Chapter IV: SECOND SIGHT (an da shealladh) (1)

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 _ta_. The 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.