Chapter IV (1)

A STRING OF QUAINT BEADS FROM MANY LANDS.

“How gallantly, how merrily, we ride along the sea!
The morning is all sunshine, the wind is blowing free;
The billows are all sparkling, and bounding in the light,
Like creatures in whose sunny veins, the blood is running bright.”

· · · · ·

“Not down the breeze more blithely flew,
Skimming the wave, the light sea-mew,
Than the gay galley bore
Her course upon that favouring wind,
And Coolin’s crest has sunk behind
And Slapin’s caverned shore.”

To those who make their home in the Isles, the possession of a yacht, or, at least, of a good sailing-boat, becomes almost a necessity. In the first place, all beauty lies along the seaboard; and the visit to a neighbour even on the same island, which may entail a wearisome land journey through dreary country, is often a short and beautiful sail; when, instead of noisily jolting and grinding along a hard road, you may glide silently through air and water—perhaps the only way in which you can ever revel at once in stillness and motion. Besides, to be continually within sight of countless islands, and chains of blue hills, without the means of exploring them, would be tantalizing indeed.

So it came to pass that the little fairy “Gannet” flapped her white wings one sunny afternoon, and bade us sail with her over the merry green waves to the opposite coast of Grieshernish, one of the few sheltered nooks where the plantations have actually struggled up to treehood. Here we found our chief amusement in a wonderful music-room, wherein every conceivable variety of musical instrument had its appointed place. Besides piano and harmonium, flute and guitar, there was every variety of organ, from the finger-organ down to the most elaborate grinder, with such an array of puppets as would have made the fortune of an itinerant organist. Then there was every species of large mechanical instrument, from a common musical-box up to a large self-acting organ, which played all the favourite operas like a first-rate brass band. Another, something similar, called a Euterpean, gave us more solemn music. Others play reels and dance-music. Next come harp, violin, violoncello, bagpipes, trumpet, cornet-à-piston, reed-pipe—every musical instrument you can conceive down to a Jew’s-harp. For aught I know, sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer, may have been stowed away in some recess of that wonderful room. It was a quaint fancy of one who had spent his best years on Indian plains, and who had devised this method of shutting out sight and sound of the wild storms and tempests that so often raved round his western home.

We returned to Uig in the evening so well pleased with the swift, lovely little yacht, that we determined to start at once for a cruise round the coast—a cruise so delightful, that I am utterly at a loss whether to award the palm of real enjoyment to yachting in the Hebrides or camping in the Himalayas.

Each day we sailed just so far as might seem pleasant, gliding silently over the waters, rejoicing in the stillness of our noiseless progress; no jarring sound of wheels; no straining engines, or whirring steam; only the plash of wavelets when we anchored for the night in some quiet natural harbour, under the lee of some bluff headland, whence we could row close in shore among all the beautiful cliffs and caves, landing on the small islands to the astonishment of every species of sea-fowl, and of colonies of rabbits, which last proved a very welcome addition to our larder. One favourite anchorage was just below Duntulm Castle; in a clear, green bay, with a pleasant island on one side, where multitudes of large white-winged gannets make their home, and gather wonderingly round their namesake. They were sorely puzzled by our intrusion into this, their sanctum; and often, as we sat on the brink of the cliff where they had built their nests they would swoop past us again and again, flapping their great wings within a foot of us, with wild angry cries as if to drive us away again. If you ever anchor in this quiet bay, you must land alone, in the early morning, on this little island; and though the smooth grassy slope is drenched with heavy dew, clamber up to the top, and you will find yourself overlooking a precipitous rock face, down into the clearest green depths; only disturbed by the ripple where the top of some broken basalt pillar rises above the surface.

The old castle stands facing you on a great stack of clustering pillars. On either side, and in the background, lie smooth green slopes, crowned with another range of reddish basalt. The quiet mists are still sleeping in the valley, and above them towers a dark solid mass, which is the Quiraing. Then, as the first rosy flush touches the hill top, the dewy vapours float upward to greet the dawn, and the closed flowers open their cups, and all manner of happy winged insects awake to dance in the quivering sunlight. Everything around you is quiet and still. The only sound is that of

“... The murmuring surge,
That on th’ unnumbered idle pebbles chafes;”

for there is not a grain of sand within miles of you—only sharp shingly beach; so if you want to bathe, and love to paddle about on the soft, yellow sand, you must go to Kilmaloig Bay, or to Loch Staffin.

Now, if you turn and look out to sea, there lies the Long Island on the one hand, and on the other Loch Seaforth, and the wild hills of Torridon, in Rosshire. And much nearer you is the Island of Fladdahuan—Fladda of the Ocean, one of those early Missionaries who here built his cell and chapel. The island, as seen from here, is like some great sea monster. For one large isle lies like a great solid head, while a long line of smaller rocky knobs suggests the dorsal fin of some huge creature swimming across the Minch.

The ruins of Fladda’s chapel were long extant. On the altar lay a round, bluish stone, which was always moist. Should fishermen be detained here by contrary winds, they first walked sunwise round the chapel, then poured water on this stone Hindu-fashion, and shortly a favourable breeze would certainly spring up. It likewise cured diseases, and the people swore solemn oaths by it.

There was a similar stone in the Isle of Arran, of a green colour, and the size of a goose’s egg. It was known as the stone of St Molingus, and was kept in custody of the Clan Chattan; and the popular belief was, not only that it cured diseases, but that, if it were thrown at an advancing foe, they would be terror-stricken, and retreat. It was also a solemn thing to swear by. I was strongly reminded of this Hebridean custom when, wandering in the solemn shade of the great forests of Ceylon, in the immediate neighbourhood of the ancient ruined city of Pollonarua, we were shown, in the court of a village temple, a flat slab of stone, esteemed so sacred, that the most hardened villain dares not perjure himself when compelled to swear by it. He must lay thereon a firnam—a coin less than a farthing in value—and then take the required oath.

In these our Western Isles there were many varieties of stones esteemed sacred—more especially such as were perforated; also various crystals. One such magic crystal, the size of a hen’s egg, is still preserved at Ardvoirlich in Perthshire, and it is believed that water into which it has been dipped cures cattle of distemper. Even now, graziers come long distances to procure this precious medicine—sometimes more than forty miles—and are greatly disgusted at finding that the far-famed “Clach Dearg” has been deposited at the bank with other family treasures, and can by no means be borrowed. _Whence_ and _when_ it came to Ardvoirlich is unknown, no tradition existing on the subject; but its silver setting is supposed to be of Oriental work. The person coming for this curative water had to draw it himself, and carry it into the house, where the crystal was dipped in it, and it was then carried off in bottles. But it was necessary that it should enter no other house by the way; so should the bearer visit his friends on his homeward route he most leave the bottle outside.[26] A stone of the same sort is the hereditary property of the Robertsons of Struan. It is called the Clach-na-Bratach; or, Stone of the Standard, having been found sticking to the flag-staff of the chief of Clan Donnachaidt on the morning of the Battle of Bannockburn. Since then the clan has never gone forth to battle without carrying this stone, whose varying colour boded good or evil. On the eve of Sheriff-muir, a large flaw was detected in it, and all present knew that evil would befall them on the morrow. No medical stores an needed by those within hail of this precious charm, inasmuch as the water in which it has been thrice dipped, will assuredly cure all manner of diseases of men, of cattle, and of horses.

The Druids specially prided themselves on the miracles wrought by their own magic crystal balls, or adder’s stones as they were called. Of these the most precious were ring-shaped, and supposed to be the crystallized saliva of serpents by them thrown into the air, and caught by watchful wizards ere it reached the earth. We hear of precisely the same superstition at the present day in the East. A recent traveller tells us that in the ruins of Tadmor, he met an old hag who described to him how she had just been watching two serpents thus form a magic crystal, which she had found; she showed him a pearl, which she firmly believed to be made of serpent’s slime.

These magic balls have been found in divers parts of Europe, generally in sepulchral urns. Twenty such crystals were discovered in an alabaster urn at Rome, and one at Tornay, in the tomb of Chilperic, King of France, who died A.D. 480. In his tomb were also found the bones of the horse on which he was supposed to appear in the presence of Odin. Two of these rock crystals were recently found in a tumulus near Dundee. On some of these precious Druidical stones were graven figures of serpents coiled up. In later ages others were adorned with Christian symbols; perhaps a silver rim bearing the names of Gabriel, Michael, Uriel, Raphael; and a silver cross on the top. According as the crystal was clear or clouded, the destiny of the future was explained. Spenser in his “Fairie Queen” tells of such a stone. He says:—

“Such was the glassy globe that Merlin made,
And gave unto King Ryence for his gard,
That never foes his kingdom might invade;
But he, it knew at home, before he hard
Tydings thereof, and so them still debarred.”

It is said that the central gem in the brooch[27] which the Bruce was compelled to leave a prey to Macdougall of Lorn, because he could not extricate it from the grasp of his dead foe, is one of these magic crystals, and that beneath it is a hollow space to contain some other amulet. It certainly proved a trusty talisman, in that hour of direst need, when its master was so sorely beset by overpowering odds, and we may well believe that it was a hard necessity which forced him to abandon it.

A list of many such magical stones was compiled two hundred years ago by a Welshman curious in these matters—in which he mentions upwards of fifty varieties in common use among his countrymen and the Highlanders; some round, some oval, some hollow rings, some of crystal, some of glass, but all alike were used medicinally, and more especially on May-day at the feast of Beltane, they were dipped in water, with which the cattle were sprinkled to save them from the power of witches and elves.

A talisman of this sort belongs to the family of Græme of Inchbrakie—a bead from the necklace of a luckless old wife who, about the year 1715, was burnt at Crieff on a charge of witchcraft. The Laird of Mongie, her foster son, was the only person who dared to plead for her life, and in gratitude for his goodwill she bit this bead from off her necklace (her hands being bound), and spat it towards him, promising that so long as he and his descendants preserved that charm, the house of Inchbrakie should never lack a direct heir, or lose their patrimony. In the same breath she cursed the neighbouring house of Mongie, declaring that till the nearest river ran dry, it should have no lineal descendant. Moreover, she bitterly bewailed the loss of another magic stone, which she believed would have effectually preserved her from all the malice of her foes.

The Campbells of Glenlyon and the Bairds of Auchmeddan have similar magical curing-stones; that of the latter is a silver-mounted black flint, bearing date 1174, and is now the property of the Frasers of Findrack. But the most remarkable of all these is one belonging to the Lockharts of Lee, in Lanarkshire, known as the Lee penny, and immortalized by Sir Walter Scott as “The Talisman.” It is a small red pebble, heart-shaped, set in a coin of Edward IV. It was supposed to have been an amulet brought from the Holy Land in the time of the Crusades. Like the crystal balls, it was to be drawn round any vessel containing water, and dipped thrice therein. That water, henceforward, had power to cure all manner of diseases. Not only did the people bring their cattle from all parts of the kingdom to drink of this medicine, but, when a terrible plague ravaged Newcastle in the time of Charles I., the townsfolk were allowed to borrow the penny, on giving a bond of 6,000_l._ for its sure restoration. So precious did they find it, that they desired to be allowed to forfeit the money, and keep the groat with the charmed stone, a proposition to which the Laird of Lee would by no means accede. Afterwards, when the Synod busied itself with the suppression of all manner of superstitions, it found no fault in the Lee penny, inasmuch as it undoubtedly possessed curative gifts, which were wrought without the use of any unlawful charms or sorceries. So to this day, cattle-owners come from afar to ask for bottles of water in which the magic penny has been dipped; (a ceremony which, I believe, is generally performed by some member of the family, to secure the safety of the talisman) and these precious bottles are hung up, all ready for emergencies in many a cow-byre in Lanarkshire.

Amongst the magical stones which to this day command the reverence of the people, I may mention a crystal ball in the family of Willox, hereditary cattle-curers at Nairn. Whatever mischief befalls the cattle in the neighbourhood, the remedy is sure. Willox is summoned, and presently arrives, bringing some curious old harness, which is said to be a witch-bridle; also this round crystal, which is placed in a bucket of water, and is certain to reflect the face of whatever bad neighbour has bewitched the cattle by his evil eye. A few years ago, this crystal was produced in Court in Inverness, its owner having got into trouble, during a year of grievous murrain, when people of all sorts, even highly educated, were shown to have come from all parts of the country to consult its owner. Amongst others who had applied to him for the good of their cattle, was a highly respected English lady, well known in the neighbourhood for her general acuteness and common sense. The crystal having been duly inspected was restored to its master who will doubtless exhibit it to all curious in such matters. In many of the Isles an old flint arrow-head is still thought most valuable for the same purpose. The people call them elf-shot and believe them to have been hurled at the cattle by evil fairies!

St. Fladda’s blue stone has led us into a long digression. To return to our post on the rock. The sleepers in the yacht are now all astir, and as you look down on the picturesque sailors in their blue jerseys and long scarlet knitted caps, all so busy unfurling the white sails, you know that there is a chance of a move before long. So you hail the wee boat, that has been fetching the morning supply of milk, and practice your rowing, till a tune on the pipes announces that breakfast is ready.

Then you will sail slowly along the coast, starting early while the sun is still in the east, lighting up the cliffs, and you must keep as near the shore as you dare, or you will lose all beauty. And the slower the better, for every fresh turn shows you new, strange caves, or masses of tall basaltic columns, sometimes cut across, as if by some giant knife, showing a slanting section of all the pillars, but more frequently overlaid with rich soil and green pasture, and above it all the ever-changing masses of the Quiraing tower like grim fortifications. From this side you can hardly believe that they are not great masses of grey masonry; so utterly different are they from the red or yellow basalt which composes the greater part of the sea-coast for the next few miles. A very wonderful formation it is, with those regular hexagonal columns, that look as though carefully chiselled according to geometrical laws. Learned men tell us that it was once a red-hot fluid, which, in cooling, crystallised in this manner, and experiments are shown with chemical mud, which being allowed to cool, gradually assumes the same forms, and give us miniatures of Staffa, and all this coast.

Very beautiful are these caves and rock masses, where, on the slightest provocation, the green waves rush in with such sudden swell, and dash right over them in wild white spray. This it is which makes the danger of lingering too long in the pleasant nooks and caves, sheltered from the open sea. You may chance to find, as you row confidingly out of your little haven, that a sudden breeze has sprung up, fretting the white sea-horses, and making them chafe and toss so angrily that your tiny boat may find it hard work enough to return to the mother-craft.

Such risk as this I encountered at an exquisite spot in Kilmaluoc Bay, so called in memory of St. Moluoc, whose lowly cell once stood on the green shores of this quiet little harbour. As we rowed close in shore we discovered a place where the rock face was riven, and showed light within. There was just space for the little boat to float in, passing under a low archway in the rock, when suddenly we emerged into an open space so lovely that any scenepainter who could produce such a transformation-scene for next Christmas would assuredly make his fortune. We had floated into a circular basin, whose rocky sides opened into several long deep caves, beneath whose shadow the water grew dark and mysterious, of the deepest emerald tint, while beneath us lay a clear, transparent aquamarine, through whose depths we could plainly see our own shadow rest on the yellow sand far below. Tiny jelly-fish, edged with lilac spots and long white fringe, floated beside the delicate pink sea-weeds in the clear green water; and as we looked upward to the deep blue sky, we saw that the rock was crowned with heather and ferns and tall grasses, changing from golden cream to silvery, as the light wind rippled over them, though no breath of air stirred near us. And from every cleft in the rock grew tall spikes of crimson foxgloves (the folk’s glove of olden days), and clusters of blue bells, and all manner of flowers, blue and white and yellow.

There was not a sound to be heard save the swish-swish of the dancing wavelets just outside. So perfectly did the rocks round us deaden all noise, that when the yacht fired her little gun as a signal for the immediate return of the boat, I still sat quietly painting, utterly unconscious of any change, and it was not till we had floated clear of the arch by which we had entered, and caught sight of the open sea, that we realized anything being amiss. A heavy ground swell had set in, and the yacht, not daring to lie where she was, was running before the wind, seeking a safer harbour, and leaving us either to go ashore, or pull after her, as might seem best to Norman Campbell, the trusty yachtsman, who was rowing me. He being a strong muscular young fellow, and a thorough seaman, chose the latter, and a stiff two miles he had before we came up with the yacht, which had found a place where she could venture to lie to and wait for us.

I fear Martin the skipper expended some forcible Gaelic on my escort, but these Skye lads are used to gales of all sorts, and are not easily ruffled; and when we anchored for the night in beautiful Loch Staffin Bay, the most harmonious peace reigned among the crew, and the hours were enlivened as usual by wild Gaelic songs and choruses, or by stories of smuggling, in which the fathers and kinsfolk of the narrators generally took a prominent part. For to have been a professional smuggler is considered just as respectable as any other method of earning a livelihood. Then we were told many wild legends of the coast, and can bear witness how marvellously these gain in interest when the narrator can point out the very spot where the weird spirit appeared, or the miserable victim perished. And if divers caves _will_ claim the same history, well, you must try and believe it to be true of each in turn.

Take such a wild, wailing pibroch as McCrimmon’s Lament, which whether played on the pipes in the early morning at a Highland funeral, with an accompaniment of wild cries from the sea-birds, or else sung by a chorus of plaintive voices, while the little waves splash against the ship, and the wind moans in fitful gusts, is about the most wildly mournful of all Gaelic Laments. It becomes positively thrilling when the singers pause, and pointing to a dark yawning cavern, extending far under the land, tell you that there, into that very cave, the bold piper marched, followed by his faithful dog; that he ventured bravely on, resolved to explore the dark passage, and that about a mile inland, where a deep hole is supposed to open into the subterranean passage, his watchful friends still heard his heart-stirring music, when suddenly it ceased, and soon an awful struggle was heard, and McCrimmon’s cry of anguish arose, telling of some awful creature that was grappling with him in the darkness. Then the cries ceased. Soon afterwards the miserable dog, which had been flayed alive, and had lost even the power of howling, crept to the mouth of the cave to die. And since that day no rash adventurer has been so foolhardy as to tempt the like fate. I must confess to having been painfully _désillusionnée_ on hearing the same story told of the cave at Keill, in the Mull of Cantyre, and of half a dozen different spots on the west coast. Nevertheless you sometimes hear deliciously “creepy” stories, such legends as may well inspire the fishers with an ill-defined, mysterious dread of certain spots. Such is the tale that tells how on the shore of one of those dim isles (either Barra or Tyree, I forget which) is the cave where Ossian and his heroes sit spellbound in a long deep sleep.

One day a bold fisher discovered this very cave, and entering, beheld this grand band of sleepers. Near them hung the magic horn, at the third blast of which, blown by mortal lips, he knew they would all awaken. He was a brave man, who scorned all fear, so he put his lips to the horn and blew such a shrill call that the cormorants and the sea-mews came shrieking forth from the dark recesses of the cavern. A strange indescribable dread took possession of him; nevertheless he repeated the blast more loudly than before, and every rock seemed to echo back the sound with strange spirit-laughter. Ere its tones had died away, he who seemed chief of the heroes, and was in truth Ossian himself, stirred in his sleep, and half awoke. He bade the rash intruder cease, and turning on his side, slept once more. The terrified fisher fled, and straightway sailed from the magic isle, and from that day to this no man has ever been able to find the cave where the heroes of Ossian sleep.

Although the influence of the clergy and of the schoolmaster is rapidly rooting out all traces of grey superstition, it still has some hold in the more remote corners of the land; and the non-existence of kelpies and brownies and _urisks_ is by no means so clearly proven, that a midnight encounter with them would be a thing to risk lightly. The kelpies, as you know, are water-spirits which are always malignant, and delight in causing the floods to rise rapidly and overwhelm the unwary traveller, while their mocking cry rings in his drowning ears; that the kelpies are “bye-ordinar” irreverent is evident from the legend of the old kirkyard at Conan—a green dreamy hillock, where autumn leaves float silently down from overshadowing boughs, a russet covering for the grey mossy stones. Round the foot of the hillock rushes the dark-brown river, once the favourite haunt of a kelpie. One wild night when the storm was raging and the river was in spate, the song of the kelpie was heard above the voice of the winds and waters, and those who heard it trembled, for they knew that the kelpie sought human blood. Then in hot haste a messenger rode up whose errand would brook no delay, and he urged his horse to swim the stream, but the steed shrank back affrighted, and strong hands drew back the foolhardy rider, and vowed he should not thus court destruction. So they locked him up within the old chapel, and all night long the wild tempest battled and raved. When the morning light dawned they went to release him, that he might go on his way in safety, but they found him dead, for the kelpie had entered the sanctuary, and had not even dreaded the holy water, but seizing its victim, had held his face therein till he was drowned. So you see it was a very irreverent kelpie indeed!

All over Scotland there are legends of these water-goblins. Thus at Choill-a-chroin, “the wood of lamentation,” near Loch Vennachar, a beautiful pony once came playfully up to a merry group of children, and suffered several of the little innocents to clamber on its back. Then suddenly wheeling round, it galloped off with them, and plunged into the cold waves, and the mothers wept and wailed greatly for the little ones who might never return. This was the form in which it constantly appeared to the Shetlanders. Sometimes a kelpie would assume the form of a splendid black horse, which would appear at the market in charge of some strange uncanny-looking fellow. So fine a beast was sure to find a purchaser, and for a while all would go well, only its strange love for water was noticed, and it would prance and plunge with delight when a bucketful was thrown over it. At last, on some distant expedition, it was sure to be overtaken by a wild storm, and when the ford had swelled to a raging torrent, and its master was compelled to trust to the good swimming of its steed, he discovered too late that he was bestriding the awful kelpie, who would plunge with him into the depths of the foaming waters, never to rise again. We heard many a strange story, too, of those kindly brownies, who used to do so many good turns to lighten the drudgery of farm or household work, and take their payment in bowls of cream and other delicacies, just as the glashans did in the Isle of Man, or the pwaccas in Wales, or as the gins still do in the far-away deserts of Scinde. In every case the description of the creature is the same; he is like a dwarfish human being, covered with long hair, and breathing heavily; having moreover large eyes and great strength, which he willingly employs for any mortal to whom he takes a fancy, working for him hard and faithfully year after year; but nevertheless apt to be sullen and morose, and on slight provocation, to depart for ever.

It is curious to find this good brownie doing just the same work in the far east as in these western isles; but this is only one of many kindred superstitions. The people of Scinde have from time immemorial been able to draw the milk from their neighbour’s cows, just as well as any Highland wife; their witches divine from sheep-bones, and take the form of tigers and other beasts, just as easily as a Scottish witch transforms herself into a hare or a stag. They tell wild stories of rakshas or demons of the mountains, and of bhoots or ghosts of the dead; but those who have tried to collect these legends say that there, as in our own Highlands, this becomes year by year more difficult, for the old folk are dying off, and the rising generation do not care to speak of these things, so that the old stories are fast disappearing from the east as well as from the west.

Still there are tribes such as those of the Belooch hills who would be as unwilling as a Highlander to seek out the haunts of a gin, and who tell of magic caves through which the fairies sometimes admit mortals to their subterranean Paradise, where they all dance unceasingly from one year’s end to another beneath trees laden with fruit, which is all made of gold and precious stones.

Precisely the same story is told of a rock in the forest of Glenavon, in Strathspey, and of a green hillock in Strathglass, known as the Beatha Og, or Young Birch, on account of the trees that overhang the fairy knoll; as also of many another place both in Scotland and in Wales. In every case some wanderers are beguiled into a lighted cavern, where they find friends whom they had long since buried dancing with the fairies in merry rounds and reels. Invariably some of the party taste of the fairies’ good cheer, and forthwith join the dance, and the mere prudent abstainers are forced to go home without them. Should they return to seek for their lost friends, they hear only the waving of the birches and the rippling of the stream, till perhaps seven years later, on some mystic night such as Midsummer’s Eve or New Year, the cavern once more becomes visible, the dancers are as merry as before, and any mortal who has the courage to enter, armed either with a cross of the rowan-tree or a dagger of cold steel, such as all fairies abhor, may rescue his companions from their enchantment, though to them it will seem as if the seven years of hard dancing had been but as one night’s merrymaking.

These fairies are always clad in green, and are particularly vicious against anyone daring to wear their colour, more especially on Friday, when they have double power, and when a genuine Highlander will shrink from any allusion to them as being “no canny,” or at least to be made with marked respect, as to beings invisibly present, and who need to be conciliated. This is what Scott referred to when he told how

“The Highlander, whose red claymore,
The battle turned on Maida’s shore,
Will on a Friday morn look pale
If asked to tell a fairy tale.
He fears the vengeful Elfin King,
Who leaves that day his grassy ring;
Invisible to human ken,
He walks among the sons of men.”

Why these creatures should be called Daoine Shi’ich, or men of peace, I cannot imagine, unless from that curious feeling which prompts so many races to propitiate evil demons who might harm them, rather than serve the good who will do them no ill. For these men of peace are spiteful creatures, jealous of human joys, and especially anxious to abstract new-born babies (which they have only power to do before baptism), leaving in their place their own cross-grained brats, with voracious appetites, always “skirling” for meat. These are known as changelings; hence the use of that name to describe a puny unsatisfactory child.

In South Uist there is the valley of Glenslyte, haunted by spirits called “Great Men,” and formerly whoever entered this valley must perforce repeat certain sentences, committing themselves to the guidance of these beings: for should this ceremony be omitted, they believed they would inevitably go mad, which (like the Chinese custom of beating gongs during an eclipse to save the sun from extinction) involved a risk too great to run.

Till very lately there existed all manner of curious methods for consulting oracles, such as sewing up a man in a cow’s hide, and leaving him for the night on some hill-top, that he might be made a spirit-medium. The commonest sort of divination was practised by means of the shoulder-blades of beasts slain in sacrifice, just as at the present day the shepherds of Niolo in Corsica foretell coming events by the left shoulder-blade of a goat or sheep. And it is a matter of firm belief, now that charms exist whereby a man can spoil his neighbour’s barm (yeast), and a woman can prevent cows from yielding their milk, and, by some invisible agency, appropriate it for her own use. She can also by evil arts take away the milk from nursing mothers. As to the superstitions connected with death, they are still numberless. There are warnings in the flight of birds, the howling of dogs, sights and sounds mysterious and undefined; and which are readily construed into good or evil. A hare or a fox crossing the path is held to be so sure a token of evil, that educated men have been known to turn back, declaring they could not travel after receiving such a sign of danger; and even in civilized Morayshire and Perthshire I know one or two stalwart men who have no hesitation in believing that certain poor harmless old wives are witches, who have the power to take the form of those animals. One old wife lately told us that there had been some talk lately about poaching hares. “But deed she kent it was na auld Geordie, nor young Geordie either. For ye see, we’re afeared o’ th’ hares. Ou gin ye wad kill a hare ye dinna ken wha ye wad be killin’! Deed the half of them’s witches!” This enlightened old lady was adorned with Prince Alfred’s photograph, set as a brooch, in which she had invested capital to the amount of one penny! Nor is it very long since one of the gamekeepers (in whom our Sassenach friends are wont to behold their ideal of a stalwart Highlander) wounded a hare, and triumphantly told us that the next time he saw a certain innocent old wife at the kirk her arm was in a sling, so surely there remained no room for doubt as to her dealing in witchcraft! As to the stories concerning second sight (which answers to the clairvoyance of the south), they are legion, and implicitly believed to this day. There is scarcely a village in which some one has not been favoured by ghostly apparitions from dead or living. Either the person seen has already died, or else his doom is swiftly approaching.

That the faith in fairy lore is not by any means extinct was proved to us only the other day when a lady in Banffshire asked an old woman how she came to know of a rather unusual cure for some illness. She replied that she had learnt that and many other things from a wife who had been spirited away by the fairies, and had lived with them underground for eight years. But having said thus much, the old lady relapsed into a mysterious silence, and though much questioned as to the manners and customs of the fairies and their guest, she refused to say another word, for “Ou! it wasna safe to be speaking o’ the gude folk; maybe they would be spiriting her awa’ next!”

One favourite story is of a lovely woman, clad in green robes and green mantle, carrying in her arms a young goblin child. She enters a cottage and sits down by the hearth, fanning the embers to warm her numbed hands; then by mere action of the will she draws the heart’s blood of one of the children to feed her young goblin, and sure enough when morning breaks one of the little ones is dying.

The belief in all these weird and wondrous legends has been greatly kept up by the old custom of story-telling round the peat fires in the long winter evenings; but the ban of the Church now lies so heavily on all that tends to encourage superstition, that the popular lore seems in danger of dying out, or of being preserved only by such collectors as Campbell of Islay, whose Gaelic mother tongue and local sympathies enable him to “draw” every blue bonnet and white mutch that cross his path. It is a matter of considerable difficulty nowadays to induce any of the younger generation to relate these old stories, partly from the dread of being laughed at by unbelievers, who look on their legends as being “just blethers,” and still more because their solemn unimaginative teachers try to put down all such foolish tales as utterly unworthy of wise and Christian men, though at the same time the schoolmasters labour hard to store the minds of their pupils with an amount of Greek and Latin mythology that would astonish most village schools in England. They little think what exceeding interest there may be for learned men in this old Gaelic mythology which is so fast dying out, and of its many strange analogies to the most ancient legends of the far east.

There is scarcely one of these fables which has not its twin brother in those of far-distant lands, and in these days when the common origin of the Aryan races is a question so widely discussed, when we are told how strongly Gaelic is akin to Sanskrit, and that Ceylon and St. Kilda were alike peopled by a Celtic race which started from a central point in Asia, it is strange indeed to find that both these islands have from time immemorial believed the same curious traditions, somewhat altered of course in their oral transmission from generation to generation, but virtually the same.

In the Hebrides you will hear how John, the fisher’s son, leaped his horse over a strait to an island in the Sound of Barra, where he slew a dragon with nine heads and rescued a beautiful princess.

Precisely such a nine-headed dragon as is minutely described in these Gaelic legends is found sculptured on temples in Cambodia and India, where the old serpent worship prevailed in the most remote ages. One magnificent temple in Cambodia sacred to a seven-headed serpent still remains perfect, though probably more than a thousand years old. Many more were doubtless destroyed by the Aryan conquerors, who waged war on the Nagas, or serpent-worshippers, and who continually describe their sun-god as strangling the serpents of night.

A parallel to the history of how the Hindu god, Indra, slew the water monster, Vitra (as told in the _Rig Veda_), has been pointed out in the Gaelic legend of how Fraoch killed a great serpent on the Ross of Mull.

The wildest tales of Ossian are found again in the old Persian poets; and a thousand other instances might be adduced.

Nor is it alone in legends such as these that we mark strange coincidences. Such fragments of the old Gaelic and Irish mythologies as still exist, bear the strongest resemblance to those both of India and Ceylon, a similarity all the more striking as existing between gods whom neither the Aryans of east nor west would have worshipped in the days of their pure early faith. For just as the most recent interpretations of the ancient _Vedas_ prove that in the original worship of Brahma all use of idols was strictly prohibited; so in these isles, and wherever the Druids held sway, no images of any sort were tolerated, and there seems no doubt that at one time the Celts adored only one supreme God. After a while, however (probably after they had mingled with the aboriginal races), they seem to have adopted a creed as complex, and fallen into idolatry as gross, as that of their degenerate Hindu brethren.

It would seem as if our forefathers had even devised images of their gods, for we find Gildas, a very old author, writing of “the monstrous idols of our country, almost surpassing in number the very devilish devices of Egypt, of the which we behold as yet some, both within and without the walls of their forsaken temples now mouldering away, with deformed portraitures, and terrible countenances, after the accustomed manner.” But what is most singular of all is that the very names of these gods and their histories are said to have a striking affinity to those now worshipped in the East. To begin with, it is stated that the most sacred name in the Celtic mythology—the holy and mystic title of the Almighty, was that very word Om or Aum (He who is), a title so sacred that a Brahmin will not utter it aloud, while the Buddhist repeats it a thousand times in his daily worship, and sculptures it on all holy places. Then Chreeshna was actually an old Irish name for the sun-god whom the Hindus adore as Krishna. The cruel goddess, Kali, too, had a namesake in Ireland, and the site where her altars stood is yet known as Leeba Caili, or the bed of Caili. As further examples I may quote

Saman answering to Samanaut.
Can „ „ Chandra.
Neith „ „ Nate.
Bud „ „ Buda.

Buda is the name under which, even to this day, the people of Ceylon reverence the planet Mercury. It is curious to observe how, with them, the system of Bali, or planetary worship, still reigns, in defiance of all prohibitions of Buddhist or Christian masters; just as in these British isles the same homage was rendered to all the host of heaven for many centuries after Christianity had held its partial sway. We may notice, by the way, that in the division of the week the people of Ceylon have not only retained the seven days, but have actually named each after the very same planet to which it had been dedicated in the western world.

Another very striking analogy has been shown to exist between the symbols considered sacred in the planetary worship of Ceylon and those which we find sculptured on the ancient memorial stones of pagan Britain; stones which we believe to be relics of a faith almost identical with the Bali. Not only do we find elaborately carved crescents, discs, double wheels, linked together by a royal sceptre, such as might naturally suggest themselves as emblems of the sun, but we also find fish, geese, serpents, and highly idealized elephants and camels,[28] the three last-named being creatures which would scarcely have presented themselves to the minds of our ancestors had not some tradition of these unknown forms reached them from the eastern world. It is, therefore, very remarkable to find that the elephant, the crescent, and the goose are sacred symbols in common use on the sculptured stones of Ceylon. Also, but more rarely, I have observed the fish among the emblematic paintings in the temples. It is also remarkable that another emblem found on these stones, namely the figure of a man cutting the throat of a bull, should be identical with the symbol of the Persian sun-god, Mithras.

The extreme reverence of both peoples for fire and water is another link between them. The Aryans of the east, we know, held Agni, the fire-god, in such honour that he must needs be present at all their religious ceremonies; indeed the presence of fire as a divine witness was often their sole marriage service. Of the veneration of our own ancestors for the same fire-god and for the water-spirits, we still find strange traces, though devotion to fire and water has, in general, superseded that of the simple elements. In Goojerat the presence of fire and water is still held essential at all marriage ceremonies. A square is formed in the centre of which a fire is kindled. At each corner of the square nine water vessels are piled, one above the other. The bride and bridegroom, standing by the fire, offer sacrifice; and after divers ceremonies they walk four times, sunwise, round the sacred element, and conclude by worshipping the polar star. Sometimes the marriage is by proxy. The warrior husband sends his sword as his representative. In this case the bride and her steel spouse make the circle round the fire twice only and she repeats that ceremony twice when she has actually reached the dwelling of her lord.

As to the divers forms of trial by ordeal, both with fire and water, we know that they were just as highly esteemed in the east as in Britain. There, as well as here, the accused was made to walk between burning ploughshares, or plunge his arm into boiling water.[29] There, too, the witches of old were thrown into ponds, either to prove their innocence by sinking, or their guilt by floating; in which case they were summarily despatched, and thus, whether innocent or guilty, society was rid of them.

The minute similarity between these various forms of trial among our own ancestors and the Hindus is very singular. In Britain the supposed culprit was made to plunge his arm into a cauldron of boiling water and thence pick out a pebble, after which the arm was tied up in linen and woollen cloths, and judicial watchers were set over the man to see that these were not unbound for three days. If at the end of that time no scar was found on the arm the accused was held innocent. The custom in India is, or was, that a man accused of a capital crime who chose this method of trial should, for several days previous to the ordeal, have his arm tied up in wax cloth to prevent any deceit. This cloth was sealed up with the great State seal, and in British districts was sealed with the Company’s arms, while a European guard watched over the prisoner. On a given day a piece of money was dropped into a cauldron of boiling oil, the prisoner’s arm was unsealed and washed, after which, while the Brahmins offered prayers for a just decision, he plunged his arm into the cauldron and picked out the coin. Then the wax cloth was again sealed up, and the prisoner guarded for several days. When the bandages were finally removed the condition of his arm revealed his guilt or his innocence.

In the Rajmahal hills the form of trial still in use is to drop a ring into a pot of boiling water, mixed with boiling oil and cow-dung; the accused must plunge in his hand and draw out the ring. Should he be innocent his hand will not be burnt, but if guilty the pot will boil up and scald him. The ancient Cingalese had precisely the same custom.

The well-known Indian ordeal of making the persons accused of any crime attempt to swallow a mouthful of consecrated rice, which would certainly choke the guilty person, also had its counterpart among our forefathers in the ceremony known as the Corsned, or morsel of execration. A piece of barley bread and a bit of cheese were laid on the altar, and any priest accused of crime was compelled to try and swallow a portion in presence of his brethren and the congregation, all of whom prayed fervently that if he were guilty the archangel might seal his throat that he might be unable to do so. The custom may have existed long before a Christian priesthood adopted it as their peculiar test, for such it was generally, in later days considered; yet there is no doubt that the laity also were subjected to the same ordeal, as when Godwin, Earl of Kent, being accused of the murder of King Edward’s brother, appealed to it, with fatal result.

As to the ordeal of walking blindfold over red-hot ploughshares, we turn from the page of English history to that of Hindu mythology to find descriptions identical in all points. In the former we read how Queen Emma, mother of Edward the Confessor, being accused of unfaithfulness to her lord, triumphantly vindicated her innocence by walking barefoot and blindfold, unhurt, over red-hot ploughshares. Precisely similar was the test by which the Hindu king Rama made his beautiful wife, Seeta, prove her purity, when rescued from the hands of Ravana, the king of Lanka. One strongly-marked similarity between our common ancestors was that firm faith in the immortality of the soul, which undoubtedly found a place in the Celtic creed, and which Cæsar mentions as one of the tenets of the Druids. In the tumuli of Britain, as well as those of India, skeletons of animals have been found as if placed ready for food; swords also that would have been precious to the living, were buried with the dead, that they might not be left defenceless on awakening. The old Gauls buried written statements of accounts and claims of debts, that they might be carried on in the next life; and so well was this creed acted upon that men would lend one another money, trusting to repayment when they met in some new phase of existence. I doubt whether modern Hindus would be equally trusting, or the Pharisees of olden days either, if indeed, as Josephus affirms, they too held this doctrine. Certainly we may infer that they did so from the readiness with which they suggested that Christ was merely a new incarnation of Elijah, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets, and also from that strange question respecting the man who was born blind, “Did _this man_ sin or his parents, that he was _born_ blind?”

A quaint trace of the old Druidical teaching of transmigration is the notion not yet wholly extinct, that when a man is slowly lingering away in consumption, the fairies are on the watch to steal his soul that they may therewith give life to some other body. To prevent this, old wives are often anxious to cut the nails of the sufferer, that they may tie up the parings in a bit of rag, and wave this precious charm thrice round his head, Deus Sol! Even to this day we are sometimes startled to find persons believing, not only that certain animals are witches in disguise, but that the dead have returned to earth in these strange forms. I have heard such stories whispered with bated breath, in our own hills, and the same traditions are common in the wilds of Cornwall, where we heard a gamekeeper positively refusing to fire at a fox that haunted a certain house, and came constantly baying under the windows. He was not deterred by any fox-hunting scruples, but by the conviction that the animal was really “poor Mr. Frank,” whose spirit returned to an earthly form sometimes in the form of a hare, sometimes as a black cock, but most often as a fox. No Brahmin could have been more decided in his views.