John Gregorson Campbell

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It may be merely a neighbour playing pranks by going about in a white sheet, a stray dog, a bush waving and sighing in the night wind, or even a peat-stack looming large in the imperfect light. There is a story of a man on Loch Rannoch-side who fought a bush, in mistake for a ghost, in a hollow, which had an evil name for being haunted. The conflict continued till dawn, when he was found exhausted, scratched, and bleeding.
[182]
Sometimes the Baucan, or terrifying object, causes fright by its mere appearance, sometimes by the noises it makes, and sometimes by its silence. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 [151] 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Occasional newspaper paragraphs show the practice is not extinct in England or the south of Scotland.
In the case of sick beasts, when, e.g., a horse lies down and refuses to rise, or a cow ceases to give milk, or gives only milk mingled with blood, the usual mode of procedure to effect a magic cure is to go to a person of skill (i.e. a white witch) , get a bottle of water prepared by whispering certain words over it, and sprinkle this on the sick beast, or perhaps put a few drops in its ear. Immediately the beast rises without anything being the matter with it. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ At the base of the mound a road can be taken along the shore when the tide is out. No one, however, taking it alone after nightfall, lived to tell the tale. His remains were found next day among the large boulder stones (eòmach mòr chlach) , of which the shore is full, mangled, and bearing traces of a ghastly and unnatural death. Persons who had the second sight looking over the rocks that overhang the shore said they saw a phantom or “something” haunting the place, having the shape of a headless human figure. ”

“ The custom of having this dish of sowens was known in the central Highlands, and in Lorn, but does not seem to have extended to Mull, Morven, or the Western Islands. The salutations of the season were duly given by the household to one another, and to every person they met: “A good New Year to you” (Bliadhna mhath ùr dhuit) , “The same to you, and many of them” (Mar sin duit fhein is mòran diu) . The boys rushed away out, to play at their everlasting game of shinty, and a more sumptuous breakfast than ordinary was prepared. ”

“ When a cow ceases unaccountably to give milk, and witchcraft is suspected, its owner is to take some of the animal’s urine (maistir) , put it in a bottle, and cork it well. The witch who has taken the milk cannot make a drop of water till the milk is allowed to come back. It is a common story that the owner of bewitched cows, under the advice of ‘wise’ people of his neighbourhood, put a potful of the cows’ dung on the fire, and boiled it. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Many tales relating to witchcraft, as has been already remarked, must have had their origin in attempts to ridicule people out of their belief and in an unbridled exercise of imagination. They only furnished a proof that men will believe the incredible. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Unusual natural events and phenomena can easily be turned into proofs of a witch’s claim; imposture readily leads to delusion, and hence among the poor and uneducated it is no wonder to find witchcraft practised and believed in.
The power of witches was always at the disposal of those who were willing to pay for it, and the fact that the rewards of witchcraft did not sometimes exceed a pound of tobacco, alone shows how much the [4] urgencies of want had to do with the pretence to supernatural powers. ”

“ 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 [132] a taïsher.” ”

“ The door of the closet was fast locked, and the dead man, finding he could not open it, began to scrape and dig the earth below it, to make a passage for himself. The children gathered round their mother, and in extremity of terror all listened to the scraping of the unhallowed corpse. ”

“ Stones come flying through the windows, as if they were thrown from the sky, and are found lying on the floor; the leg of a wheelbarrow startles two persons engaged within the house in earnest conversation, by coming flying between them through the window, and striking the opposite wall with violence; a peat strikes the incredulous stranger between the shoulders, and he goes home a believer, etc. These cantrips are exaggerated by fear and rumour, till at last the devil is believed to be unusually busy in the locality. Once this belief becomes popular, the delusion is easily carried on. ”