Celtic Lore & Legend (18 page)

When a shroud is perceived about one, it is a sure prognostic of death. The time is judged according to the height of it about the person; for if it is not seen above the middle, death is not to be expected for the space of a year, and perhaps some months longer; and as it is frequently seen to ascend higher towards the head, death is concluded to be at hand
within a few days, if not hours, as daily experience confirms. Examples of this kind were shown me; when persons of whom the observations then made enjoyed perfect health.

One instance was lately foretold by a seer that was a novice, concerning the death of one of my acquaintance; this was communicated to a few only and with great confidence; I being one of the number, did not in the least regard it, until the death of the person about the time foretold, did confirm me of the certainty of the prediction. The novice mentioned above is now a skilful seer, as appears from many late instances; he lives in the parish of St. Mary’s, the most northern in Skye.

If a woman is seen standing at a man’s left hand, it is a presage that she will be his wife, whether they be married to others, or unmarried at the time of the apparition.

If two or three women are seen at once standing near a man’s left hand, she that is next to him will undoubtedly be his wife first, and so on, whether all three or the man be single or married at the time of the vision; of which there are several late instances among those of my acquaintance. It is an ordinary thing for them to see a man that is to come to the house shortly after; and if he is not of the seer’s acquaintance, yet he gives such a lively description of his stature, complexion, habit etc. that upon arrival he answers the character given him in all respects.

If the person so appearing be one of the seer’s acquaintance, he will tell his name as well as other particulars; and he can tell by his countenance whether he comes in good or bad humour.

I have been seen thus myself by seers of both sexes at some hundred miles distance; some that saw me in this manner had never seen me personally, and it happened according to their visions, without any previous design of mine to go to these places, any coming there being purely accidental.

It is ordinary with them to see houses, gardens and trees, in places void of all three; and this in process of time used to be
accomplished; as at Mogstot in the Isle of Skye, where there are but a few sorry cow-houses thatched with straw, yet in a few years after, the vision which appeared often was accomplished, by the building of several good houses on the very spot represented to the seers, and by the planting of orchards there.

To see a spark of fire fall upon ones arm or breast is a forerunner of a dead child to be seen in the arms of those persons; of which there are several fresh instances.

To see a seat empty at the time of ones sitting in it, is a presage of that person’s death quickly after.

When a novice, or one that has lately obtained the second-sight, sees a vision in the night-time without doors, and comes near a fire, he presently falls into a swoon.

Some find themselves as it were in a crowd of people, having a corpse, which they carry along with them; and after such visions, the seers come in sweating and describe the people that appeared: if there be any of their acquaintance among them, they give an account of their names, as also of the bearers, but they know nothing concerning the corpse.

All those who have the second-sight do not always see these visions at once, though they be together at the time. But if one who has this faculty designedly touch his fellow-seer at the instant of a vision’s appearing, then the second sees it as well as the first; and this is sometimes discerned by those that are near them on such occasions.

There is a way of foretelling death by a cry that they call taisk, which some call a wraith in the Lowlands.

They hear a loud cry without doors, exactly resembling the voice of some particular person, whose death is foretold by it. Last instance was given to me of this kind was in the village Rigg, in the isle of Skye.

Five women were sitting together in the same room, and all of them heard a loud cry passing by the window; they thought it plainly to be the voice of a maid who was one of the number; she blushed at the time, though not sensible of her so doing, contracted a fever next day, and died that week.

Dark forces seek to lure away a child.

Things also are foretold by smelling, sometimes as follows. Fish or flesh is frequently smelled in a fire, when at the same time neither of the two are in the house, or in all probability likely to be hand in it for some weeks or months; for they seldom eat flesh and though the sea be near them, yet they catch fish but seldom in the winter and spring. This smell several persons have, who are not endued with the second-sight, and it is always accomplished soon after.

Children, horses and cows see the second-sight, as well as men and women advanced in years.

That children see it is plain from their crying aloud at the very instant that a corpse or any other vision appears to an ordinary seer. I was present in a house where a child cried out of a sudden and being asked the reason of it, he answered that he had seen a great white thing lying on the board which was in the corner: but he was not believed, until a seer present told them that the child was in right; for said he, I saw a corpse and the shroud about it, and the board will be used as part of a coffin or some way employed about a corpse; and accordingly it was made into a coffin for one who was in perfect health at the time of the vision.

That horses see it is likewise plain from their violent and sudden starting when the rider or seer in company with him sees a vision of any kind, night or day. It is observable of the horse that he will not go forward that way, until he be led about at some distance from the common road, and then he is in a sweat.

A horse fastened by the common road on the side of Loch Skeriness in Skye, did break his rope at noon-day and run up and down without the least visible cause. But two of the neighbourhood that happened to be at a little distance and in view of the horse, did at the same time see a considerable number of men about a corpse directing their course to the church of Snizort; and this was accomplished within a few days after
by the death of a gentlewoman who lived thirteen miles from that church and came from another parish from whence very few came to Snizort to be buried.

That cows see the second-sight appears from this; that when a woman is milking a cow and then happens to see the second-sight the cow runs away in great fright at the same time and will not be pacified for some time after.

Before I mention more particulars discovered by the second-sight, it may not be amiss to answer the objections that have lately been made against the reality of it.

Object 1
. These seers are visionary and melancholy people and fancy they see things that do not appear to them or anybody else.

Answer
. The people of these isles, and particularly the seers are very temperate, and their diet is simple and moderate in quantity and quality, so that their brains are not in all probability disordered by undigested fumes of meat or drink. Both sexes are free from hysteric fits, convulsions, and several other distempers of that sort; there’s no madmen among them, nor any instance of self-murder. It is observed among them that a man drunk never sees the second-sight; and that he is a visionary, would discover himself in other things as well as in that; and such as see it are not judged to be visionaries by any of their friends or acquaintance.

Object 2
. There is none among the learned able to oblige the world with a satisfying account of these visions, therefore it is not to be believed.

Answer
. If everything for which the learned are not able to give a satisfying account be condemned as impossible we may find many other things generally believed that must be rejected by this rule. For instance, yawning and its influence and that the lodestone attracts iron; and yet these are true as well as harmless, though we can give no satisfying account of their causes, how much less can we pretend to things that are supernatural?

Object 3
. Seers are impostors, and the people who believe them are credulous, and easily imposed upon.

Answer
. The seers are generally illiterate and well meaning people, and altogether void of design, nor could I ever learn that any of them made the least gain by it, neither is it reputable among them to have that faculty; besides the people of isles are not so credulous as to believe the thing implicitly before the thing foretold is accomplished; but when it actually comes to pass afterwards it is not in their power to deny it without offering violence to their senses and reason. Besides, if the seers were deceivers, can it be reasonable to imagine that all the islanders who have not the second-sight should combine together and offer violence to their understandings and senses, to force themselves to believe a lie from age to age. There are several persons among them whose birth and education raise them above the suspicion of concurring with an imposture merely to gratify an illiterate and contemptible sort of persons; nor can a reasonable man believe that children, horses or cows could be pre-engaged in a combination to persuade the world of the reality of the second-sight.

Such as deny these visions give their assent to several strange passages in history upon the authority of historians that lived several centuries before our time and yet they deny the people of this generation the liberty to believe their intimate friends and acquaintance, men of probity and unquestionable reputation, and of whose veracity than we have of any ancient historian.

Every vision that is seen comes exactly to pass according to the true rules of observation, though novices and heedless persons do not always judge by those rules. I remember the seers returned me this answer to my objections and gave me several instances in that purpose whereof the following is one.

A boy of my acquaintance was often surprised by the sight of a coffin close by his shoulder, which put him into a fright and made him to believe it was a forerunner of his own death, and this his neighbours judged to be the meaning of that
vision; but a seer who lived in the village of Knockow, where the boy was then a servant, told them that they were under a great mistake, and desired the boy to take hold of the first opportunity that offered; and when he went to a burial to remember to act as a bearer for some moments; and this he did accordingly within a few days after when one of his acquaintance died; and from that time forward he was never troubled with seeing a coffin at his shoulder, though he has seen many at a distance, that concerned others. He is now reckoned one of the exactest seers in the parish of St. Mary’s in Skye where he lives.

There is another instance of a woman in Skye, who frequently saw a vision representing a woman having a shroud about her up to the middle, but always appeared with her back towards her, and the habit in which it appeared to be dressed resembled her own: this was a mystery for some time, until the woman tried an experiment to satisfy her curiosity, which was to dress herself contrary to the usual way; that is, she put that part of her clothes behind, which was always before, fancying the vision at the next appearing would be easier distinguished: and it fell out accordingly, for the vision soon after presented itself with its face and dress looking towards the woman, and it proved to resemble herself in all points, and she died in a little time after.

There are visions seen by several persons, in whose days they were not accomplished; and this is one of the reasons why some things have been seen that are said to never come to pass, and there are also several visions seen which are not understood until they are accomplished.

The second-sight is not a late discovery seen by one or two in a corner, or a remote isle, but it is seen by many persons of both sexes, in several isles, separated above forty or fifty leagues from one another: the inhabitants of many of these isles never had the least converse by word or writing; and this faculty of seeing visions, having continued, as we are informed by tradition, ever since the plantation of these isles, without being disproved by the nicest sceptic, after the strictest inquiry, seems to be a clear proof of its reality.

If fairies were indeed another race, separate from Mankind, then there was a widespread belief throughout the Celtic world that their population remained reasonably static. Fairy women, it was said, had great difficulty in giving birth. There are many stories from Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and Brittany of human midwives being called to assist at exhausting fairy deliveries, none of which seem to have been successful, whilst the more elderly of the species lingered on for centuries through a cantankerous old age. In order to alleviate this situation and to bring new blood into the fairy line, it was believed that the fairies often carried away human children—particularly small girls or one of a set of twins—to live amongst them and add to their population. In return, they left one of their own—an old, wizened, whining creature which magically they “disguised” as the child that they had abducted. However, they couldn’t really disguise the fact that this being was thin and wasted or that it had a disagreeable nature.