Chapter V: Modern Chips of the Old Blocks (1)

“There’s something in that ancient superstition
Which, erring as it is, our fancy loves.”

The songs and legends of our sailors, and the suggestions which they now whisper to me of an interest deeper than their own, linking them to kindred tales of the far east, also bring forcibly to my memory many a quaint custom still lingering in the Isles and in many an out-of-the way corner of the Highlands; customs and superstitions which to many seem merely idle folly—matters altogether beneath the notice of their great intellect. Yet when I remember the exceeding interest taken in these things by one of the best of Scotland’s great sons—one whose loss is still so sorely felt by his countless friends, both rich and poor, learned and ignorant, I mean Sir James Simpson—and when I remember that he first directed my attention to the many traces of the old pagan creeds and rites, and quaint notions of medical lore, common among our forefathers, which still appear in these curious customs and traditions, I feel sure that even their most trivial details are as well worth preserving as are those fragments of antiquity—bones, metal, or pottery—which are so carefully stowed away in our museums.

All too quickly, as he himself expressed it, these are melting and disappearing before the light and the pride of modern knowledge, like fairy and goblin forms vanishing before the break of day. Yet from the scattered fragments that may even now be gathered together, there may still be found clues to guide us backward through the mazes of lost antiquarian lore. Nevertheless each day will make the task more difficult, for, as we before noticed, the ban of kirk and school lie heavily on all that savours of superstition. Even the old stories are losing favour; and though the young folk still listen, there are no longer such gatherings as there were a few years back, when fifty or sixty people would crowd round some Father of the Clachan to hear one wild legend after another.

One such man used to live at Broadford in the Isle of Skye, who told wondrous tales of the Elan na Fermor, Island of the Big Men, that is, the opposite Isle of Raasay, where huge bones of some extinct race of giants are still shown in the kirk. He told also of the Picts, or little men, whose curious “beehive houses,” built under ground, chamber within chamber, still puzzle the antiquaries in Lewis and Uist; unless, indeed, they have been content to accept Campbell of Islay’s suggestion of the strange likeness between these old houses and those in common use among the little Lapps of the present day. Both are alike sunk in the ground, so that to the passer by they appear but as grassy conical hillocks, with a hole at the top to act as chimney for the fire which burns in the centre of the hut—a chimney through which a man standing upright might suddenly thrust his head, greatly to the amazement of the passers-by. Round these huts, say the old Gaelic fairy-tales, the little men drove their herds of wild deer, and the little women came forth to milk the hinds; just as, at the present day, the little Lapps still drive the wild deer down from the mountains and the little Lapp women milk the hinds, and give the traveller rein-deer cream in bowls of birch wood. And in case any foolish unbeliever should doubt, as some have doubted, the existence of rein-deer on our Scottish hills, and should venture to suggest that our wild red deer never would submit tamely to be thus herded and driven about, we refer him to the old Orkney Saga, which tells how, in the eleventh century, when Harold and Ronald, Earls of Orkney, made peace after their deadly feuds, they came over to Caithness to hunt the rein-deer; and they and their merry men feasted abundantly on their venison, and left a great store of bones, both of red deer and rein-deer, as a special legacy to Professor Owen, and for the discomfiture of the incredulous, for there the bones remain to this day.

So, after all, it is probable that the fairy tales which tell of the little people who lived in the grassy hillocks and milked the wild deer are true stories, only spiritualized by the mists of time and imagination. The old man of Broadford was “weel acquaint” with the old wife in Lewis to whom windbound sailors told their griefs, whereupon she would give them a rope with three knots, bidding them never unfasten the third. And sure enough, when they undid the first knot a gentle breeze would rise, and at the second there sprung up a good stiff gale; but once a rash mariner was so mad as to undo the third, and straightway a wild hurricane swept over land and sea, and the boats were wrecked, and the men only escaped with their lives to rue their comrade’s presumption. Is this not a curious nineteenth century edition of the old accounts of the Druid priestesses of L’Isle de Sain, off Brest, who, in the days of Strabo, used to govern the winds by their wild songs, and sell a gale to all devout mariners? He speaks of them as “Samnite women” showing what strong resemblance there must have been between the wild orgies of these priestesses of the west and their eastern sisters.

This old man would also tell how it came to pass that so many soldiers had returned safe to the Isles after the French and Spanish campaigns. All because “there was a blind man in Broadford who was able to put the charm upon them. On each in turn he laid his hands, and they went away looking straight before them. One man half turned his head and saw his own shoulder—an evil omen—and sure enough he lost that arm; but though the balls fell round the others as thick as peas, they were nowise hurt, but returned as living proofs of the blind man’s power.”

As to the stories of witchcraft in the present day, they are still numberless. The old poacher told how he himself had been following a fine hart and stag in the corries, when suddenly, to his amazement, they were transformed into a man and woman. He watched them tremblingly, thanking his stars that he had not fired on them; when, in the twinkling of an eye, he once more beheld only a couple of deer feeding in the twilight. Had he only been possessed of a silver sixpence, he would surely have had a shot at them; but a common bullet was useless against such game, so he just stalked them for awhile, and again saw them resume their natural form, when he cautiously crept away down the glen, and was right glad to find himself once more in safe quarters! I think, however, he must have appropriated to himself some Gaelic legend of olden times, as the same story occurs in one of the very oldest Hindu poems, in which the Rajah Pandu goes out hunting, and shoots his arrows at a very fine stag and hind, which straightway resume human form, and appear as a Brahmin and his wife, who, turning on the luckless archer, curse him with a terrible curse. Moreover, in Ceylon we traced the same legend. When at the ancient sanctuary of Mahintale, we were shown a huge building, erected in the year B.C. 300, on the spot where Mahindo, a noted Buddhist missionary, appeared to the king in the form of an elk.

The stories that tell how certain “ill-women” from the Isle of Raasay were turned into seals, are matters of undoubted credence. So are a hundred instances in which (now in the present day) women spite one another, by destroying the milk of their neighbour’s cow—a fact which I have again and again heard most gravely asserted in various parts of Scotland by men and women who in most respects were sensible and clear-headed enough. They believe that if only a woman can privately gather a handful of grass from the roof of her neighbour’s cowshed, all the milk will pass from her neighbour’s cow to her own pail; and in proof of their superstition, they point out how so and so has invariably twice as much milk as her own cows could possibly yield, and how she always brings a double weight of butter to the market. I must not betray the names of old friends, but I know of divers hillside bothies where a bowl of rich cream or curds is always ready, and freely offered, greatly to the scandal of jealous neighbours, who believe it to be all the produce of the black art. It is only a few days since one of the principal inhabitants of a northern town assured me she had, with her own eyes, seen a woman preparing to make cheese, and that all her pans were filled to the brim, though it was well known that two of her cows were dry, and the third scarcely yielding sufficient milk for the family! Of such an one it is common to say, “Oh! she must have been _drawing the tether_;” meaning that early on Beltane morn, ere her neighbours were astir, she had gone forth secretly, dragging her cow’s tether through the dewy grass all round her field, and muttering incantations to secure good milk!

Where underhand dealings of this sort are suspected, a counter-charm must at once be brought into action; and such an one came under the notice of Mr. Carmichael, in Uist, in the summer of 1874. It is known as the _Eolan an Torranain_; or, Wisewoman Wisdom, which not only ensures a cow against the evil eye, but causes her to give quantities of rich milk. The Torranain was described to him as a large snow-white blossom, growing in rocky places on the hills, which fills with the dew of bliss while the tide is flowing, and slowly dries up again during the ebbing. Therefore, to obtain the virtue of the flower, it must be gathered during the flow of the tide, and then placed under one of the milk pails; not, however, till it has been waved over it thrice in a sunwise circle, while slowly and solemnly chaunting the _Eolas_, an incantation in which St. Columba, St. Bride, St. Oran, and St. Michael, of the high-crested steeds, are all called upon to lend their aid to win the nine blessings. The combination of the old planet worship, traceable in the reverence for tides and the sunwise circle, with the appeal to Christian saints, is noteworthy. Mr. Carmichael’s informant did not know the flower, but said she would gladly give one pound for the information, and that she had travelled far to see an old man (a descendant of the celebrated herbalists, the Bethunes of Skye, Mull and Islay), who knows much about flowers, but his wife would on no account allow him to tell her, and rated her soundly for daring to come to her house on such unholy missions, supposing she wanted to take away her neighbour’s milk!

The law does what it can to protect those accused of such unholy deeds; for instance, in the autumn of ’71 a case (by no means exceptional) was tried before the sheriff, at Stornoway, for defamation, a man having formally accused a whole family of having by witchcraft stolen the milk from his cows. He stuck to his belief, and was fined five shillings and costs. Still more frequent is the accusation of having wilfully cast the evil eye on a neighbour’s goods; and our northern sheriffs have to decide many a case for slander and defamation all turning on some such vague accusation of witchcraft. For the dread of the evil eye is just as great here as in the far East; and any one reputed to possess it, is shunned as a living plague. Quite recently I knew an instance of the people refusing to let a woman settle among them; and they even came to the proprietor to request that he would not give her a stance (_i.e._ an allotment), because they declared she had wicked eyes. To us the young woman and her eyes seemed rather comely and kindly. This curious superstition retains its definite position as an article in the household creed. Just as in Oriental lands women will suffer their children to be disfigured by dirt, lest any admirer should covet them, and so bring them ill-luck, here in the wilds of Ross-shire women will hide the bonnie bairn of a family from a stranger who might possibly have this evil eye. Nor is this dread of some envious being peculiar to Ross-shire. We find the same thing even in Banff and Morayshire, where praising the bairns is not always the way to the maternal heart. Hence too the answer given by a shepherd when inquiry was made for his beautiful dog: “Weel, sir, ye see, folk were aye admiring the dog, and at last he just took a hely and died!” So here, in sage Scotland, we have the identical belief in the evil eye with which we meet so constantly in Italy and Spain. In fact the shepherd’s answer was the counterpart of an observation made to us by a Spanish girl, whose dress we had been guilty of admiring on more than one occasion. “Yes!” she exclaimed, in extreme irritation, “you are always admiring my dress, and that is just the reason I have torn it!”

We know on how many of our north country farms the gude-wife who is busy at her churn or other household work, will bustle away her goods at the approach of any dubious stranger, because she knows that there are certain people whose presence will prevent the butter from coming, or the cakes from baking. We know too, how vexed a henwife would be should she catch us counting her chickens; and as to the experiment of counting a string of fishwives, it would be rash indeed to try it, for dire would be the storm of tongues. Should you be cruel enough to count the fishers as they get into their boat, they will probably refuse to go to sea that night, after so evil an omen. This, however, arises rather from the old dread of numbering the people, than from fear of the evil eye.

Another quaint old fret, which may have sprung from Scriptural tradition, or perhaps may own a more remote origin, is that curious objection to enter a house “empty, swept, and garnished” which exists in several of our northern counties. The out-going tenant whose officious care should extend to cleaning the floor would be held guilty of a most unneighbourly act to the new-comer. The more dirt and litter he leaves about, the better pleased is his successor. My attention was first called to this fact on one occasion when a tidy housekeeper at “the big house” had caused a cottage close by to be scrubbed before the arrival of the new tenant, whose look of dismay on glancing round rather astonished her. “Oh!” said the woman, “I would rather have found the dirtiest house in the country than this clean floor!” Shortly afterwards, a house in the same district (Speyside) was changing hands; the old housekeeper was most anxious to have everything in perfect order for its new master, but nothing would induce her to have the floors cleaned till he should have taken possession. On further inquiry we found the same superstition to be a matter of general acceptance throughout Banffshire and the neighbouring districts.

There is also a lingering belief in the ill-luck of taking a farm from which the previous tenant has been ejected against his will, lest a curse should go with the land—a curse which is expressed by a peculiar Gaelic word, _eirthear_. And it was till very recently quite a natural question to inquire whether any such grudge was attached to a farm, and if so, the bargain constantly fell to the ground. This feeling accounts for such entries in the transfer of land as that whereby in 1698, Alexander Kinnaird, in a legal document, making over the lands of Culbyn to Duff of Drummuir, specifies twice over that he gives the bargain _his goodwill and blessing_. Not that it proved worth much, as the estate was resold forty years later, and very soon after was overwhelmed with that mysterious sandstorm, which changed the fertile lands into the worthless desert we know so well. With regard to the unpleasant faculty of casting the evil eye, I am told by a very clever village schoolmaster that he had often gone fishing with one of his friends, a very good fellow, but one who was reputed to possess it involuntarily, and all the other men in the boat would watch him, and when they had a fish on their lines would try to draw it in secretly, for so surely as he observed them their fish would get away.

When such evil influence is supposed to have caused any illness, a witch is consulted, as a matter of course, and probably her first action will be to place a sixpence and a halfpenny in a bowl full of water. Then upsetting the bowl, if the sixpence sticks to the bottom, there is no doubt that the evil eye has been at work. As to dissuading the people from consulting these weird-wives, they have ready answers in store. One woman will tell you how, when she had no family, she consulted the old _cailliach_, and soon afterwards became the joyful mother of children. Another will tell how her milk went from her, and the witch brought it back. She can bring luck too to the herring boats, so it would be rash economy to save her puckle of meal. The boat-builder who knows his trade must place a crooked sixpence in the keel of every boat, and should she prove an unusually bonnie craft, her owner will probably do his best to start her on her first sail without spectators, lest any beholding should covet her, and so work mischief. The fishers of the good old school have full faith in the power of the silver coin to avert mischief from themselves as well as from their boats, and a sixpence placed in the heel of the stocking is even a more important wedding ceremony than the cross drawn on the door-post to keep off the witches.

I believe that at the present day there is scarcely a district in the Highlands in which some unlucky old wife is not shunned by her neighbours from the conviction that she is not “canny.” But so far from maltreating her, they invariably make way for her at kirk and market, never refusing anything she asks for, however inconvenient her request may be. One such old woman we knew well, whose neighbours firmly believed that she frequently assumed the form of a cat, and sat on the rafters to bewitch her husband. She had the reputation of bewitching other people besides him, and certain it is that dire evils befell those who incurred her hatred.

Happy it is for these poor ignorant old wives that the days we gone by when the kirk sessions used to vote supplies of fuel for the burning of the witches, and when the clergy, as a matter of course, stood by the funeral pyre, not, however, to comfort the poor victims, to whose shrieks they could listen unmoved, as to those of expiring devils. Little mercy awaited them from Romish priest or Protestant minister. They were held by both alike to have renounced their baptism and so placed themselves beyond the reach of God’s mercy; and while no priest would shrive one accused of the black art, however penitent she might be, no more could the Reformers find one glimmer of hope for such a one. Luther decreed that all such must be burnt; and John Knox stood by the fire to “mak sicker.” So admirable a thing as the destruction of a witch was held to be work meet far the day of rest, “a sanctifying” of the Sabbath! And there were even cases of church services being omitted in order that minister and people might be present at the burning.

There were actually men appointed in every district, known as prickers or witch-finders, who received from the kirk sessions and Court of Justiciary sums averaging six pounds Scots for every witch whom they discovered. In some instances the clergy themselves became witch-prickers. It was supposed that every witch and wizard bore the devil’s mark, which was simply a small discoloured spot, which would neither feel pain nor bleed, though a large pin were thrust through it. So soon therefore as any person was suspected of witchcraft, no matter how young and delicate a maiden or how venerable a grand-dame, she was seized and stripped naked, bound with ropes, and pricked all over with sharp needles. Screams of agony were of no avail. The witch-pricker continued his devilish work till the exhausted victim could scream no more. Whereupon at the next thrust of the needle it was declared that the mark had been found! Then sometimes for a whole week the tormentors took it by turns to watch, and keep the poor sufferer awake, lest in her dreams she should commune with Satan, as also in hopes of extorting semi-delirious confessions; the watchers themselves relieved guard every four-and-twenty hours. After these preliminaries, the accused were delivered to the tormentors to extort further confessions; and every form of torture which the arch-fiend himself could have devised was in turn practised upon the poor quivering flesh. They were sprinkled with boiling pitch and brimstone, which produced appalling sores, they were suspended in mid-air while burning torches were held beneath their uplifted arms. Finger-nails were wrenched off, red-hot tongs playfully gripped the bones, after burning away the flesh; the limbs were crushed with screws and hammers, while a witch-bridle (the four iron points of which pierced the tongue, the palate and both cheeks) was fastened on by a padlock at the back of the neck, and thus, to an iron ring in the wall. Sometimes the swimming test was applied. The victim was dragged to a pond and thrown in with her thumbs and toes tied together. If the merciful waters would receive and drown her, her innocence was proven. But should they reject her, and suffer her to float, she was guilty beyond all doubt, and the hottest bonfire must be made ready for her. Then she was dragged backwards by her hair to the court, lest by her looks she should bewitch the judges, who then solemnly pronounced sentence in the name of the most Holy Trinity.

Remember that all this devilish work was actually going on in Scotland less than two hundred years ago, at which time one of the witch-prickers, who for some of his misdeeds was most righteously hanged, confessed on the gibbet “that he had illegally caused the death of one hundred and twenty females whom he had been appointed to test for witchcraft.” It certainly sounds rather as if the judges themselves had been bewitched, when we read the accounts of the successive witch-manias that have overspread this land. For instance at the close of the searching reign of the Long Parliament, a list was drawn up of three thousand victims who had actually suffered death by its command on the most trivial accusations. Even in the year 1716 it is recorded that a woman and her daughter, aged nine, were hanged at Huntingdon for selling their souls to the devil, and raising a storm, by pulling off their stockings and making a lather of soap. Six years later another luckless witch was executed at Dornoch! It is a remarkable fact that the commencement of this diabolical persecution should have been coeval with the invention of that great civilizer, the printing press, one of whose first missions was to disseminate a stringent bull fulminated against witchcraft by Pope Innocent VIII., wherein, under the title of “Hammers for Witches,” he minutely described how all such might be recognized, and how punished. The flame thus kindled spread like wildfire; nor did the Reformation in any way lessen the evil. It was not till the year 1735 that the penal statutes against witchcraft were formally repealed, a measure decried by many of the clergy and other respected members of the community as direct disobedience to the Levitical command, that no witch should be suffered to live. When the reign of fire and faggot was thus finally abolished, it was calculated that within three hundred years upwards of thirty thousand people had been put to death in England alone on the charge of sorcery, while in Germany the number of victims could not have been less than one hundred thousand! Even such as were acquitted would in many cases have preferred death, as the mere suspicion seems to have placed them beyond the pale of human sympathy. They were outcasts for ever—hunted and cursed by all, save those who needed their arts. Certainly our forefathers were slow to learn lessons of mercy to malefactors.

It is only a hundred and seventy years since the treasurer’s accounts in Elgin contained such items as the payment of twenty shillings Scots, “for scourging two, lugging two, and burning two thieves,” lugging signifying in English cutting off their ears! And the Edinburgh records of the same date see nothing uncommon in paying one pound to the lockman (hangman) for scourging a woman! In fact, fifty years later, we hear how Agnes Blyth was by decree of the Sheriff whipped through the city of Edinburgh as a punishment for hen-stealing!

But the most curious thing of all is to find people who to this day believe that such old witches can by their magical arts compass the death of any foe. It sounds like a story of the middle ages to hear of women sitting by their own fireside modelling images of wax in order that as these slowly melt so he to whom they wish evil may likewise fade away. Yet such a case recently came under our notice in the good town of Inverness, where an old woman having conceived a violent hatred to her spiritual pastor on account of his refusing her admission to the Holy Communion, took this method of destroying him! It so happened that at that time he fell into very bad health, and as the old lady watched him growing gradually weaker and weaker, she was fully satisfied that her charm was working effectually. She was, however, doomed to disappointment, as her image was discovered and betrayed; and her spell being broken, the victim rapidly recovered!

Two similar instances have come under our notice in the same neighbourhood. Thus at Kirkhill near Beauly, in the year 1870, a farmer had occasion to dismiss a man summarily from his employment. The man owed him a grudge, and by way of avenging himself he made an image of clay which he buried near the farmer’s house, hoping that as the rains washed away the clay, his enemy would pine and die. Sure enough he did pine, and became very sickly indeed; when lo! one day, as he was digging in his field he found this image, and at once suspected its object, and the miscreant who had placed it there; so wroth was he, that it needed all the persuasive eloquence of his neighbours to prevent his at ones carrying the case before his landlord. Curiously enough, he is said to have recovered from that hour!

Again, also in Beauly, we hear of a man slowly dying without any apparent cause. His home was ruled by a woman of violent temper. “Ou! she was a wild woman!” said my informant. The neighbours at last became convinced that she was compassing his death by evil arts, and sought in every direction for some wax or clay image. They found she had been sticking very suspicious lumps of clay on divers trees. I ventured to suggest grafting; but the idea was scouted. However, they sought in vain for any more definite proof of guilt, and in due time the sick man died.

In Strathspey we were also told in whispered tones of this terrible form of witchcraft, as of a thing not to be doubted, and here the witches give piquancy to their crime by sticking pins into the clay doll, before laying it in some running stream, where it may slowly but surely melt away. A calf’s heart stuck full of pins is also accounted a sure means of disposing of a foe. A sick person having reason to attribute his illness to any such supernatural cause of course appeals to some local wise woman. Amongst the sapient cures suggested will probably be a poultice of warm cow-dung—a nice recipe, quite _à la Hindu_. Indeed, the whole transaction savours of Indian superstition, one race of witches being there known as Jigger-khor, or liver devourers; their evil eye, incantations, and slow charms being recognized as fatal means for the destruction of their victims. Their punishment, however, is severe—rubbing the eyelids with cayenne pepper being their least penalty, while the old ordeals by water, or holding balls of red-hot iron in the hand, are by no means forgotten. These Indian dames are on the whole more formidable than ours, as they can transform themselves into raging tigers as easily as our old women assume the innocent form of a hare.

There seems to be a curious family likeness connecting the witchcrafts of divers lands. This particular device of moulding a waxen image in the likeness of a foe seems to be very well known in Abyssinia, where, we are told, the people habitually carefully conceal their own baptismal names and those of their children, who from their infancy are only known to their fellows by some nick-name. The reason assigned for this odd custom is the conviction that only the baptismal name is recognized in heaven, and that therefore should any evil-doer wish to harm them, by moulding such an image to represent them, the spell would assuredly fail to work if the image were prepared in the false name. Rather a curious view of the subserviency of heaven to the powers of darkness!

Among the quaint little devices of modern Scotch witches, we know in Perthshire of a certain cat having been killed and coffined as a symbol likely to compass the death of a lady who had incurred the ill-will of some miscreant. The man who found this unlucky cat was very much disturbed in his mind, evidently considering it very dangerous. He was fully aware of its meaning, so it was probably by no means a unique instance.

Poor cats! they seem to be always associated with witchery and divination, and very hard lines they get. One revolting form of augury long in use in the Isles, was that of half roasting a live cat, in the belief that its screams would attract the king of cats, who could reveal all hidden knowledge, as the price of poor pussy’s release. They also occupy a very grave place in the records of James VI., where, in the trial of the witches of Tranent, two luckless old women confessed to having christened cats by the name of Anne of Denmark and having thrown them into the sea, in order to raise such storms as might impede her voyage. Thus it came to pass that by their evil arts a boat laden with gifts and jewels for the queen was wrecked in the Firth of Forth. A few years later, another witch confessed to having christened a cat by the queen’s name, and passed it nine times through the iron gate of Seaton, and then cast it to the devil. For this, and similar acts, she and four other persons were burnt alive!

It seems that these malpractices are neither a thing of the past, nor peculiar to the old wives of Scotland. Mackay, writing in 1841, mentions many recent cases of witchcraft having come under his notice in Hastings, Lincoln and Huntingdon; most especially one of a cunning man whose ordinary business it was to mould wax images stuck full of pins, in order to destroy such persons as annoyed his customers! He also tells of a wizard near Tunbridge Wells who was constantly consulted by persons of the highest rank.

There is no need, however, to look back for such cases. So lately as May, 1872, two onions, stuck full of pins, and ticketed with the name of the intended victim, were found suspended in the chimney of a publichouse at the village of Rockwellgreen, Somersetshire; showing that the old tricks are not forgotten there. Even in London at the present day there are professional diviners who beguile the unwary, and whose business proves as lucrative as the sale of quack medicines. I have just been told by one whose curiosity led her into one of these establishments, that she was shown into a large waitingroom crowded with well-dressed women, amongst whom she recognised the daughter of an English clergyman. Each in turn was ushered into a private room, where they were received by no hideous witch, but by a comely woman with a goodly array of tea-cups, each containing a little tea, with leaves. The anxious inquirer into futurity was made to turn one of these thrice sunwise, and throw out the liquid; whereupon the oracle interpreted the arrangement of the leaves, as solemnly as any old wife in Ross-shire, or any old washerwoman in any part of the country, could have done. Only last summer, four fortune-telling wizards were busy in London, working out planetary schemes, and casting nativities for all who cared to consult them. These men, being of the vulgar sort, were looked up by the police, and sentenced to three months’ hard labour. Among their stock-in-trade were found magic mirrors and magic cards, as also a regular register of their clients, showing that the number of their dupes sometimes amounted to nearly seven hundred in a week!

As concerns the more fashionable attempts at tampering with the Spirit-world, we can but congratulate the mediums on the repeal of the penal laws; a hundred years ago their Spiritrappings and table-turnings would have cost them dear indeed. What are we to say of the American _Spiritual Journal_? What of the British ladies, who with white hands resting on _planchette_ (a heart-shaped piece of wood, pierced at one end with a pencil, and the other resting on two wooden pegs), send their maids on fools’ errands to thieves’ quarters for the recovery of lost jewels, on the strength of a few mysterious scratches on a sheet of paper? Stranger than all, what can we think of a large exhibition in Bond-street of spiritual paintings, apparently without any sort of form or meaning, though described by the medium in words that to ears uninitiated sound simply blasphemous? These things, however, belong to fashionable modern life and high civilization, while the antiquarian chips which we would fain collect are more likely to be found amongst the unlettered poor, who merely walk after the tradition of their fathers, without any wish to seek out new inventions. Such quaint old superstitions are common in every corner of England and Scotland, though rarely noticed save when they lead to some mischief which brings them within ken of the law.

Thus at Craigmillar, near Edinburgh, a woman, not long ago, refused to give a neighbour “a bit peat” to light her fire, because she was supposed to be uncanny. The old woman muttered, as she turned away, that her churlish neighbour might yet repent of her unkindness. This speech the other repeated to her husband on his return from work, whereupon he went straight to the old woman’s house, and gave her a sharp cut on the forehead, for which he was duly called to account, and pleaded his belief that scoring the witch above the breath would destroy her glamour!

Some very curious notions as to this non-giving of fire exist in some Highland districts. In various districts of Perthshire, in Ross-shire, and in Strathspey, I have found instances of it. At Beltane, Midsummer, Hallow-e’en, and particularly at the New Year, and on some intervening days, there is a dread of ill-luck in allowing a neighbour to take a kindling from the hearth, or even a light for a pipe. An old servant from the island of Islay tells me that there no one would, on any account, give or take a light at Hogmanay, that is, at the new year.

A schoolmaster, in Ross-shire, also gave me various instances of this superstition which had come under his immediate notice. For instance, an old wife came to a neighbour’s house to get “a kindling” for her fire. There was no one in the house but a wide-awake lassie eight years old. So well versed was the child in this fire lore, that she would neither give a match nor a cinder. Having turned out the poor old body, the little girl immediately went to fetch two friends, and they followed the old woman to her home, where, sure enough, they found a blazing fire and a boiling pot. “See you,” said the lassie, “gin the _cailliach_ had gotten the kindling, my father would not get a herring this year!”

In like manner a poor tinker’s wife came into a house in Applecross, one morning in July, 1868, and took up a live peat from the hearth to kindle her own fire. She had got to some distance before she was observed, whereupon the gude-wife rushed after her, and, snatching away the poor gipsy’s prize, turned to a stranger who ventured to remonstrate, saying, “Do you think I am to allow my cow to be dried up? If I allowed her to carry away the fire, I would not have a drop of milk tonight to wet the bairns’ mouths.” She then threw the peat into a pail of water, so as to recover whatever milk might already have found its way from poor crummie to the tinker’s camp. Generally, when a kindling has thus been taken by stealth, it is considered safer to consult a wise woman (or, as they call her, a disciple of Black Donald), that she may put a counter-check on the evil designs of the unneighbourly neighbour.

We find allusions to this quaint superstition in divers legends of old, as for instance in those that tell of the mighty brothers Akin and Rhea, prehistoric giants, who dwelt on the mainland, and occasionally crossed over to the Isle of Skye by leaping the Straits. The brothers built two strong towers in the Glenelg country, where they lived in fraternal harmony, till on one evil day the younger brother, returning to his home, found only a black hearth to greet him. Weary and chill, he passed on to his brother’s castle, where the fire was smouldering as usual. Soon he kindled a cheery blaze, and having warmed himself, prepared to return to his own lair, taking with him, however, a burning peat for a kindling. At this moment the loving elder brother returned from the chase, and great was his wrath on perceiving the theft. The culprit made off with all speed, as well he might, for to this day the valley is strewn with rocks hurled after him by the infuriated giant; one mighty boulder in particular stands forth is a warning to all men to respect the rights of Fire.

This curious fear of ill-luck connected with the giving or stealing of fire is doubtless one of those quaint traces of old Paganism on which we still occasionally light; and which, in these days of humdrum common sense, have a charm like that of some wild-berry wine—a gamey flavour in short, recalling the days when the mainland, and probably even these islands, were covered with dense primeval forests, where wild deer, and wild men, and stately Druid priests, found home and shelter; and where our ancestors worshipped Baal, the sun-god, and Ashtaroth, the moon-goddess, with strange mysterious rites, mostly connected with fire, and with the gathering of sacred plants; when on the great Fire festivals the priests kindled fire by friction, and all the people carried it to their cottages, where it was never suffered to go out, but, as new, smouldered on, night and day all the year round; except when purposely extinguished to make room for the new holy fire. As the purchase of this fire was a source of profit to the priests, it would naturally be considered criminal for one neighbour to give it to another at the seasons when every man was bound to purchase it for himself. Of course, though the old customs are still retained, their original meaning is utterly forgotten; and the man who throws a live peat after a woman who is about to increase the population, or he who on Hallow-e’en throws a lighted brand over his own shoulder without looking at whom he aims, little dreams whence sprang these time-honoured games. I know that in many of the remote glens of Perthshire there are still living women who on Beltane morn always throw ashes and a live peat over their own heads, repeating a certain formula of words to bring them luck. But the strictest secresy is observed, lest such practices should reach the ear of the minister: so the stronger their belief, the less willing are they to confess to any knowledge of such matters.

One remarkable trace of this old faith was the long-continued use of the Fire-churn, or Need-fire,—that is to say, fire kindled by friction of dry wood, as a charm against cattle plague. That which was procured from striking metal was considered worthless. Among the various accounts of Highland customs, which in the year 1830 were spoken of as still quite common, was the kindling of this Need-fire in any case of murrain, or cattle disease. A small booth was erected near some river or loch, in which divers wooden posts, upright and horizontal, were placed: the horizontal timber was provided with several spokes, by means of which it was rapidly turned round, till, by its friction with the other posts, it became ignited.

The men who turned the spokes were obliged to divest themselves of any metal they might have about them, in conformity with that curious feature in all magic, or fairy lore, which makes the presence of steel or iron utterly neutralize all spiritual influences. In all the Celtic fairy tales we find that the touch of a dirk deprives the “good folk” of all power, so that to lay cold steel on one fairy-bound would release him from the spell. Therefore it was, doubtless, that the Druids cut their sacred mistletoe with golden sickles; and for the same reason, their descendants to this present day go forth on May morning to gather ivy and other plants, which must not be cut by any knife. It is worthy of note that the same superstition exists among the Africans of the Gold Coast, who, to this day, deem it necessary when consulting their Fetish, to remove their knives, and any other ornament of steel or iron.

The Need-fire having been kindled, all other fires about the farm were put out, and relighted from this one, and all the cattle were made to smell it; sometimes the sick animals were made to stand over the fire for a quarter of an hour with their tongues out. According to the original custom, the sacrifice of a heifer was necessary to the salvation of the herd. The latest instance on record of this sacrifice having actually been offered occurred at Dallas, in Morayshire, on my father’s estate, and within his memory. A murrain having grievously afflicted one of the small farmers, he proceeded to kindle the Need-fire with all ceremony—then having dug a pit, he therein sacrificed an ox, to some Spirit unknown.

Sir James Simpson mentions two similar ceremonies within the memory of the present and past generation; one was at Biggar in Lanarkshire, the other near Torphichen in West Lothian, within twenty miles of Edinburgh; at the latter, a near relative of Sir James was present. In each case an unhappy cow was buried alive, as a sacrifice to the Spirit of the Murrain, in the hope that the rest of the flock might thereby be saved! He goes on to tell how, in the same district, another relation of his own bought a farm not many years ago. The first thing he did, on taking possession, was to enclose a small triangular corner of one of the fields with a stone wall. This corner remains cut off to this day, and is known as the “Goodman’s Croft,” being an offering to the Spirit of Evil, who, being thus appeased, might abstain from blighting the rest of the farm. Lucifer seems, however, to have made rather a bad bargain, the “Goodman’s” portion being the most worthless and sterile corner on the whole farm! There are few parishes in Scotland in which some scrap of land has not, in olden days, borne this significant title. Two such odd corners lie near the town of Crieff in Perthshire, though there, as in most other places, the “Goodman’s Croft” is now known as the “Bellman’s Croft,” that functionary having in most cases been served heir to the d——l, whose land he works for his own benefit.

I am told that there have been various instances in the present century in which bulls have been sacrificed in England. One such case was the offering of a calf in Cornwall, in the year 1800, to arrest a murrain; and the Rev. J. Evans describing Wales in the year 1812, says that whenever a violent disease broke out among the horned cattle, the farmers of the district joined to give up a bullock to be offered as a ransom for the herds. It was led to the top of a precipice and thence cast down; the ceremony being known as ‘casting a captive to the devil.’

Somewhat similar is the annual sacrifice in Brittany of an ox, a cow, a calf, and a sheep, which, being gaily adorned with flowers and ribbons, are led in procession round the church with music of drums and fifes, and flags flying. These animals are then sold for the benefit of St. Nicodemus, to induce him to protect all other flocks and herds in the district.

In olden days it was currently believed that this offering of a life for a life was equally efficacious in the case of human beings as in that of animals. Hence we read strange stories of witchcraft, whereby men or women sought to redeem their own lives by the sacrifice of another human life, or else when they “laid their sickness” on some animal—cat, dog, or sheep; and it was firmly believed that this modern scapegoat would straightway vanish, and never again be seen.

Several of these ceremonies are strangely akin to some of the Hindu practices, and it is said that this kindling of the Need-fire as a charm against disease, though varying in detail, is practised by nearly all the Indo-European races.

Shaw, writing at the end of last century, mentions having frequently been present at this fire-making, and adds that a great cauldron was set on this forced fire (_teine eigin_) wherein juniper was boiled, and the _bree_ sprinkled on the cattle. Juniper was also burnt in the cattle stalls, that its fumes might keep away the witches. Possibly it may have acted as a disinfectant. It was also customary to burn juniper before the cattle on New Year’s Day, and to adorn the cow-byres with mountain-ash and honeysuckle at Beltane, the first of May; all pointing to the old Celtic reverence for certain plants. In some parts of Ross-shire the lassies still go out on May morning to gather sprays of ivy, which, as already noticed, must on no account be cut with metal, they must be gathered by hand or bitten with the teeth. These they sew into their petticoats, to bring them luck for the year. The favourite charm against the evil eye is a sprig of mountain-ash worn inside the dress, or else tied to the door of the cow-byre or the halyards of the fishing-boats, with a scarlet thread—a custom referred to in the old rhyme which tells how—

“Rowan-tree and red thread
Mak’ the witches tyne their speed.”

In Banffshire it is still a common custom to tie a couple of twigs crosswise with red thread, and place them above the door of the cow-house, and we know various knowing old wives who keep a red thread twisted round the tail of their cow, as a safeguard from evil. The perforated stones worn as amulets were also tied round the neck with a red thread, and we know that a triple twist of red, blue, and white thread is considered the safest medicine for a sick child in the island of Islay, and probably in many another corner of the Hebrides.

This reverence for a scarlet twine is by no means confined to these isles. We hear how the witches of Mongolia carry on their incantations in the tents of the sick by slaying a sheep in sacrifice (not, however, to Buddha, who forbids such practices, though his image is produced to witness the ceremony), and the shoulder-blade is then tied up above the fire, suspended by a twist of scarlet silken thread. We also read in the old chronicles of Ceylon, how Vishnu protected some of his votaries from the sorceries of the demon-worshippers by tying threads on their arms. The same custom is still common among some of the hill tribes of India. At a Hindu or a Khand wedding the presence of a red or yellow thread is as necessary a part of the ceremonial as is the gold ring of Christendom. The Hindus bind the thread round the waist of the children, while the Khands tie it round their necks. The Mahrattas tie the young couple together with a crimson scarf.

The diviners in the Rajmahal hills commence their incantations by binding a red thread round the head with five cowrie shells attached to it. The same shells are commonly worn in Egypt as amulets against the Evil Eye. The divining-stool is spotted with red paint, and has a red thread tied round it, and at certain festivals branches of the sacred muckmun-tree are cut, and having been carried five times round the house, they are bound to the door-post or the rafter with a red thread. Branches of the same tree are bound with a red silk thread to the shrine of certain of the gods, to whom are sacrificed red cocks, or eggs spotted with red paint. But the deity to which they fly for refuge in times of pestilence is an unhewn Black Stone, to which they sacrifice goats and fowls; just such a stone as that which Sir Walter Scott declares to have been held in such extreme veneration throughout the Hebrides that the people would never approach it without certain solemnities. It lay on the sea-shore, and was supposed to be oracular, and to answer whatever questions might be asked by the influence which it secretly exerted on the mind of the inquirer. A similar black stone was, as we have seen, long preserved in the cathedral of Iona; others were worshipped by the Phœnicians and Romans, while one is still revered as the most sacred treasure of Mecca.

The rowan-tree, or mountain-ash, was in continual requisition in all parts of Ireland and Scotland, and we find it now in all Welsh churchyards. At May Day (Beltane) rowan twigs were carried thrice sunwise round the bonfires, then carried home, and placed in every house to ward off all evil in the coming year. On the same day the farmers of Strathspey and Inverness were wont to make a twisted hoop of rowan, and cause each sheep and lamb to pass through it, till the whole flock had thus been secured from harm.

Every cow-herd having a due regard to the safety of his cattle would certainly drive his beasts with a rowan stick. In Forfarshire we know of certain byres where, if even the rowan-tree and red thread have failed to keep away disease, the cow-herd invariably places a burning peat on the threshold of the byre, and makes the sick beasts walk over it, as a sure and infallible cure; while in Islay the custom is on May morning to smear the ears of the cattle with tar to keep off the warlocks.

One very ancient custom for the good of the cattle was to take a sod from the roof of the byre and a burning peat, and plunge both in a pail of strong ale,—a drink which was made from the young tops of heather, with a certain proportion of malt; it seems to have been the favourite brew of the ancient Picts, but the art of preparing it is now lost.