyard.When the funeral procession was seen, the seer was unable to say, except by inference, whose funeral it was.For anything he could directly tell, it might be, as it sometimes was, his own.He could only tell the dress, position in the procession, and appearance of those performing the sad duty.It is dangerous to walk in the middle of the road at night, in case of meeting one of these processions, and being thrown down or forced to become one of the coffin-bearers to the graveyard.Persons in the latter predicament have experienced great difficulty in keeping on the road, the whole weight of the coffin seeming to be laid upon them, and pushing them off the path.If the seer goes among the swarths he will likely be knocked down, but in some districts, as Moidart, he is said to have one of the staves or bearers (lunn) of the coffin thrust into his hand, and to be compelled to take his part in the procession till relieved in due time.In Durness, in Sutherlandshire, the cry of “Relief!”there used at every change of coffin-bearers, has been heard at night by persons whose houses were near the high-road called out by the phantasms in their ghostly procession. Persons have been caught hold of by those reputed to have the second sight, and pulled to a side to allow a spectral funeral to pass; and it was universally believed that when the seer saw a procession of the kind, or, indeed, any of his supernatural visions, he could make others see the same sight by putting his foot on theirs and a hand on their shoulder. He should, therefore, never walk in the middle of the road at night. Taïshers never did so. At any moment the traveller may fall in with a spectral funeral, and be thrown down or seized with the oppression of an unearthly weight.

The visions of the seer did not always relate to melancholy events, impending death, funerals, and misfortunes.At times he had visions of pleasant events, and saw his future wife, before he ever thought of her (at least so he said), sitting by the fireside in the seat she was afterwards to occupy.He could tell whether an absent friend was on his way home, and whether he was to have anything in his hands when coming.He could not tell what the thing was to be, but merely the general appearance of the absent man when returning, and whether he was to come full or empty handed.

It has been said that the phantasm (taibhs or tamhasg) was independent of all thought and volition on the part of those whom it represented, as well as on the part of the seer himself. At the same time, it was part of the creed that if the person whose double was seen was spoken to and told to cease his persecutions, the annoyance came to an end. The person spoken to, being utterly unconscious that his phantasm was wandering about and annoying any one, got very angry, but somehow the spectre ceased to appear. Before taking a final leave, however, it gave the person whom it had haunted (as an informant described it) “one thundering lashing.” After that it was no more seen.

When a double is first met, if it be taken to be the man himself whose semblance it bears, and be spoken to, it acquires the power of compelling the person who has accosted it to hold nightly assignations with it in future.The man, in fact, from that hour becomes “spectre-haunted.”Hence it was a tenet of the second sight never to be the first to speak, on meeting an acquaintance at night, till satisfied that the figure seen was of this world.The seer did not like, indeed did not dare, to tell to others whose figure it was that haunted him.If he did so, the anger of the spectre was roused, and on the following evening it gave him a dreadful thrashing.When he resisted, he grasped but a shadow, was thrown down repeatedly in the struggle, and bruised severely.This form of the disease was well known in the Western Islands.The haunted person, as in the case of those who had Fairy sweethearts, had to leave home at a certain hour in the evening to meet the spectre, and if he dared for one night to neglect the assignation he received in due course a sound thrashing. Sometimes at these meetings the spectre spoke and gave items of information about the death of the seer and others. Ordinarily, however, it had merely an indistinct murmuring kind of speech (tormanaich bruidhinn).

People noted for the second sight have been observed to have a peculiar look about the eyes.One of them, for instance, in Harris was described as “always looking up and never looking you straight in the face.”Those who are of a brooding, melancholy disposition are most liable to spectral illusions, and it is only to be expected that the gloom of their character should appear in their looks, and that many of their visions should relate to deaths and funerals.

Among a superstitious and credulous people the second sight, or a pretence to it, must have furnished a powerful weapon of annoyance, and there is reason to believe that, in addition to cases of nervous delusion and of men being duped by their own fancies, there were many instances of imposture and design.So much, indeed, was this the case, that a person of undoubted good character, born and brought up among believers in the second sight, and himself not incredulous on the subject, said: “I never knew a truthful, trustworthy man (duine fìrinneach creideasach) who was a taïsher.” While being spectre-haunted was honoured by the name of a Second Sight, and was invested with mystery and awe, no doubt many laid claim to it for the sake of the awe with which it invested them to annoy those whom they disliked, or to make capital out of it with those anxious about the future or the absent.

SPECTRES OF THE LIVING (Tamhasg).

Some thirty years ago a man in Tiree, nicknamed the Poult (am Big-ein), was haunted for several months by the spectre of the person with whom he was at the time at service.The phantom came regularly every evening for him, and if its call was disregarded it gave him next evening a severe thrashing.According to the man’s own account, the spectre sometimes spoke, and, when he understood what it said, gave good advice.Its speech was generally indistinct and unintelligible.The person whose spectre it was, on being spoken to on the subject, got very angry, but the visits of the spectre ceased.

Only a few years ago a young man, also in Tiree, was on his way home about midnight from the parish mill, where he had been kiln-drying corn.He had to go against a strong gale of north-west wind, and, having his head bent down and not looking well before him, ran up against a figure, which he took to be that of a young man of his acquaintance.He spoke to it, and the figure answered in broken, inarticulate speech (tormanaich bruidhinn).Every evening afterwards during that half-year he had to leave the house in which he was at service to meet, he himself said, the spectre that had thus met him.A person who doubted this followed one evening, and saw him, immediately on leaving the house, squaring out in boxing style to some invisible opponent, and falling at every round.The haunted youth said the apparition gave him much information.It said the person whose semblance it itself bore was to die of fever, that the coffin was to be taken out of the house by certain individuals, whom it named, and was to be placed on two creels outside the door.On speaking to the lad whose apparition haunted him, the persecution ceased.The common opinion was that this was a case of imposture and design.

Near Salen, in Mull, a workman, when going home from his employment in the evening, forgot to take his coat with him.He returned for it, and the apparition (tamhasg) of a woman met him, and gave him a squeezing (plùchadh) that made him keep his bed for several days.

In the same island a man was said to have been knocked off his horse by an apparition.

A crofter (or tenant of a small piece of land of which he has no lease) in Caolas, Tiree, went out at night to see that his neighbour’s horses were not trespassing on some clover he had in his croft.He was a man who had confessedly the second sight. He observed on this occasion a man going in a parallel direction to himself, and but a short distance off. At first he thought it was only a neighbour, Black Allan, trying to frighten him, but, struck by the motion and silence of the figure, he stooped down, and then raised himself suddenly. The figure did the same, proof of its being a tamhasg or phantasm. The seer reached home, pale and ready to faint, but nothing further came of his vision.

Three years ago a man, who claims to have the second sight, was on his way home at night to Barrapol, in the west end of Tiree, from the mill (which is in the centre of the island) with a sack of meal on his back.He laid down the sack, and rested by the wayside.When swinging the burden again on his shoulder he observed a figure standing beside him, and then springing on the top of the sack on his back.It remained there, rendering the sack very oppressive, till he reached home, some miles further on.

The son of a seer in Coll was away in the south country.The seer when delving saw his son several times lending assistance, and on two occasions when coming home with a creelful of peats, after taking a rest by the way, saw him helping to lift the creel again on his back.Before long word came of his son’s death.

Alexander Sinclair, from Erray, in Mull, was grieve at Funery in Morven. Two, if not three, of the servant women fell in love with him. He had to cross one night a bridge in the neighbourhood, between Savory and Salachan, and was met by the apparitions of two women, whom he recognised as his fellow-servants. One, he said, was the figure of a dark little woman, and lifted him over the parapet. The other was that of the dairymaid, in the house in which he was, and it rescued him. The adventure ended by his marrying the dairymaid.

A man, going home at night to Ledmore (Leudmòr), near Loch Frisa, in Mull, saw the kitchen-maid of the house in which he was at service waiting for him on the other side of a ford that lay in his way. Suspecting the appearance, he went further up the stream to avoid it, but it was waiting for him at every ford. At last he crossed, and held on his way, the apparition accompanying him. At the top of the first incline, the apparition threw him down. He rose, but was again thrown. He struggled, but the figure, he said, had no weight, and he grasped nothing but wind. On the highest part of the ascent, called Guala Spinne, the apparition left him.After going home, the man spoke to the woman whose spectre had met him.“The next time,” he said, “you meet me, I will stab you.”This made the woman cry, but he was never again troubled by her apparition.

A native of Glenbeg in Ardnamurchan, Henderson by name, was at service in Kilfinichen in Mull. One of the servant maids there made him a present of a pair of worsted gloves. After returning home from service, he had, one evening towards dusk (am bial an anmuich, lit.in the mouth of lateness) to go from Glenbeg to Kilchoan, by a path across a steep incline on the side of the lofty Ben-shianta, towards the projection known as “The Nose of the Macleans” (Sròin Chloinn Illeathain). Steep mountain paths of this kind are called Catha, and this particular catha is called Catha na Muice (the pig’s pass). Near the top of the ascent (aonaich), and where the difficult path ceases (bràighe na Catha), there is a narrow step (aisre), which only one person at a time can cross, leading towards another ascent (aonaich). When going up the first ascent, or cadha, Henderson was joined by the apparition of the woman who had made him the gloves in Kilfinichen. She was on the up side of him, and he saw, when he came to the aisre, if she chose to give him a push, he would be precipitated into the black shore (du-chladach), which the rocks there overhang, and become a shapeless bundle (seirgein cuagach). He blessed himself, and taking courage crossed in safety. When he got on more level ground, over towards Correi-Vulin, he took the gloves she had given him, and threw them at her, saying “that is all the business you have with me.” He stayed that night in Laga Fliuch, and next day went to Kilchoan.On his return he looked for the gloves, and saw them where he had thrown them. He had no return of the vision.

APPARITIONS OF THE DEAD.

A taïsher in Tiree came upon a dead body washed ashore by the sea.The corpse had nothing on in the way of clothing but a pair of sea-boots.Old people considered it a duty, when they fell in with a drowned body, to turn it over or move it in some way.In this case, the seer was so horrified that, instead of doing this, he ran away.Other people, however, came, and the body was duly buried.Afterwards the dead man haunted the seer, and now and then appeared and terrified him exceedingly.One night on his way home he saw the corpse before him, wherever he turned, and on reaching the house it stood between him and the door.He walked on till close to the house, and then called to his wife to take the broomstick and sprinkle the door-posts with urine.When this was done, he boldly walked forward.The spectre, on his approach, leapt from the ground, and stood above the door with a foot resting on each side on the double walls.The seer entered between its legs, and never saw the horrible apparition again.

A taïsher in Coll had no second sight till some time after his marriage.Working one day with a companion near the shore, he left for a short time, but stayed away so long that, on his return, he was asked what kept him? He said he had been looking at the body of a drowned man, which the waves were swaying backwards and forwards near the rocks. Others, however, were of opinion he had found the body on the shore, ransacked its clothes, and then thrown it again into the sea, and that the second sight was a curse sent upon him for the deed. Certain it is that from that day he had the second sight. His friends at first doubted him, when he said he saw visions, till he one day told his sister a certain rope in the house would be sent for before morning, to be used about a body lying on the “straight-board.” This proved to be the case, and his reputation as a taïsher was established.

A noted seer, named Mac Dhòmhnuill Oig, in Kilmoluag, Tiree, was sitting one day at home, when his brother entered, and opening a chest in the room, took out some money.In reply to the seer’s inquiries, the brother said he was going to pay such and such a shoemaker for a pair of shoes recently got from him.The brother died soon after, and the shoemaker claimed the price of the shoes.The seer warmly resisted the claim, as he himself had seen his brother taking the money expressly to pay them.That same night, however, he saw the shade of his deceased brother crossing the room, and, as it were, fumbling in a particular place on the top of the inner wall of the house.Next day the seer himself searched in the same spot, and found there the money that had been taken out of the chest to pay the shoes. He could only think it had been placed there by his brother when alive, and had been forgotten.

A taïsher, whose house was at Crossapol, where the burying-ground of the island of Coll is, on his way home from the harbour of Arnagour, about six miles away, experienced many mischances (driod-fhortain), such as falling, etc. He arrived at home to find his only child, a boy about twelve years of age, dead in the burying-ground, where he had gone to play and fallen asleep.Its entrails (màthair a mhionaich) were protruding.The seer, in his distraction, belaboured the surrounding graves with his stick, accusing their tenants, in his outcries, of indifference to him and his, and saying he had many of his kindred among them, though they had allowed this evil to befall his child.That night a voice came to him in his sleep, saying, he should not be angry with them (shades of the dead), seeing they were away that day in Islay keeping “strange blood” from the grave of Lachlan Mor (cumail na fuil choimhich a uaigh Lachuinn Mhòir), and were not present to have rescued the child.This Lachlan Mor was a man of great stature and bodily strength, chief of the Macleans of Dowart, and therefore related to the Macleans of Coll, who had been killed at the bloody clan battle of Gruinard Beach, in Islay, and was buried at Kilchoman Churchyard.On hearing of the seer’s vision the Laird of Coll dispatched a boat to Islay, and it was found that on the day the child was murdered an attempt had been made to lift the chief’s gravestone for the burial of a sailor, whose body had been cast ashore on a neighbouring beach. The attempt had failed, and the stone was left partly on its edge (air a leth-bhile).The shades had laid their weight upon it, so that it could not be moved further.

This story the writer has heard more than once adduced as positive proof of the reality of the second sight (tabhsearachd), that is, of the capacity of some men to see and hear spirits, or whatever else the spectres are.The power of the dead to lay a heavy weight upon persons as well as things, and even to punish the living, is shown by the following stories.

In the same island of Coll the wife of Donald the Fair-haired (Dòmhnull Bàn) was lying ill.She had strange feelings of oppression and sickness (tinneas ’us slachdadh).Donald’s father was a taïsher, and came to see her.After sitting and watching for some time he told her she had herself to blame for her sickness, that she must have done some act of unkindness or wrong to her mother, and that her feelings of oppression were caused by the spirit of her dead father coming and lying its weight upon her.The seer professed to see the spirit of the dead leaning its weight upon the sick person.

A woman (the tale, which comes from Perthshire, does not say where), being ill-treated by her husband, wished, too strongly and unduly, her brother, who had some time previously died in Edinburgh, were with her to take her part. Soon after, when she was alone, her brother’s shade appeared, and in a tone of displeasure asked her what was wrong, and what she wanted him for. She told. Her husband was at the time ploughing in a field in front of the house. The woman saw the shade going towards him, and when it reached, her husband fell dead.

STRONG AND UNDUE WISHES.

It is in fact part of the creed in the Second Sight that a person should never indulge in strong wishes, lest he overstep proper bounds, and wish what Providence has not designed to be.Such wishes affect others, especially if these others have anything of the Second Sight.

A woman in the island of Harris, known as Fionnaghal a Mhoir, was celebrated for her gift of Second Sight. A young man related to her went to Appin, in Argyleshire, with a boat. One day, when taking a smoke, he expressed a wish that Fionnaghal a Mhoir had a draw of his pipe. Next day, and long before it could be known in Harris the youth had expressed such a wish, Flora, daughter of the Big Man (for that is the meaning of her name), told her friends that a pipe was being offered her all night by the young man, and that she was anxious enough to have a smoke from it, but could not.

A young girl in Kennovay, Tiree, holding a bowl of milk in her hands, expressed a wish a certain woman (naming one, who was a taibhsear) had the bowl to drink.Next day the woman indicated in the wish told the girl she had a sore time of it all night keeping the bowl away from her lips.

In very recent times, not above four years ago, as the driver of the mail-gig was going through the Wood of Nant (Coill an Eannd), between Bonawe and Loch Awe, at night, he was met by the figure of his sweetheart, and received from it such a severe thrashing that he had to turn back.On telling this to herself, afterwards, she acknowledged, that on the night referred to she was very anxious about him, and wished she could intercept him in case, at his journey’s end, he should go to a house where fever had broken out.

A woman in Lismore, making a bowl of gruel (brochan blàth) in the evening, expressed a wish her husband, who was then away at the fishing at Corpach, near the entrance to the Caledonian Canal, had the drink she was making.When her husband came home, he said to her, “I tell you what it is, you are not to come again with porridge to me at Corpach.”He said he had seen her all night at his bedside offering him his gruel.

The power ascribed to strong wishes, or rather the evil consequences by which they may be followed, is still more forcibly illustrated by the following tale.

A young woman at Barr, Morvern, beautiful and much esteemed in her own neighbourhood, was about to be married.Other maidens were in the house with her, sewing the dresses for the marriage.As they sat at work, she sighed and said, she wished her intended was come.At that moment, he was on his way coming over the shoulder of Ben Iadain, a lofty mountain near hand, of weird appearance and having the reputation of being much frequented by the Fairies.He observed his sweetheart walking beside him, and as the shadowy presence threw him down, he struck at it repeatedly with his dirk.The bride got unwell, and, before the bridegroom reached the house, died.The ‘fetch’ left him shortly before his arrival, and her death was simultaneous with its disappearance.

It has been said that the appearance of the spectre was considered entirely independent of the thoughts or volition of the person whose image it bears.Yet the tales of the Second Sight indicate some mysterious connection between men and their doubles.Strongly wishing, as in the above instances, causes at times a person’s likeness to be seen or heard at the place where he wishes to be, and the original (so to call him) may be affected through his double.

A man in Islay encountered a ghost, and threw his open penknife at it. The weapon struck the phantom in the eye, and at that moment, a woman, whose likeness it bore, though several miles away, was struck blind of an eye.

A young woman, residing in Skye, had a lover, a sailor, who was away in the East Indies.On Hallowe’en night she went, as is customary in country frolics, to pull a kail plant, that she might know, from its being crooked or straight or laden with earth, what the character or appearance or wealth of her future husband might be.As she grasped a stock to pull it, a knife dropped from the sky and stuck in the plant.When her lover came home, she learned from him, that on that very night and about the same hour, he was standing near the ship’s bulwark, looking over the side, with a knife in his hand.He was thinking of her, and in his reverie the knife fell out of his hand and over the side.The young woman produced the knife she found in the kail-stock, and it proved to be the very knife her sailor lover had lost.

TÀRADH.

When a person strongly wishes to be anywhere, as for instance when a person on a journey at night wishes to be at home, his footsteps coming to the house, or the sounds of his lifting the door latch are heard, or a glimpse of his appearance is seen, at the time of his conceiving or expressing the wish, and even without any wish being present to the absent person’s mind, sights or sounds indicative of his coming may be seen or heard. This previous intimation is called his tàradh, and his double or shade, which is the cause of it, his tàslach. These mysterious intelligences are also called manadh nan daoine bèo, “the omens of living men.” The family, sitting round the evening fire, hear a footstep approaching the house, and even a tapping at the door. The sounds are so life-like that some one goes to open the door, but there is no one there. The sound is only the tàradh of an absent friend, storm-tossed or wayworn, and wishing he were at home.

The tàradh may be that of a complete stranger, who is not thinking of, and perhaps does not even know the place to which his tàradh has come. When there is to be a change of tenants the advent of the stranger is heralded, it may be years beforehand, by his double. It is said “thàinig a thàradh,” i.e. his wraith or forewarning has come. When a shepherd, for instance, from another part of the country, is to come to a place, his likeness, phantom, or tàradh, is seen perhaps years beforehand on the hills he is afterwards so frequently to traverse.It is not every kind of men who have this phantom or double, neither does it appear wherein those who have it differ from other men.At all events if all men have it, it is not always to be seen.

A feeling of oppression at night, and the sound of footsteps through the house and the noise of furniture being moved about, is the omen of a change of tenants, and the tàradh of the incoming tenant.

In the island of Coll, the chiefs of which in former times were among the most celebrated in the West Highlands, and where the return of the former lairds is talked about, and believed in, and prayed for among the few of the native population left, the figure of the Laird who is to come is said to have been seen by the castle servants, sitting in an empty chair, with a long beard flowing down to his breast.

A young man, sleeping alone in a house, in which a shop was kept by his father at Scarinish, Tiree, one night felt such an oppression on his chest that he could not sleep, and heard noises as if there were people in the house.He got up and made a thorough search, but found no one.Before long there was a change in the occupancy of the house.

On the uninhabited and lonely islet of Fladdachuain, to the east of Skye, some storm-stayed fishermen were boiling potatoes in a deserted bothy, and heard the noise of voices outside.On going out they could find no one.This occurred thrice.Some days after, and before the fishermen got away, a boat passing to the outer Hebrides was forced by stress of weather to take refuge in the same islet.The voices of its crew were exactly those previously heard.Nothing further occurred in connection with the sounds.

The spirit, thus coming in a visible or audible form about a treasure, by which the thoughts are too much occupied, or where a person wishes too much to be, is also denominated “falbh air fàrsaing,” i.e. going uncontrolled (?)

MARRIAGE.

Those gifted with the second sight were sometimes able to tell the appearance of a person’s future wife.They saw her taïsh, or appearance, sitting beside her husband, and this long before the event occurred, or was spoken of.For instance, a seer has been known to remark to a young man, who did not dream of marrying at the time, “I think your wife must belong to a big house, for she has a white apron on,” etc.

The event has proved the vision to be real.The woman was housemaid in a gentleman’s house.Seers also said they saw their own future wives sitting opposite to them at the fireside.

A native of Coll, Hugh, son of Donald the Red (Eoghan MacDhòmhnuill Ruaidh), while serving with his regiment in Africa, said he saw, almost every evening, for a period of five years, glimpses of the woman whom he afterwards married, and whom he never saw in reality till his return from the wars.Wherever he sat, after the day’s march, the figure of a woman came beside him, and sometimes seemed to him to touch him lightly on the shoulders.On each occasion he merely caught a glimpse of her.When he left the army, and was on his way home, he came to the village at Dervaig, in Mull, from the neighbourhood of which the ferry across to Coll lay. He entered by chance a house in the village, and his attention was unexpectedly attracted by the sound of a weaver’s loom at work in the house. On looking up he saw sitting at the loom the identical woman whose figure had for five years haunted him in Africa. He married her.

COMING MISFORTUNE.

A taïsher in Caolas, Tiree, was observed to have great objections to going home to take his meals.Being questioned on the subject, he said that at home he saw a horrible-looking black woman, with her head “as black as a pot,” and if he chanced to catch a glimpse of her at meal-times, her hideous appearance made him rise from his food.He said he did not recognise the woman, and was unable to say who or what she was.This was continued for three months, when the place was visited with smallpox, and the seer’s own sister took the disease very badly.Her head became hideous, and literally “as black as a pot,” and the people understood the meaning of the vision.

A celebrated seer in the same village, Donald Black (Domhnull Mac an dui), was married for the fourth time.In his day lucifer matches were unknown, and when corn was kiln-dried a person had to sit up all night to keep the fire alive.As Donald sat at this work in a solitary hut—such as small kilns are still kept in—the figure of his first wife appeared, and told him to beware, for “the terror” (an t-eagal) was coming, it was at the Horse-shoe (crudh an eich), a spot on the public road leading to Caolis, about a mile and a half distant, deriving its name from the plain likeness of a horse-shoe indented in the rock.He, however, was dozing over into sleep again when his second wife, in more distressed tones, warned him the “terror” was nearer hand—at the Gateway of the Fuel enclosure (Cachlaidh na Cuil Connaidh).He neglected this warning also, and was dozing again when his third wife warned him the “terror” was at the upper village (Bail’ uachdrach).He immediately went home, and had hardly got into bed when a sound like the rushing of a violent blast of wind passed, and the whole house was shaken, so that the walls were like to fall.If this was not “the terror” of which he had been so strangely warned, Donald could give no other explanation.

EVENTS AT A DISTANCE.

Some sixty years ago a seer in Ruaig, Tiree, the neighbouring village to the preceding, was one day employed in the harvest-field, tying sheaves after the reapers, a work assigned to old people.One of his sons was away in the Ross of Mull for a cargo of peats.All of a sudden the old man cried out “Alas! alas! my loss!” (och!och!mo chreach!) His children gathered round him in great anxiety as to the cause of his distress.He told them to wait a minute and in a short time said it was all right, his son was safe.It turned out that at the very time of his exclamation, the boat in which his son was on its way from the Ross of Mull, was run into by another boat at the Dutchman’s Cap (Am Bac Mòr), a peculiarly shaped island on the way, and his son was thrown overboard, but was rescued in time.The view of this incident which his mystic gift gave the seer was the cause of his exclamation.

DEATH.

Visionary delusions are so frequently to be traced to a brooding, gloomy disposition, that it is no wonder sorrowful sights were those usually seen by persons having the Second Sight, or that death was an event of which taïshers had particular cognisance.The doctrine is, that the whole ceremony connected with a funeral is gone through in rehearsal by spectres which are the shades, phantoms, appearances, taïshs, doubles, swarths, or whatever else we choose to call them, of living men, not merely by the shade of the person who is to die, but by the shades of all who are to be concerned in the ceremony.The phantoms go for the wood that is to make the coffin, the nails, the dead clothes, and whatever else may be required on the occasion; the sounds of the coffin being made are heard, of presses being opened, of glasses rattling; and the melancholy procession has been met in the dead of night wending its way to the churchyard. These weird sights and sounds have been seen and heard by others as well as taïshers. The only difference is, that he who has the Second Sight is more apt to see them.

COFFIN.

The shades that go for a coffin are called tathaich air ciste, i.e. frequenters for a chest. They are heard at night long after the joiner has ceased his day’s labour. The workshop is closed, and the wright has retired to rest, when the sound of a hammer, a shuffling for nails, and the working of a plane, are heard as if someone were at work. If anyone has the courage to enter the workshop, nothing is to be seen, and no answer is given though he speak.

Some fifty years ago there was a wright in Kinloch Rannoch, in Perthshire, who complained of having the Second Sight, and who, in emigrating to Australia, assigned as his chief reason for leaving his native land, the frequency with which he saw or heard people coming beforehand for coffins.The tools of his trade, plane, hammers, saw, etc., were heard by him at work as distinctly as though he himself were working, and the frequency of the omen preyed so much on his mind that he left the country in the hope of relief. The shades were not those of the people whose death was imminent, but those of their friends and acquaintances, who afterwards proved actually to be the parties who came for the coffin.

A few years ago a medical student, in the west of Inverness-shire, sat up late on a summer night “grinding” for his examination.A joiner’s workshop adjoined the house in which he was.About two o’clock in the morning he heard the sound of hammers, plane, etc., as though some one were at work in the shop.The sounds continued till about three.The evening was calm.Next day when he told what he had heard his friends laughed at him.Next night again, however, the noises were resumed and continued till he fell asleep.They were this night heard also by the other inmates; and as they were repeated every night for a week, every person in the house, including the joiner himself, who was brought in for the purpose, heard them.Shortly after a woman in the neighbourhood died in childbed, and the joiner, in whose workshop the noises were heard, made her coffin.The mysterious hammering only discontinued when the coffin was finished.The person who heard the noises were neither taïshers nor sons of taïshers.

A Tiree man assured the writer that he and a brother of his heard most distinctly (ga farumach) the sound of a hammer all night till morning on a chest in an empty room, near which they slept.A woman next door died suddenly on the following day, and it was on that chest another brother of his made her coffin. The truthfulness of the persons who told this can be assured, whatever be the explanation given of the noise.

A very intelligent informant says that the only thing of the kind he himself was personally witness to occurred above fifty years ago, when he was a young lad.An old woman of the neighbourhood lay on her death-bed, and while the rest of the household, of which he was a member, sat up, he was on account of his youth packed off to bed.Through the night he heard what he took to be the trampling of dogs on a loft above his sleeping place, and this he heard so distinctly that he asked his father next day what made him put the dogs there.He also heard a plank sliding down from the loft and striking on end in the passage between the doors.The following night the old woman died, and the lad himself was sent up to the loft to bring down planks to make her coffin.A plank slipped from his hands, and, falling on end in the passage, made exactly the same noise as he had before heard.

Some forty or fifty years ago the trampling of horses and the rattling of a conveyance (stararaich agus gliongarsaich) were heard after dark, coming to the farm-house of Liaran in Rannoch.Every person in the house thought a conveyance was really there.The horses were distinctly heard turning round in the courtyard. On looking out nothing was to be seen or heard. In four or five days after, a hearse (a kind of conveyance till then unknown in the country) came from Appin of Menzies (Apuinn na Meinearach) with the remains of a cousin of the family, who had been suddenly killed by a kick from a horse.

As late as 1867 a coach was seen proceeding silently through the streets of a village in Ayrshire to the burying-ground, and was believed by the common people to be that of a rich lady in the neighbourhood, known as Brimstone Betty, who died shortly after, not in the odour of sanctity.

NOISE OF GLASSES TO BE USED AT FUNERALS.

Some thirty years ago in Appin, Argyleshire, noises were heard in a cupboard upstairs, above a room which formed part of a neighbour’s house, as if some one were fumbling among bottles.The noises were heard by the inmates of both houses for several nights previous to a somewhat sudden death occurring in the house below.It turned out that bottles from that cupboard were used at the funeral.

It was also a belief in Tiree that glasses, to be used before long for refreshments at a funeral, were heard rattling, as if being moved.Not many years ago there was an instance of this in the village of Kilmoluag.Skilful women professed to be able to tell by the baking board and the “griddle” whether the bread of that baking would be used at a funeral.

FUNERAL PROCESSION.

A boy in Rannoch was playing with his companions in sight of the public road, when all of a sudden he exclaimed, “Lord!will you not look at my grandmother’s funeral?”(Dhia!nach fhaic sibh tòrradh mo sheanamhair.) His grandmother was ill at the time, but was not thought near her dissolution.In a few days after her funeral took place, as the boy described it, with a red-haired character of the neighbourhood dancing at its head.

The following incident is told by a person whose truthfulness is beyond question.He is a person of talents and education, and a clergyman of the Church of Scotland.

“A young lad, herd-boy in the village in the Western Islands to which I belong, was one day with me on the moors (sliabh), above the cultivated land, when he said he saw two men carrying a coffin between them from a wright’s workshop then in sight to the door of a house, which he mentioned.He called my attention to the vision, but I could see nothing of the kind.He described the dress the two men had on, particularly grey trousers, such as seafaring people of the place then wore.In about ten days after an event exactly corresponding occurred.”

A Tiree taïsher told how he had seen a funeral procession leave a certain house, and persons whom he named acting as coffin-bearers when leaving the house.This was at Beltane, the first day of summer.Next Christmas a death occurred in that house, and one of those to whom the seer had told his vision, took a good look at the funeral, to see if matters would prove as the seer had said.They did so exactly.

“On one occasion,” said a native of Harris, “I was out fishing till twelve or one o’clock in the morning, with several others, of whom one, a man about 35, was reputed to have the Second Sight.As we were coming home, I kept the middle of the road, thinking it was the safest place, and that no evil could come near me there.Suddenly the man, who had the Second Sight, caught me by the shoulder and pulled me to the side of the road.As he laid his hand on my shoulder I saw a funeral procession—a coffin and men carrying it.I was afterwards at that funeral myself, and at the place where I met the taïsh, the men were in the same order in which I had seen them.”

A young man going home at night, along the south side of Loch Rannoch, was joined by a funeral procession.One of the poles of the bier was thrust into his hands, and he had to march in the procession above a mile.He was on the lochside of the coffin, and had great difficulty in keeping on the road.The other bearers of the ghostly coffin were laying the weight to push him off the road.

A woman, near Loch Scavaig (Scathabhaig), in Skye, saw a funeral procession, with the coffins, passing along a hillside, where no road lay, and no one was ever observed to pass.After the woman’s death, and two years after her vision, a boat was lost in Loch Scavaig, and the bodies of three persons lost in her were buried near the shepherd’s house at the loch side.They were afterwards raised and carried along in the direction the woman had pointed out as that taken by her vision.

One of these mystic processions was seen in Strathaird, in the same neighbourhood, carrying something in a grey plaid.A man was drowned in a river there, and his body was not recovered for a week.It was then carried in a grey plaid in the same direction the spectral procession had taken.

A man in Skye met at night a funeral procession, and some occult influence made him walk along with it till he came to Portree churchyard.He then for the first time asked whose funeral it was.He received for answer, “Your own.”

A man living in the Braes of Portree went daily to Portree, four miles away, to work.A neighbour, whose house was a little further away, was engaged in the same work, and was in the habit of calling him as he passed in the morning.The two then walked together to the scene of their labour. One clear moonlight night he was awakened by what he took to be his companion’s call. He hastily threw on his clothes and followed. Every now and then he heard a call before him on the road telling him to make haste. He followed, without thought, till he came to Portree churchyard. It did not strike him till then that the call was from no earthly voice.

WRAITHS SEEN BEFORE DEATH.

When a person was about to die, especially if his death was to be by violence or drowning, his wraith or phantom was seen by those who had the Second Sight, or it might be by those who had no such gift.

In the island of Lismore, in the beginning of the nineteenth century, the minister was said to have seen the fetch of the man at whose funeral the custom was introduced of having the refreshments (cosdas) after the funeral.In former times it was the practice in the Highlands to have the refreshments before starting, and consequently the funeral party were sometimes far advanced in drink before starting on their melancholy journey.There are even stories of their having forgot the coffin.

On the farm of Kirkapol, in Tiree, where the burying-place of the east end of the island is, the figure of a man in a dress not belonging to the island—light trousers and blue jacket with white buttons—was seen about forty years ago by several people in the evenings going in the direction of the kirkyard. A celebrated seer in the neighbouring village saw it, and said it was not the taïsh of any man or any man’s son in Tiree. Some time after a ship was wrecked in the east end of Tiree, and one of the sailors, whose dress when his body was found corresponded to that of the taïsh, was taken and buried in Kirkapol. After that the apparition was no more seen.

The body of a young man drowned in the same neighbourhood, before being coffined, was laid first on a rock and then on the green sward.A person who came to the scene after the body was laid on the grass asked if the body had been laid on the rock mentioned.He was told it had, and was asked why he enquired.He said his uncle had told him that his grandfather, who was a taïsher, had said a dead body would yet be laid on that rock.This shows that the fulfilment of the seer’s vision does not necessarily take place soon after, or even within a number of years.

The taïsher in Caolas, Tiree, already mentioned as having seen the fetch of his sister in the smallpox, on a New-Year night accompanied his brother-in-law, who had spent the evening with him (and from whom the story has been got), a piece of the way home.When his brother-in-law urged him to return, as he had come far enough, he asked to be allowed, as this was the last New Year he would be with his friends.He was asked what made him think so gloomily of the future. He said the matter was to be so, and there was no chance of its being otherwise, for he had seen his own phantom three or four times. In March following the man was drowned.

A Tiree taïsher was going out to Tobermory, and taking his passage along with him was a neighbour going to consult the doctor.There was no medical officer in those days resident in Tiree.The seer said to one of the boatmen, he wished he had not the sight he had, for he saw his fellow-passenger with the dead clothes up to his eyes.“You may,” he said, “take off my ear if the man’s death is not near hand.”The event proved the correctness of his vision, and the right to take off his ear did not arise.

DROWNING.

It is a common story that a taïsher saw the figure of an acquaintance passing with dripping clothes and water in its shoes (aodach fliuch agus bogan na bhròig).Soon after word was received of the drowning of the person, whose resemblance it was, at the time the figure was seen.

The seeing of spectres about boats in which people are to be drowned, is also common.When the superstition was in full force, a sure way of making a boat useless was to say that voices had been heard about it when it was drawn upon the beach, or that figures had been seen, which disappeared mysteriously, “whether the earth swallowed them, or the sky lifted them.” After that no one having a regard for his own life would put his foot in that boat.

A person from Tiree went for wood to Loch Creran, and at Tobermory forgot the parcel in which he had a change of clothes.One day he got wet, soaked through to the skin, and had to sit all evening in his wet clothes.On his return home to Tiree a woman, who was reputed to have the gift of second sight, asked him if, on a certain day of the week (mentioning the one on which this accident occurred), he had got himself wetted, that she had seen him, and thought he had been drowned.The man himself tells the story, and says he cannot conceive of any ordinary channel of information by which the woman could have become aware of his condition.

A man named Conn was drowned at Sorisdal, in Coll.A seer, who had been at daily work with him, had long seen his boots full of water (bogan uisge), when there was no water in them in reality; and for twelve months after the event, was haunted wherever he went by the vision of Conn’s drowning.

A seer in Skye saw, when in reality there was no such object, a woman sitting in the stern of a boat, which afterwards drowned people in Portree Bay.

A fishing boat or skiff belonging to the people of Gortendonald, in the west end of Tiree, was sold, because “things” were said to have been seen about it, till no one belonging to the village would venture to sea in it. It was bought by some persons in Scarinish, in the east end of the island, who professed not to believe in taibhsearachd, or second sight.They gave the loan of it to people in Vaul, on the north side of the island.Here sights began again to be seen about it, and it was even said that at a time when it was hauled up on dry land, six men were seen rowing in it and one steering.At last no one at all would venture to sea in the boat, and it was sent back to Scarinish.So strong was the feeling that the Vaul men would not venture with it through the Black Water (am Bun dubh), as the sound between Coll and Tiree is called, but drew it across the land to Gott Loch, whence the Scarinish people took it home.After this, its odour in the east end of Tiree became so bad that it was sold again to villagers in the west end, at some distance from the place it originally came from.Here it terminated its career in Tiree by drowning six men.

Sights were similarly seen about a boat in Iona, and it had to be sold.It went to Islay, and the visions were believed to have received their fulfilment from the boat being employed to convey dead bodies from a ship wrecked on the Rhinns of Islay (an Roinn Ileach, lit.the sharp edge of Islay).

Not many years ago, a man told about a boat on the south side of Tiree, that he had heard voices about it, like those of people talking, but on going near found no person there. He did not know, he said, whether the air had lifted the people whom he thought were there, or the earth had swallowed them, but he had heard voices, and no person was there. The boat became worthless, it would drown some one some day, and no one would go out to fish in it. The owner, therefore, summoned the seer before the Sheriff and got him fined.

HORSES AND DOGS.

These animals were deemed to have the gift of seeing spectres in a larger measure than the best seers.They are observed to be frightened, or to have their fury raised, without any visible or intelligible cause; they show signs of terror and distress when human eyes can see no cause, and it is part of the Celtic belief in the second sight that this excitement is caused by seeing the taïsh, or shades of the living, in those circumstances, and engaged in those services in which the persons, whose similitude they are, will afterwards be.Dogs bark at night, and when this occurs on clear moonlight nights, they are said in English to “bay the moon.”The Celtic belief does not deny that they often bark at the moon, but it asserts further their clamour arises, as the event afterwards proves, from their seeing the forms of that world, in which fetches and doubles move, the omens of an impending death. Horses are better spectre-seers than even dogs. At places where a violent or sudden death is to occur, they take fright, and no effort of the rider can get them to pass the spot, till at last he has to dismount and lead them past. This is caused by their seeing the “fetch” of the subsequent event, but ordinary people pass it over merely as an “unaccountable fright.”

“I have heard,” said a Skyeman, “scores of times the dogs howling before a funeral was to take place in Kilmuir churchyard.It was because they saw the wraiths of the living” (tàslaich nan daoine beò).It is a universal Highland belief that certain dogs cry at night when any one in the house is to die.

In Lorn, a woman, going with leather to a neighbouring shoemaker, had on her way to cross a wooden bridge thrown over a mountain stream.She was accompanied by a young child, whom she left, while she herself crossed the bridge to leave the parcel of leather on the other side.As she was crossing a second time, leading the child, the stream came down in flood, as mountain streams do, and carried away the bridge.The woman and child were drowned, and their bodies were found further down the stream, at a place where, for fourteen days previously, a grey tailless bitch (galla chutach ghlas), belonging to a neighbour, used to go and howl piteously.

The fierce growling of a dog at night, when nothing is known to be in the house to excite its fury, is also supposed to arise from its seeing spirits, or the spectres, it is not known which, of the living or of the dead. Stories of this class usually run in the same groove. A shepherd or servant-man has a very good dog, which is in the habit of sleeping in the same room with himself. One night it suddenly gets up growling, and is heard making its way to the other end of the room. It returns howling faintly, springs into bed, and, lying with its forepaws resting on its master, snarls fiercely at something invisible. The occupant of the bed, not seeing anything to account for the dog’s fury, puts his head below the bedclothes and quakes with fear till daylight.

A horse in Vaul, Tiree, ordinarily a quiet beast used, when carting, to be most unaccountably startled especially when passing a certain boat, drawn up on the beach.This same boat has been mentioned already as having, in consequence of being spectre-haunted, been sold by people in the west end of Tiree to some villagers in the east end, who gave the loan of it to Vaul people.Lights began also to be seen about it, and it was ultimately sent back to the lenders, who again sold it to people in the west end.Here a melancholy loss of life occurred in it.A gale off the land suddenly sprang up, when the boat, with its six of a crew, was within a few hundred yards of the shore.The men were seen rowing hard to bring the boat to land, but they had at last to give up the attempt. Some days after, the boat came ashore in Coll, with only one of the crew in it. He was reclining on one of the thwarts dead. It was the horse and cart mentioned that took home his body. After that day the horse was never known to be unaccountably startled or frightened. Its former fits entirely forsook it.

CRYING HEARD BEFORE DEATH.

A wailing or unusual cry heard at night, where no one is known to be, or can be, is an indication that at that place some one will break into lamentation for the death of a friend, of which he will there first receive intimation, or will have otherwise cause to cry.The voice heard is not that of the “fetch” of the man, who is to be killed or drowned, but that of some mourner—a wife, or sister, or near relation.In these cries before a sudden death, the voices of women are the most frequently recognised.

A cry or scream, indicative of death, and believed to be uttered by a wraith, was called tàsg, and éigheach tàisg or éigheach tàsg, i.e. the cry of a wraith.

In the case of a man accidentally drowned on Trabay Beach in Tiree, a cry described as “a healthy cry” (glaodh fallain) was heard at night in the west end of the island several days previous to the disaster, and four miles from the scene of the accident, at the spot where the man’s brother first received the melancholy intelligence.The cry consisted of “òh” said thrice, and each time at the full length of a man’s breath (fad analach).

At the old quay in Port Appin, Argyleshire, the wailing of a woman was heard at night.Some days after, the mother of a young man who had been accidentally killed in Glasgow, there met the remains, which came by steamer, and she broke into loud lamentation.

At the Big Bridge (an Drochaid Mhor) above Portree Manse, on the road to Braes, in the Isle of Skye, strange sounds are heard by people passing there at night, such as the moaning of a dying person, sounds of throttling, etc. Mysterious objects, dogs, and indistinct moving objects are also seen at the haunted spot.These are supposed to denote that a murder will some time be committed here.

Weeping and crying were heard at midnight near the mill-dam in Tiree, on a dark and rainy night, by a young man going for a midwife for his brother’s wife.He heard the same sounds on his return.The woman died in that childbed, and it was observed that at the very spot where the young man said he heard the sounds of lamentation, her two sisters first met after her death, and burst into tears and outcries.The person to whom this incident occurred is now past forty years of age, is intelligent, and to be relied on as a person who would not tell a lie.There can be no doubt he heard the lamentation, whatever may have been the cause of his impression. Strange noises, of which the natural cause is not known, are readily associated with the first incident that offers any explanation.

In the island of Mull, lamentation (tuireadh) was recollected to have been heard where a young man was accidentally killed ten years after.

Thirty years ago horrible screaming and shouting (sgiamhail oillteil agus glaodhaich) were heard about eight o’clock on a summer evening across Loch Corry in Kingairloch.In a line with the shouting lay a ship at anchor, and the burying-ground on the other side of the loch.The cry was like that of a goat or buck being killed, a bleating which bears a horrible resemblance to the human voice.Next night the master of the ship was drowned, no one knew how.The man on the watch said that when sitting in the stern of the ship he saw the skipper go below, and then a clanking as if the chain were being paid out.He heard and saw nothing further.The night was fine.

In July, 1870, a ship struck on a sunken rock in the passages between the Skerryvore lighthouse and Tiree, and sprang a leak.The shore was made for at once, but when within 150 yards of it the ship sank.The crew betook themselves to the rigging, and were ultimately rescued; but the skipper, in trying to swim ashore, was caught by the current that sweeps round Kennavara Hill, and drowned. The crying heard in Kennavara Hill four years previous was deemed to have portended this event.

Crying was heard several times on the reefs to the east end of Coll, and to the best of the hearer’s belief, it was in English.In the same year (1870), a boat or skiff with two East Coast fishermen, following their calling in that neighbourhood, went amissing, and was never heard of.Many were of opinion it must have been lost on the reefs, where the cries had long previously been heard.

LIGHTS.

It was deemed a good sign when lights were seen previous to a person’s death. The dreag was a light seen in the sky, leaving a tail (dreallsach) behind it, and, according to some, stopping above the house where the death was to occur; according to others, proceeding from above the house to the churchyard, along the line the funeral was to take. The dreag was seen only when a person of consequence was near his dissolution. Hence an irreverent tailor in East-side, Skye, said he wished the sky was full of dreags.

It was also a belief that the death-light went along the road a funeral was to take.

An old man in Druim-a-chaoin, in Lower Rannoch, being sceptical on this point, was one night called to the door to believe his own eyes.His house overlooked the public road, and stepping boldly down he stood in the middle of the road awaiting the approach of the death-light. When it reached him, it also stood, right before him. The old man gazed fixedly at the unearthly light, and at last an indistinct and shadowy form became visible in the middle of it. The form slowly placed the palms of its two hands together, and extended them towards him. With a startling suddenness it said “Whish!” and passed over his head. That old man never afterwards said a word against death-lights.

In another instance of the death-light proceeding along the highway in the same district, a hare-brained young man went to meet it, and stood waiting it behind his dirk, which he stuck in the middle of the road.When the light came to the dirk it stopped, and the young man gazing at it, at last saw a child’s face in its feeble glare.He then stooped down and drew his dirk from the ground.As he did so the light passed over his head.

Lights were also seen where a violent or accidental death was to occur, and might be seen by the person whose death they fore-tokened.Thus, at Brae-Glen (Bràighe Ghlinne) in Glen-Iuchar, where a river falls into Loch Sgamadail, in Lorn, lights were seen two years previous to the drowning of a man of the name of Maclachlan, in the stream when drunk.Maclachlan had seen these lights himself.

Lights, to which these mysterious meanings are attached, are generally mere ignes fatuiThey have of late years become prevalent in the Hebrides, and various explanations are given of them.In Tiree they are called “Fairy light” (Teine sìth), and are said to be produced by a bird.In Skye and the northern islands they are called the “Uist light” (Solus Uithist), and the following extraordinary account is given of their origin:

A young girl one Sunday night insisted, in spite of her mother’s remonstrances, on starting with a hook and creel to gather plants in the field for some species of dye before the Sabbath was expired.Finding her counsels of no avail, the mother in a rage told her to go then and never return: the young girl never returned, but her hook and creel were found in the fields, and marks of fighting at the spot.When encountered, the light jumps three times, and its appearance is that of human ribs with a light inside of them.It is only an odd number that can see this light.Two will not see it, but three can.Like other supernatural appearances it could only speak when spoken to.A young lad once had the courage to speak to it.The light answered that it was the young girl whom the above fate befell: that she had done wrong in disobeying her mother, and breaking the Sabbath day; that it was her mother’s prayer that was the cause of her unrest; and that she was now doomed to wander about in the shape of this light till the end of the world.

SPIRITS SEEN BEFORE DEATH.

Shortly before death greenish bright lights were seen moving from one place to another, when no other light was in the room.These were said to be spirits awaiting the soul of the dying person.When the body lay stretched out, previous to being coffined, these lights were seen hovering near, and perhaps seven or eight butterflies (dealan-dé) fluttered through the room.They moved about the chest, in which were the bannocks to be used at the funeral, or the winding-sheet (blà-lìn), and about the cupboard in which the glasses were.The belief in these appearances was not commonly entertained.

A belief in the occurrence of something supernatural at the moment of death seems to have been not altogether uncommon.On an occasion already mentioned of a sudden death at Port Appin, Argyleshire, which was preceded by the noise of bottles rattling, a girl opened the door of a side room at the moment of the sick man’s dissolution.She returned in a state bordering on hysteria, cursing and swearing, that she would not take the world and go in.She said every article in the room seemed to meet her at the door.

RETURN OF THE DEAD.

The plant mòthan (sagina procumbens), or Trailing Pearlwort, was placed by old women in Tiree above the door, on the lintel (san àrd-dorus), to prevent the spirits of the dead, when they revisited their former haunts, from entering the house, and it was customary in many places to place a drink of water beside the corpse previous to the funeral, in case the dead should return.

There is a sept of Macdonalds called MacCannel, of whom it is said in Tiree, that when one dies and the body is laid out to be waked, all the dead of the race enter the room, go round the body, upon which each lays his hand, and then in solemn procession march out again.This is the case at every death of one of the sept, but only those who have the second sight can see the shades.A man married to one of the MacCannels, whose father had been long dead, enraged her beyond measure, on the occasion of the death of one of the sept, by asking her why she had not gone to Ballevullen (where the death had occurred), last night to see her father.

The spirits of the dead came back to reveal secrets and give good advice.Those who hid iron during their lifetime, and died without telling where, could not rest till they had told their secret.Notoriously bad men, misers, oppressors of the poor, and all whose affections were set too much on the things of this world, were believed after death to wander about their former haunts.They seek to be where they left their treasure.They do not speak till they are spoken to, and it requires great courage in a living person to address the spirits of the dead. The last buried had to watch the churchyard till the next funeral; and if the strings of the winding-sheet were not untied, it was also a belief that the spirit could not rest.

It is very imprudent to enter into a compact with another, that whoever dies first will come back to tell his fate to the survivor.The agreement is unholy, and will entail sorrow, whether the dead man’s position is in weal or woe.

Two herdsmen at the summer pastures for the cattle (bothan àiridh) in “the wilds of far Kintail” entered into a compact of this kind.One of them died, and a substitute came in his place.The newcomer observed that his companion was anxious not to be alone for any time, however short, but one day he had to go to the strath for yeast (deasgainn), the two being engaged in brewing spirits, and did not return till far on in the night.The survivor of the two who had made the paction, being thus left alone, when night came on took to mending his shoes and singing at his work to keep his courage up.His thoughts constantly reverted to his dead companion, and the bargain made with him, and the more he thought the more uneasy he became.At midnight a scraping noise began on the top of the house, as if some one were trying to make an entrance.The scraping became louder and louder, and the shoemaker, in the agony of terror, but pretending to think the noise was made by his comrade who had gone to the strath, called out, “I know it is you trying to frighten me” (cuir eagal orm).As soon as he spoke, a man, whom he recognised as his dead companion, entered the hut, wrapped in the grave clothes, but after saying it was a good thing for him where he (the dead man) had gone, went away and left him unharmed.

In another case of a similar agreement between two youths in the same district, the survivor forgot all about the paction, till one night he was met on the public road by the figure of his departed friend, which told him to meet it alone at a certain place (which it named) at a certain hour, otherwise it would be worse for himself.The man, terrified beyond measure, consulted the parish minister as to what he ought to do, but the minister merely advised him to pray that no evil would come of his rash and unguarded compact.He consulted an old man, who told him to go to the place appointed and take a ball of iron in his hand, and hold it out to the ghost when shaking hands.The man went, the ghost crushed the ball of iron and the man escaped, otherwise the spirit, which could only have come from a bad place, would have crushed his hand into atoms.

A woman in Flodigarry, in Skye, whose husband had been killed by witchcraft (buidseachd), saw him after his death sitting by the fireside.On being spoken to, the ghost asked, why they had not shaved him before putting his body in a coffin?[31]

BONES OF THE DEAD AND PLACE OF BURIAL.

It was part of the lesson impressed on the young Highlander, to treat that which belonged to the dead with reverence.The unnecessary or contemptuous disturbing of graves, bones, or other relics of humanity was reprobated, and sometimes warmly resented.This praiseworthy feeling towards the dead was strengthened by the pride of race and ancestry, which formed so prominent a feature of the Highland character, and by sundry tales of wide circulation.

The story has been already told of the tailor who irreverently gave a kick to a skull, and was ever after haunted by the man to whom it had belonged.It is told of one who disturbed a grave at night, that, on his taking up a skull in his hand, a feeble voice, that of the disturbed spirit, said, “That’s mine.”He dropped that skull and took up another, when a like voice said, “That’s mine.”The man cried out, “Had you two skulls?”

Tradition says the island of Islay derives its name from Ile, a Scandinavian princess, who went to bathe in a loch there, and sticking in the soft mud, was drowned.The head and footstones of her grave are some distance from each other, and of three persons, who successively attempted to open the grave to see what the bones were like, each died mad!Very likely this was the fate awaiting them at any rate.Their action in opening a grave, to satisfy an idle curiosity, was in keeping with a morbid character, and they only died as they lived.

Stones from a disused burying-ground, called “The Burial-place of the Big Women,” on the farm of Heynish, in Tiree, were used for building one of the farm out-houses.In this house, a servant man from Mull was sent to sleep.Through the night he was disturbed by his dog jumping into bed, between him and the wall, and with its fore feet resting upon his body, snarling fiercely at something he could not see.He heard feeble voices through the house, saying, “This is the stone that was at my head.”Nothing more came of this visit of the spirits, than that the Mull man (who was likely the victim of a hoax) positively refused to sleep in that house again.

The manner in which shades haunt the places where their bodies are, is very clearly shown in the following tale.

The body of a woman was cast ashore by the sea on the North Beach, called the Beach of Fell (Tràigh Feall), in the island of Coll, and was buried in the neighbouring sandbanks.After this, the semblance of a woman was seen in the evenings on the beach, close to the tide.Maclean, the then tenant of Caolas, a farm near hand, ridiculed the belief.One evening, however, when going home across the North Beach, at the White Stream (Sruth Bàn), he thought of the numerous stories he had heard of the apparition, and, looking seaward, saw a woman sitting by the tide, rocking herself (ga turruman fhein), and apparently in the utmost distress.He went where she was, and asked her what she was doing?“Hand of cleverness” (làmh thapaidh), she answered, “I have been long here; I try to go home, but I cannot.I was a poor woman belonging to Uist; I was lost on a rock; my body came ashore here, and I try to go home, but cannot; my body keeps me.”Maclean asked what reward she would give, if he took her body home.She promised to be with him in every quarrel or fight, in which he might be involved.This offer he declined, saying his own hand was strong enough to extricate him in any difficulty of that kind.She then offered him the gift of knowing the thief, if anything should be stolen in Coll.This gift he accepted, and the stones that marked the grave being told him, he sent for the woman’s brothers, the body was taken home, and the spectre was no more seen on the North Beach.

SPIRITS APPEARING IN DREAMS.

A deceased sister’s ghost appeared to a woman in a dream, and told her, their brother had been buried the day before in Ireland.She also told the signs, by which next day the truth of the dream was to be proved.The words of the ghost form in Gaelic a singularly beautiful and plaintive song.Each line is repeated twice in singing, first with one and then another of those meaningless choruses to be found in Gaelic melody, and suiting well with the genius of the language.