CRYING HEARD BEFORE DEATH.
A wailing or unusual cry heard at night, where no one is known to be, or can be, is an indication that at that place some one will break into lamentation for the death of a friend, of which he will there first receive intimation, or will have otherwise cause to cry. The voice heard is not that of the “fetch” of the man, who is to be killed or drowned, but that of some mourner—a wife, or sister, or near relation. In these cries before a sudden death, the voices of women are the most frequently recognised.
A cry or scream, indicative of death, and believed to be uttered by a wraith, was called tàsg, and éigheach tàisg or éigheach tàsg, i.e. the cry of a wraith.
In the case of a man accidentally drowned on Trabay Beach in Tiree, a cry described as “a healthy cry” (glaodh fallain) was heard at night in the west end of the island several days previous to the disaster, and four miles from the scene of the accident, at the spot where the man’s brother first received the melancholy intelligence. The cry consisted of “òh” said thrice, and each time at the full length of a man’s breath (fad analach).
At the old quay in Port Appin, Argyleshire, the wailing of a woman was heard at night. Some days after, the mother of a young man who had been accidentally killed in Glasgow, there met the remains, which came by steamer, and she broke into loud lamentation.
At the Big Bridge (an Drochaid Mhor) above Portree Manse, on the road to Braes, in the Isle of Skye, strange sounds are heard by people passing there at night, such as the moaning of a dying person, sounds of throttling, etc. Mysterious objects, dogs, and indistinct moving objects are also seen at the haunted spot. These are supposed to denote that a murder will some time be committed here.
Weeping and crying were heard at midnight near the mill-dam in Tiree, on a dark and rainy night, by a young man going for a midwife for his brother’s wife. He heard the same sounds on his return. The woman died in that childbed, and it was observed that at the very spot where the young man said he heard the sounds of lamentation, her two sisters first met after her death, and burst into tears and outcries. The person to whom this incident occurred is now past forty years of age, is intelligent, and to be relied on as a person who would not tell a lie. There can be no doubt he heard the lamentation, whatever may have been the cause of his impression. Strange noises, of which the natural cause is not known, are readily associated with the first incident that offers any explanation.
In the island of Mull, lamentation (tuireadh) was recollected to have been heard where a young man was accidentally killed ten years after.
Thirty years ago horrible screaming and shouting (sgiamhail oillteil agus glaodhaich) were heard about eight o’clock on a summer evening across Loch Corry in Kingairloch. In a line with the shouting lay a ship at anchor, and the burying-ground on the other side of the loch. The cry was like that of a goat or buck being killed, a bleating which bears a horrible resemblance to the human voice. Next night the master of the ship was drowned, no one knew how. The man on the watch said that when sitting in the stern of the ship he saw the skipper go below, and then a clanking as if the chain were being paid out. He heard and saw nothing further. The night was fine.
In July, 1870, a ship struck on a sunken rock in the passages between the Skerryvore lighthouse and Tiree, and sprang a leak. The shore was made for at once, but when within 150 yards of it the ship sank. The crew betook themselves to the rigging, and were ultimately rescued; but the skipper, in trying to swim ashore, was caught by the current that sweeps round Kennavara Hill, and drowned. The crying heard in Kennavara Hill four years previous was deemed to have portended this event.
Crying was heard several times on the reefs to the east end of Coll, and to the best of the hearer’s belief, it was in English. In the same year (1870), a boat or skiff with two East Coast fishermen, following their calling in that neighbourhood, went amissing, and was never heard of. Many were of opinion it must have been lost on the reefs, where the cries had long previously been heard.