Folklore of the Scottish Highlands (8 page)

People were very superstitious about their boats, and if a seer saw anything untoward near to or in a boat, no one would go near it. This is an understandable superstition amongst a people who depended so much on sea transport and fishing. Sometimes a boat would be sold because ‘something’ had been seen in connection with it; this still pertains to a certain extent in some of the more westerly Islands, where the only contact with some Islands or the mainland can be made by boat, and where fish form an important ingredient in the basic diet. Dogs and horses were widely believed to have powers of ‘seeing’ superior even to those of the most gifted
taisher
. Both could see ghosts and the ‘fetches’ of people about to die. Horses are believed to have superior powers of ‘seeing’ even to those of dogs. They will refuse to pass a haunted spot, or a place where some violent event such as a murder has, or is about to, take place. The writer has had direct experience of this phenomenon in the islands, where a horse will refuse to go over a particular bridge or pass an area near a burial ground where turves were cut for the graves. It is a widespread belief in the Highlands that dogs in a house will howl if a member of the household is about to die.

Martin Martin was particularly impressed by the tradition of Second Sight in the Gaelic West and recorded many instances of great value and interest. He describes the Sight as the singular faculty of seeing an otherwise invisible object; he notes too that this faculty is not one that was inherited. According to the information he received on his travels in the Western Isles, if a vision is seen early in the morning, the event ‘seen’ would take place within a few hours. If at noon, it would occur that same day. If observed in the evening, it may come about that night. When a shroud was seen about a person in one of these visions, it was taken to be a sure sign of approaching death. The time of death or its proximity was judged by the height of the shroud about the person in question. If it was not seen above the waist, death was not to be expected for about a year or longer. As it could often be actually witnessed ascending upwards towards the head, so death was believed to be approaching within a few days, or even hours. Martin himself witnessed many examples of this, and, sceptical man though he was, he could not but be convinced of the veracity of this strange power. One, which was told to Martin shortly before he wrote on the subject, concerned the death of one known personally to him. The vision was recounted to one or two people only, Martin being one of these. It was told in the greatest of confidence. Martin paid no attention to what he had been told until the person in question died when it had been foretold, and this finally convinced him that there was some truth in the belief. This seer thereafter achieved notoriety, and in Martin’s day lived in the parish of St Mary’s, the most northerly parish in Skye. Martin records how he had heard that if a woman was seen standing at a man’s left hand, it was an omen that she would be his wife, whether they were unmarried or married to others at the time of the vision. If two or three women were seen at the same time standing close to a man’s left hand, the one next to him would be his first wife and the others would follow suit. Martin noted several instances of this actually coming about in his own time. Seers could often see a man who would visit a house in a short time; they could describe the visitor in detail, even if he was a total stranger. If the seer knew the person in question, he could tell his name and describe his character. Martin himself was ‘seen’ in this way by seers before he even set foot in a place, and where he and his appearance were totally unknown. Seers could also see gardens, houses and trees in places which were empty of all three; this usually came to pass in the course of time. It was believed that to see a spark of fire fall upon one’s arm or breast was a sign that a dead child would shortly be seen in the arms of the person concerned. Martin again notes several recent instances of this in his time.

To see a seat empty when someone sitting in it was alive presaged that person’s death in the near future. When one (known as a ‘novice’) who had recently been gifted with the ‘Sight’ saw a vision in the night-time when out of doors, he entered the house and approached the fire, where he fell in a swoon. Martin tells how some seers find themselves in a cloud of people bearing a corpse along with them. After such a vision, the seer comes home faint and sweating and describes what he has seen. If there are any people among this supernatural host known to the seer he will tell their names, and also name the bearers, but the corpse is unknown to the seer in these instances. If several people possessed of the Sight were gathered together, they would not all see the vision at the same time. But it was believed that if a person with the Sight should touch, at the time of seeing the vision, another person also having this dread gift, then he too would see it. This preoccupation with death and all its trappings is very typical of the Celts and goes right back to the ancient widespread cult of the dead and the worship of graves and the ancestors. It is also very much a reflection of the Celtic passion for the tabulation of everything, and listing all things in a fit manner; nothing was left to happen as it would; everything must be explicable and predictable. This again is a very archaic trait in the whole Celtic character. One other method of foretelling death was by means of a cry — a
taisg
, according to Martin; in the Lowlands, he says, this is called a ‘Wrath’ (wraith?). The seer hears a loud cry out of doors resembling the voice of some particular person whose death it foretells. Martin says he heard of this recently in his own time, in the village of Rigg, Skye. Five women were sitting together in one room and they all heard a loud cry passing by the window. They thought it was the voice of a maid who was in fact one of the group. She reddened at the time, but was not herself aware of this. Next day she developed a fever and died the same week.

According to Martin, future events could manifest themselves by smell. Fish or meat cooking over the fire could be smelt at a time when nothing was cooking; this would occur in a house where such an event was unlikely to come about for several months, the house being unoccupied at the time, but the premonition by smell seemingly always came true. Martin says that children, as well as horses and cows, had the power of Second Sight; a child would cry out when it saw a corpse or vision that could be witnessed by an ordinary adult seer. Martin himself had direct experience of this, being present in a house where a child suddenly cried out for no apparent reason. When he was questioned about this he said he had seen a great white thing lying on a board which was in a corner. No one believed him and thought it was pure imagination until a seer who was present told them that the child was correct; he himself had seen a corpse with a shroud about it, and the board in the corner was to be used as part of the coffin. It was in fact incorporated in the making of a coffin for a person who was in perfect health at the time of the vision. Horses were known to Martin, which had panicked and reared up when they saw sights unseen by ordinary men. At Loch Skeriness in Skye, a horse, fastened by rope on the common grazing, broke his tether and ran frantically up and down for no apparent reason. Two people from the neighbourhood happened to be a little distance from the beast and at the same time they saw a largish gathering of men about a corpse, heading towards the church at Snizort. A few days later, a woman who lived some 13 miles from the church, and belonged to another parish, died. Cows were likewise believed to be able to see such doleful visions; if a cow sees something supernatural while it is being milked it will run away in fright and will not be capable of being pacified for some time after.

Seers are said to be — and this is in fact often the case — melancholy people, given to moroseness on account of their undesirable power. Martin records that the people of the Isles in general, the seers in particular, are most temperate people, eating the simplest of foods and that in very moderate amounts. He confirms that seers, both male and female, were not epileptics or given to hysterical fits or any psychological disorders. He says that he knew of no mad people with this gift, nor did any of them commit suicide. It was, moreover, held that a drunk person could not see a vision. Martin’s insistence on the normality of people with the Sight is interesting testimony to the truth of their gift. Also, seers were not looked upon as visionaries by their friends; they were generally literate, innocent and well-meaning people; they (unlike Churchill’s Campbell) made no money on account of their powers. It was a faculty desired by none, and a great burden to those possessed of it. Martin recounts the tale of a boy whom he knew personally, who frequently saw a coffin at his shoulder and was terrified at this vision. He believed it presaged his own death and this was the meaning given to the uncanny sight by the boy’s friends. The boy was a servant in the village of Knockow, Skye, where a seer who lived there told the people that they were mistaken in so interpreting the boy’s experience. He told the lad to take the first opportunity that occurred for him to act as bearer of a coffin, even for a few moments. A few days later the opportunity presented itself when one of his acquaintances died. After this, the coffin at his shoulder disappeared, but he still continued to see many that concerned the death of others, at a distance from himself. In Martin’s day he was regarded as one of the most accurate seers in the Island of Skye. Another Skye seer, a woman this time, often saw a woman with a shroud up to her waist. She always stood with her back to the seer. Her clothing was identical with that worn by the woman. This vision continued to occur for some time until the woman did something to satisfy her family’s worry about this vision. She put on clothes different from her usual garments and, moreover, she wore them back to front. Next day the vision appeared facing her and she realised to her horror that it was in fact herself, her own
doppelgänger
. She apparently died shortly after this.

Visions could be seen by several persons, and the foreseen event did not necessarily come about in their lifetime. The Second Sight is not confined to one or two people but is seen by many persons of both sexes in several Isles; such people had never communicated with each other by letter or by word. Martin says that it was a much more common phenomenon some 20 years before he wrote; even so, it is remarkable that certain people are still believed to have the power in parts of the Highlands even down to the present day, while stories of past occurrences are legion.

Martin tells a variety of stories on the basic theme of the vision seen by the seers. One concerns four men who were in Flodigarry, once more in the Island of Skye. They were sitting at supper; one of them suddenly let his knife fall onto the table and looked extremely angry. The others asked him what was wrong, but he gave them no answer until he had finished his meal. He then told his companions that when he let his knife fall he had seen a corpse with a shroud wrapped round it, laid on that very table. A few days later a member of that family died and was, in fact, laid out on the table where they had dined. This tale came to Martin at first-hand. Another story concerns a man called Daniel Stewart, who lived in the parish of St Mary’s in Skye. One day, at noon, he saw five men on horseback riding northwards. He ran to meet them, and when he reached the road he could not see any of them, which astonished him. He told his neighbours of this strange occurrence. Next day he saw the same number of men and horses coming along the road, but he felt less inclined to speak to them. They then spoke to him and he realised that what he had seen the previous day had, in fact, been a vision. This was the only supernatural experience he ever had. The riders turned out to be Sir Donald MacDonald and his men who at the time of the vision were some 40 miles south of the seer. Martin tells of a woman in Stornoway, capital of the Island of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides, who had a maid who was given to seeing visions. When these occurred she would faint. Her mistress was very concerned about her, but she could not prevent her from seeing things. At last, she determined to pour some baptismal water on the girl’s face in the belief that this would stop her from being troubled by these things. She took the maid to church on the Sabbath and sat with her ear to the basin containing the holy water; before the minister had finished the final prayer she put her hand in the basin, and taking as much water as she could she threw it onto the girl’s face. The minister and the congregation were shocked at this seemingly unreasonable behaviour. After the prayer was over, the minister asked the woman why she had acted so strangely. She told the minister of the girl’s visions and said she believed that this would put an end to them. The result justified the act, and the maid was no longer troubled by these supernatural happenings. The minister of the place himself testified to this, as did several members of the congregation who had been present.

Another instance of the Sight concerns a man called John Morison, also from Lewis, a person of high integrity, who told Martin that about a mile from his own house a girl of 12 lived, who was much troubled by the frequent sight of a girl who resembled herself in height, dress, and general appearance. When the girl moved, so did the vision, and everything the girl did was done by her fetch. She was very distressed by this, and her parents were terrified. John Morison was consulted and he enquired into the religious training of the girl; finding her to be untaught in this field, he told her parents that she must be instructed in the Creed, the Ten Commandments and the Lord’s Prayer, and that she should say the Lord’s Prayer daily after her prayers. Mr Morison himself, and her family daily joined in prayers on her behalf. After this, the vision disappeared and she never saw it again. John Morison also told of a man living three miles north of himself, who was likewise much haunted by a spirit which he recognised to be identical with himself. The spirit spoke to him when he was working in the fields, but it never spoke to him in the house, where no one but the haunted man could see it. He was much distressed by this, and confided in one of his neighbours; the neighbour advised him to cast a live coal at the face of the spirit next time it appeared. The man did this on the following day in the presence of his family. However, on the next day, the ghost or fetch appeared to him in the fields again and beat him so severely that he was bed-ridden for 14 days afterwards (beating by a supernatural being is an ancient Celtic belief). Mr Morison, who was minister of the parish, and several friends came to see the man who was by now very distressed, and they joined in prayer that he should be freed from this terrible affliction. But Martin records that he was still being haunted at the time Martin had to leave the island.