CONTENTS

PAGE
[CHAPTER I]
Black Witchcraft
Introductory[1]
Witches and Milk[7]
Counter-Charms[10]
Going to Sea[15]
Raising Storms and Drowning People[19]
Witches as Sheep[30]
Witches as Hares[33]
Witches as Cats[34]
Witches as Rats[42]
Witches as Gulls[42]
Witch as Cormorant[43]
Witches as Whales[44]
Delaying the Birth of a Child[45]
Clay Corpse[46]
Silver Sixpence[49]
Saving Horses[50]
Tailor and Witches[50]
Celebrated Witches[50]
Wizard Rising after Death[52]
How to Detect Witches[53]
[CHAPTER II]
White Witchcraft
Introductory[54]
Eòlas[57]
Cure for the Evil Eye[59]
Charm for Sprains[66]
Charm for Bruises[67]
Charm for Rheumatic Pains[67]
Charm for Consumption[68]
For Affections of the Chest[68]
Charm for Toothache[69]
Made for Merrion MacFadyn[70]
Charms for Cattle[71]
Charm against Danger[73]
The Old Wife’s Charm for her Cow[73]
Charm for a Sheep in its Cot[74]
Against Drowning and in War[74]
Charm against Dangers in War[75]
Charm for Cloth[77]
Charm for General Use[79]
“The Gospel of Christ”[79]
Charm for conferring Graces[80]
Charm for the Faces of Young Women[81]
Love Charm[82]
Charm to keep away Harm in a Lawsuit[83]
Serpent Stone[84]
Snail Beads[88]
Frog Stone[89]
Stones[90]
Fairy Arrow[91]
Cruban Stone[92]
Various[93]
Gospel[94]
Miscellaneous Cures[94]
Warts[94]
Stye[95]
Tetter[95]
Hiccup[96]
Hooping-cough[96]
Stiff Neck[96]
Toothache[96]
Falling Sickness[97]
Madness[97]
Axillary Swelling[99]
Lumbago[100]
Consumption[100]
Leprosy[100]
Loch Ma Nàr[101]
Wells[101]
Mountain Ash[103]
Pearlwort[103]
St. John’s Wort[104]
Juniper[105]
Yarrow[106]
The Enticing Plant[106]
The Daughter of the King of Enchantments[107]
[CHAPTER III]
Death Warnings
Introductory[109]
Hugh of the Little Head[111]
[CHAPTER IV]
Second Sight
Introductory[120]
Spectres of the Living[132]
Apparitions of the Dead[137]
Strong and Undue Wishes[141]
Tàradh[144]
Marriage[147]
Coming Misfortune[148]
Events at a Distance[149]
Death[150]
Coffin[151]
Noise of Glasses to be used at Funerals[154]
Funeral Procession[155]
Wraiths seen before Death[158]
Drowning[160]
Horses and Dogs[163]
Crying heard before Death[166]
Lights[169]
Spirits seen before Death[172]
Return of the Dead[172]
Bones of the Dead and Place of Burial[176]
Spirits appearing in Dreams[179]
To get rid of the Second Sight[180]
[CHAPTER V]
Hobgoblins
Introductory[181]
The Bodach, or Carle[187]
Fuath[188]
Cachlaidh Na Feusaig, Islay[189]
The Headless Body[191]
The Grey Paw[194]
Ewen and the Carlin Wife[198]
The Black Walker of the Ford[201]
Strowan, Athole[203]
The Unearthly Whistle[204]
The Battle of Gaura[205]
The Beast of Odal Pass[207]
Luideag, “The Rag”[208]
Lochan Doimeig[208]
Return of the Dead[210]
Donald Gorm’s Ghost[211]
Taibhse Choimhlig[213]
Kingairloch, Argyleshire[214]
Fladdachuain[215]
Haunted Houses[217]
Bocain, Goblins[220]
[CHAPTER VI]
The Celtic Year
Introductory[224]
Nollaig[229]
Calluinn[230]
Christmas Rhymes[233]
New-Year Night[236]
New-Year’s Day[238]
The Twelve Days of Christmas[243]
Winter Season[244]
February[245]
Earrach beag nam Faochag[247]
St. Bride’s Day[247]
Spring[250]
The Whistle[250]
The Sharp-billed One[251]
The Sweeper[251]
Gearran, a Gelding, or perhaps Gearan, Complaint[251]
The Old Wife[253]
Three Hog Days[254]
Seed-time[255]
Shrovetide[256]
Lent[258]
St. Kessock’s Day[259]
St. Patrick’s Day[259]
Lady Day[261]
Shore or Maundy-Thursday[261]
Good Friday[262]
Easter[263]
All-Fools’ Day[266]
Bailc na Bealltainn[267]
May-Day[267]
Month of May[272]
Whistling Week[273]
May[273]
The Avoiding Day of the Year[273]
Whitsuntide, Pentecost[274]
St. John’s or Midsummer’s Eve[276]
Dog Days[276]
Translation of Martin[277]
Lammas[277]
The Hot Month (i.e. August)[279]
Assumption Day[279]
Roodmas, September 14th-26th[280]
Michaelmas[281]
Hallowmas[281]

CHAPTER I.
BLACK WITCHCRAFT.

Witchcraft introduces us to a class of popular superstitions entirely different from those connected with Fairies. Fairies, water-horses, and kindred supernatural beings were distinct from the Evil Spirits that gave to witches their unhallowed powers. They could not be compelled or conjured by mortals to appear when wanted, or enter into contracts of service. The Powers of Darkness, on the other hand, were always at the service of their votaries, and, by means of charms and incantations known to the initiated, were made to lend their aid in any scheme of malevolence.

A belief in magic widely, almost universally, prevails among the tribes of mankind, and the witchcraft of the Christian era, while it undoubtedly gained strength and character from mistaken interpretations of Scripture, owes many characteristics to the delusions of Pagan times.

The Highland witches have of course many points in common with their sisters of the south, but comparatively there is little repulsive or horrible in their character. Tales regarding them make no mention of incubus and succubus, midnight meetings and dances with the devil, dead men’s fingers, and more of the horrible and awful, the ravings of poor women driven crazy by persecution and torture. Neither is there mention of their riding through the air on broomsticks, nor, like the witch of Endor, raising the dead. Their art was forbidden, and their powers came from the devil; but it does not appear under what paction, or that there was any paction, under which this power was to be got. It was in the name of the devil, and against the name of the Trinity, they set about their cantrips, but a knowledge of the necessary charms, and the courage to use them, seem to have been all that was requisite. Those having the reputation of being witches were (and are, for a few still survive) usually old women, destitute of friends and means of support, and naturally ready to eke out a miserable livelihood by working on the fears or the simplicity of their more prosperous neighbours.

There are instances in which a farmer has bribed a witch by yearly presents not to do harm to his cattle; and we must remember that in days of scarcity and famine, poverty with icy hand and slow-consuming age will make people resort to shifts of which they would never dream when food was abundant. In most cases, the reputed witch was merely a superstitious and perhaps ill-favoured old woman, possessing a knowledge of rhymes and charms for the healing of disease in man and beast, and taking pains to sain her own cattle, if she had any, from harm. Sometimes she was also dishonest, desirous of being looked upon with awe, and taking advantage of nightfall to steal milk from her neighbours’ byres and corn from their stackyards. Her powers of witchcraft satisfactorily accounted to the popular mind for her butter and cheese—even if she had no cows—being abundant when the stores of others failed. In dark uncultured times a claim to influence over the unseen powers of nature, and to intercourse with spirits, had only to be made to be allowed, and the mere pretension too readily invests the claimant with awe to make it safe for any one to denounce the imposture. Many believed in the efficacy of the arts they practised, and in their own possession of the power with which the credulity of mankind was willing to accredit them. Unusual natural events and phenomena can easily be turned into proofs of a witch’s claim; imposture readily leads to delusion, and hence among the poor and uneducated it is no wonder to find witchcraft practised and believed in.

The power of witches was always at the disposal of those who were willing to pay for it, and the fact that the rewards of witchcraft did not sometimes exceed a pound of tobacco, alone shows how much the urgencies of want had to do with the pretence to supernatural powers. Unless payment was given the witch could do nothing; her spells were then of no avail. To explain the anomaly that witches possessed such tremendous powers and yet remained always in indigent circumstances, it was said the poor wretches could not benefit themselves; their power, as might be expected, considering the source from which it was derived, was only one of mischief and doing harm to others. Much of the superstition is at variance with this popular explanation, as, for instance, the taking of milk from the neighbours’ cows and the substance from their butter and cheese, but contradictions and absurdities never stand in the way of credulity and superstitious fears.

The Gaelic name ‘Buidseach’ is identical in meaning with the English ‘witch,’ a word it also somewhat resembles in form. The term ‘Bao’ is sometimes translated wizard, but is properly only a careless conversational form of Baobh, a wild furious woman, a wicked mischievous female, who scolds and storms and curses, caring neither what she says nor what she does, praying the houses may be razed (làrach lom) and the property destroyed (sgrios an codach) of those who have offended her. This is a word used in proverbs. “A raging woman obtains her imprecation, but her soul obtains no mercy.”[1] Baoth, weak, foolish, is often confounded with it. M’Intosh[2] makes the expression ‘maca bao,’ ‘a wizard’s son’ instead of macan baoth, a weak or little child. “Pity of her who is the mother of a helpless child, when May-day falls on a Thursday,” i.e.[3] owing to the infant mortality of the season.

A common answer to the question, What could witches do? is What could they not do? The classes of actions, however, ascribed to them are not numerous. They could take the milk from their neighbours’ cattle, bring fish to their own coasts, make fishermen successful, go to sea for fish themselves and bring home creelfuls, raise storms, sink ships, drown those who offended them; give strings to sailors with knots on them, the unloosening of which raised the wind; they could go to wine-cellars in London or Ireland, and drink wine till morning; fly through the air with magic quickness, and cross the seas in the most unlikely vessels, sieves, eggshells, or dry cowsherds; produce a wasting disease in an enemy, waylay and endanger the belated traveller, and by their cursed tricks keep a child in its mother’s womb past its proper time; suck cows, and assume various shapes. They could benefit, or at least ward away evil from a favourite, but their power of doing so seems to have been much feebler than their powers of mischief.

In carrying out their unhallowed cantrips, witches assumed various shapes. They became gulls, cormorants, ravens, rats, mice, black sheep, swelling waves, whales, and very frequently cats and hares. The shape was not always well chosen for the object to be attained, a hare, for instance, being but ill-formed for sucking cows, or a cat for drinking wine; neither was a sieve or an eggshell a likely vessel to go to sea in, nor a piece of tangle for carrying milk in, nor the chimney crook a probable substitute for the cow’s udder. This, however, is of no consequence. It is only part of the witch’s diabolical mode of going to work. The truth is, that these harmless animals whose shapes witches were said to assume, being seen in unusual places at unusual times, or conducting themselves in an unusual manner, were converted by the terrified imagination into witches pursuing their unlawful practices. Many tales seem to have their origin in vain attempts to stagger credulity, and in that delight which people of lively imaginations sometimes take in ‘cramming’ their more stupid fellows.

In addition to change of shape, witches had a machinery of charms, incantations, red, black, and blue threads, magic caps, and particularly a magic staff, called ‘an luirgean’ ‘an lorg ohn.’

There were certain nights of the year on which they were unusually busy. These were particularly the last night of every quarter. On Beltane night they were awake all night. Their object seems to have been to sain, i.e. keep evil away from, their own cattle or those of the farmers who employed them for the purpose. Others were no doubt taking advantage of any neglect in this respect to secure to themselves the butter and cheese for the next three months. No one, however, knows what they were after, as a woman who believed in their being awake on Beltane night piously said, “God and themselves know what they are doing.”[4]

Many tales relating to witchcraft, as has been already remarked, must have had their origin in attempts to ridicule people out of their belief and in an unbridled exercise of imagination. They only furnished a proof that men will believe the incredible.