John Gregorson Campbell

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ There is something wrong in the relation between superior and inferior when it is uttered; authority has been misused, and wisdom and patience have been awanting, selfishness has overstepped its due limit, and the just influence of the superior has degenerated into wantonness of power. In the expatriations from the Highlands, there was much in this respect to be reprobated, and it is most creditable to Highlanders, and is greatly to be ascribed to the influence of religion over them, that in the songs made at the time of the Clearances, there are no curses against the oppressor. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Throughout the greater part of the Highlands of Scotland the Fairies have become things of the past. A common belief is that they existed once, though they are not now seen. There are others to whom the elves have still a real existence, and who are careful to take precautions against them. The changes, which the Highlands are undergoing, have made the traces of the belief fainter in some districts than in others, and in some there remains but a confused jumbling of all the superstitions. ”

“ There is no popular tale, however, which represents them as exercising such a power, nor is it conformable to the rest of their characteristics that it should be ascribed to them. The true belief is that the Fairies are a small race, the men ‘about four feet or so’ in height, and the women in many cases not taller than a little girl (cnapach caileig) . Being called ‘little,’ the exaggeration, which popular imagination loves, has diminished them till they appear as elves of different kinds. There is hardly a limit to the popular exaggeration of personal peculiarities. ”

“ In the Highlands the names sithche and daoine sìth are given to all these different sizes alike, little men, elfin youth, elfin dame, and elfin hag, all of whom are not mythical beings of different classes or kinds,10 but one and the same race, having the same characteristics and dress, living on the same food, staying in the same dwellings, associated in the same actions, and kept away by the same means. The easiest solution of the anomaly is that the fairies had the power of making themselves large or small at pleasure. ”

“ Others, through Fairy despite, have wandered about all night on foot, failing to reach their intended destination though quite near it, and perhaps in the morning finding themselves on the top of a distant hill, or in some inaccessible place to which they could never have made their way alone. ”

“ 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. ”

“ For instance, if the appearance of a fox is to be taken as an omen, it will naturally be taken as a bad sign, the stinking brute can indicate nothing favourable; but no amount of sagacity will teach a person that an itching in the point of his nose prognosticates the receipt of important news, or the cuckoo calling on the house-top the death of one of the inmates within the year. ”

“ FAIRIES AND THE HANDMILL.
The invention of the handmill or quern, in the infancy of the arts, must have formed an era in the history of human progress. Whoever first found out a handy way of reducing the solid grain into meal bestowed an inestimable blessing on the human race. The instrument is still to be occasionally met with in the Hebrides, in houses not convenient to mill or market. It is usually worked by two women, like the mills in use in the East. ”

“ A serpent, a rat, or a mouse is unlucky unless killed, but if killed becomes a good omen. If the face of the animal be towards one, even in the case of unlucky animals, the omen becomes less inauspicious.
It is of great importance what person is first met. Women are unlucky, and some men are the most unfortunate omen that can be encountered. These are called droch còmhalaichean, i.e. bad people to meet, and it was told of a man in Skye, that to avoid the mischance of encountering one of them when setting out on a journey, he sent one of his own family to meet him. ”

“ Where all is dark and inscrutable, deception and delusion are easy, and hence augury of all kinds, omens, premonitions, divinations, have ever exercised a noticeable power over the human mind.
The ordinary manner which superstition takes to forecast the future is to look upon chance natural appearances under certain circumstances as indications of the character, favourable or unfavourable, of the event about which the mind is anxious. Any appearance in nature, animate or inanimate, can thus be made an omen of, and an inference be drawn from it of impending251 good or bad fortune. ”

“ In some cases it gives plenty of milk, but milk that yields no butter. If taken up a hill, and rolled down the incline, it disappears altogether. If it dies, its flesh ought not to be eaten—it is not beef, but a stock of alder wood, an aged Elf, or some trashy substitute. Similarly when the toradh of land is taken, there remains the appearance of a crop, but a crop without benefit to man or beast—the ears are unfilled, the grain is without weight, the fodder without nourishment.
A still more important point of difference is, that the Fairies only take away what men deserve to lose. ”

“ It is a saying that the only trade that the devil has been unable to learn is that of tailoring. The reason is that when he went to try, every tailor left the room, and having no one to instruct him, he omitted to put a knot on the thread he began to sew with. In consequence the thread always came away with him, and he gave up the trade in despair. It is presumed that he wanted to learn the trade to make clothes for himself, as no one would undertake the making of them. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In every instance, however, the benefit of the gift goes ultimately to the Fairies themselves, or (as it is put in the Gaelic expression) ‘the fruit of it goes into their own bodies’ (Theid an toradh nan cuirp fhéin) . Their gifts have evil influence connected with them, and, however inviting at first, are productive of bad luck in the end. No wise man will desire either their company or their kindness. When they come to a house to assist at any work, the sooner they are got rid of the better. ”

“ If the cake for breakfast falls backwards, the person for whom it is intended should not be allowed to go on a journey that day; his journey will not be prosperous. The evil can, however, be remedied by giving plenty of butter, ‘without asking,’ with the cake. To avert this omen, cakes should not be placed to harden at the fire on their points, but on either of the two sides or on their round edge. ”

“ She differed in being more akin to ordinary women than the true Fairy wife (Bean shìth) ; she was stronger, and as it were more substantial; it was true woman’s work which, as chamber-maid or dairy-maid, she performed. Though her ‘bed’ was near a Fairy dwelling, and she could command the services of the Elves, she did not engage in Fairy employments or recreations. The Fairies punished people of a discontented, grumbling disposition, by taking away the substance of their goods. The Glaistig was also offended at littleness and meanness of mind, but meanness of a different kind. ”

“ 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. ”