John Gregorson Campbell

“ 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. ”

“ The brugh is illumined, the tables glitter with gold and silver vessels, and the door is thrown open to all comers. Any of the human race entering on these occasions are hospitably and heartily welcomed; food and drink are offered them, and their health is pledged. Everything in the dwelling seems magnificent beyond description, and mortals are so enraptured they forget everything but the enjoyment of the moment. ”

“ A man had a tussle with a ghost at Uchdan a Bhiorain dui in Appin, and said it felt in his arms like a bag of wool. Phantom men were to be seen at Uchdan na Dubhaig above Balachulish; at Ath-flèodair, a ford near Loch Maddy in Uist, ‘things’ are perpetually seen, and it takes a very courageous man to go from Portree home to Braes, in Skye, after dark. A mile above the manse, where the road is most lonely, and near the top of a gradual ascent, sounds of throttling are heard and dark moving objects are seen. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A singing or tingling in the ears denotes death, a friend at the moment of its occurrence has expired and news of his death will be heard before long; an itching of the cheek or eyes, weeping; itching of the left hand, money; of the right, that one is soon to meet a stranger with whom he will shake hands; of the elbow, that he will soon change beds or sleep with a stranger; of the brow, that some person will make you angry before long. ”

“ The association probably arose not so much from cats being the frequent, almost invariable, companions of the poor old women accused of witchcraft, as from the savage character of the animal itself. Its noiseless and stealthy motions, its persevering watchfulness, its extraordinary agility and tenacity of life, its diabolical caterwauling, prowling habits, deceitful spring, and the luminous appearance of its eyes in the dark, would alone suffice to procure it the name of unearthly ”

“ Hector, son of Ferchar, lived at Hoodie-crow Hillock (Cnoc na Feannaig) , and as was common in olden times, the door of his house was made of bunches of heather, tied together, and made more wind-tight by straw stuffed between them. One cold frosty night he heard a scraping at the door, as if some animal were trying to pull out the straw. He rose and went out, and drove away an old white horse he found nibbling at the straw. In a while he was disturbed again by the same noise. He went out, and, taking up a big stick, chased away the old white mare. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Popular belief also says that no deer is found dead with age, and that its horns, which it sheds every year, are not found, because hid by the Fairies. In their transformations it was peculiar for the Fairy women to assume the shape of the red-deer, and in that guise they were often encountered by the hunter. The elves have a particular dislike to those who kill the hinds, and, on finding them in lonely places, delight in throwing elf-bolts at them. When a dead deer is carried home at night the Fairies lay their weight on the bearer’s back, till he feels as if he had a house for a burden. ”

“ Unless it was sometimes seen or heard, or some work was mysteriously done, the delusion, either of master or servant, could not be long continued; and, when men have little else to do, there are many who take a pleasure in imposing on their more simple-minded fellows, and are quite ready, as much from sport as interest, to carry on a delusion of the kind. Besides, when the mind is nervously anxious, engrossed with the fear of a coming misfortune or the hope of a coming joy, it is apt to listen to the whispers of fancy and the confidently-told tales of others. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Fairies come and go with noiseless steps, and their thefts or abductions are done silently and unawares to men. The wayfarer resting beside a stream, on raising his eyes, sees the Fairy woman, unheard in her approach, standing on the opposite bank. Men know the Fairies4 have visited their houses only by the mysterious disappearance of the substance of their goods, or the sudden and unaccountable death of any of the inmates or of the cattle. Sometimes the elves are seen entering the house, gliding silently round the room, and going out again as noiselessly as they entered. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It requires great shrewdness to read the omen aright.
Another way is to shut the eyes, make one’s way to the end of the house, and then, and not till then, open the eyes and look around. Whatever is then seen is an indication of fortune during the year. It is unlucky to see a woman, particularly an old woman bent with age and hobbling past. A man is lucky, particularly a young man riding gaily on a mettlesome horse. A man delving or turning up the earth forebodes death ”

“ A courageous tailor made light of the matter and laid a wager that he would go any night, and sew a pair of hose in the haunted church. He went and began his task. The light of the full moon streamed in through the windows, and at first all was silent and natural. At the dead hour of midnight, however, a big ghastly head emerged from a tomb and said, “Look at the old grey cow that is without food, tailor.” [37] The tailor answered, “I see that and I sew this,” and soon found that while he spoke the ghost was stationary, but when he drew breath it rose higher. ”

“ Patience is no element of wrath and rarely enters the house of malevolence, and if the man who curses his enemy had the artillery of heaven at command, he would at that moment devote his enemy to unspeakable misery. This impotence of rage is the reason why curses are so frequently ascribed to angry old women.
Those who have seen old women, of the Madge Wildfire school, cursing and banning, say their manner is well calculated to inspire terror. Some fifteen or twenty years ago, a party of tinkers quarrelled and fought, first among themselves, and then with some Tiree villagers. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Unlucky Actions.—It is unlucky to wind black thread at night. A vicious wish made to one another by women quarrelling, in olden times, was, “The disease of women who wind black thread at night be upon you!” Some say the reason of the evil omen is, that black thread is apt to disappear at night, or be taken by the Fairies, and be found through the house next morning. Superstition probably assigned some more occult reason.
It is ‘little happiness’ for anyone to kill a magpie or a bat.
It is unlucky for a person on a journey to return the way he went. ”

“ Her powers of witchcraft satisfactorily accounted to the popular mind for her butter and cheese—even if she had no cows—being abundant when the stores of others failed. In dark uncultured times a claim to influence over the unseen powers of nature, and to intercourse with spirits, had only to be made to be allowed, and the mere pretension too readily invests the claimant with awe to make it safe for any one to denounce the imposture. ”

“ There are instances in which a farmer has bribed a witch by yearly presents not to do harm to his cattle; and we must remember that in days of scarcity and famine, poverty with icy hand and slow-consuming age will make people resort to shifts of which they would never dream when food was abundant. In most [3] cases, the reputed witch was merely a superstitious and perhaps ill-favoured old woman, possessing a knowledge of rhymes and charms for the healing of disease in man and beast, and taking pains to sain her own cattle, if she had any, from harm. ”

“ Hector, son of Ferchar, in the Ross of Mull, was an easy-going, kind-hearted man, a weaver by trade, who would give away the last of his goods to any one he saw in distress. So weak was he in this respect, that his wife did not care to trust him with anything—he was sure to give it away to the first poor man that came his way. Having occasion to go to the summer pastures in the hill, and leave Hector alone in charge of the house, she measured out enough meal to last him for the fifteen days she expected to be away, and gave it to him in a skin bag. ”

“ The muttered words are the charm, which gives the whole ceremony its efficacy, and the yawning commences when the child’s illness is being transferred to the person who performs the ceremony.
The Evil Eye is deadly to all animals to which the person having it takes a fancy. In the present day it is said of a man in Tiree, who is accused by common report of having the gift, that when he comes to buy a beast it is better to give it to him at his own price than keep it. If he does not get it, the beast is taken ill and perhaps dies soon after. ”

“ THE SIZE OF FAIRIES.
The difference in size ascribed to the race, though one of the most remarkable features in the superstition, and lying on its surface, has been taken little notice of by writers. At one time the elves are small enough to creep through key-holes, and a single potato is as much as one of them can carry; at another they resemble mankind, with whom they form alliances, and to whom they hire themselves as servants; while some are even said to be above the size of mortals, gigantic hags, in whose lap mortal women are mere infants. ”

“ When people have a cat along with them in a boat, they cannot, or will not, be drowned by witches. By burying a cat alive, people waiting for a favourable wind get a breeze from the direction in which its head is put; and a witch, that is, a young one, who is courted by a sailor, can detain him with contrary winds as long as she likes by shutting up the cat in the cupboard. A cat scraping is a sign that some beast, horse, cow, pig, or dog will be found dead on the farm before long. A cat washing its face portends rain next day, and turning its back to the fire storm and rain. ”

“ AUGURY.68 The anxiety of men to know the future, the issue of their labours, and the destinies awaiting them, makes them ready listeners to the suggestions of fancy, and an easy prey to deception. The mind eagerly lays hold on anything that professes to throw light on the subject of its anxiety, and men are willing victims to their own hopes and fears. ”

“ We have had great difficulty in getting back ourselves, led on as we were by the seductive John Gregorson Campbell, assuredly, if ever man was, since Campbell of Islay’s day, in the innermost secrets of the Elfin folk. Indeed, Campbell’s Popular Tales of the West Highlands, full to overflowing though they are, do not seem to us to express with anything like the same fullness and body the misty legend and wayward romance and quaint realism of the Celtic supernatural as does this plainer and prosaic notebook of an old parish minister between 1861 and 1891. ”

“ A person should not unnecessarily provoke the anger of those who cannot retaliate, much less of a race so ready to take offence and so sure to retaliate as the Fairies. In revenge for this species of terror, the imagination loves to depict the Elves in positions and doing actions that provoke a smile. The part of the belief which relates to the Banshi is comparatively free from this feeling, but the ‘little people’ and changelings come in for a full share of it. ”