DROWNING.
It is a common story that a taïsher saw the figure of an acquaintance passing with dripping clothes and water in its shoes (aodach fliuch agus bogan na bhròig). Soon after word was received of the drowning of the person, whose resemblance it was, at the time the figure was seen.
The seeing of spectres about boats in which people are to be drowned, is also common. When the superstition was in full force, a sure way of making a boat useless was to say that voices had been heard about it when it was drawn upon the beach, or that figures had been seen, which disappeared mysteriously, “whether the earth swallowed them, or the sky lifted them.” After that no one having a regard for his own life would put his foot in that boat.
A person from Tiree went for wood to Loch Creran, and at Tobermory forgot the parcel in which he had a change of clothes. One day he got wet, soaked through to the skin, and had to sit all evening in his wet clothes. On his return home to Tiree a woman, who was reputed to have the gift of second sight, asked him if, on a certain day of the week (mentioning the one on which this accident occurred), he had got himself wetted, that she had seen him, and thought he had been drowned. The man himself tells the story, and says he cannot conceive of any ordinary channel of information by which the woman could have become aware of his condition.
A man named Conn was drowned at Sorisdal, in Coll. A seer, who had been at daily work with him, had long seen his boots full of water (bogan uisge), when there was no water in them in reality; and for twelve months after the event, was haunted wherever he went by the vision of Conn’s drowning.
A seer in Skye saw, when in reality there was no such object, a woman sitting in the stern of a boat, which afterwards drowned people in Portree Bay.
A fishing boat or skiff belonging to the people of Gortendonald, in the west end of Tiree, was sold, because “things” were said to have been seen about it, till no one belonging to the village would venture to sea in it. It was bought by some persons in Scarinish, in the east end of the island, who professed not to believe in taibhsearachd, or second sight. They gave the loan of it to people in Vaul, on the north side of the island. Here sights began again to be seen about it, and it was even said that at a time when it was hauled up on dry land, six men were seen rowing in it and one steering. At last no one at all would venture to sea in the boat, and it was sent back to Scarinish. So strong was the feeling that the Vaul men would not venture with it through the Black Water (am Bun dubh), as the sound between Coll and Tiree is called, but drew it across the land to Gott Loch, whence the Scarinish people took it home. After this, its odour in the east end of Tiree became so bad that it was sold again to villagers in the west end, at some distance from the place it originally came from. Here it terminated its career in Tiree by drowning six men.
Sights were similarly seen about a boat in Iona, and it had to be sold. It went to Islay, and the visions were believed to have received their fulfilment from the boat being employed to convey dead bodies from a ship wrecked on the Rhinns of Islay (an Roinn Ileach, lit. the sharp edge of Islay).
Not many years ago, a man told about a boat on the south side of Tiree, that he had heard voices about it, like those of people talking, but on going near found no person there. He did not know, he said, whether the air had lifted the people whom he thought were there, or the earth had swallowed them, but he had heard voices, and no person was there. The boat became worthless, it would drown some one some day, and no one would go out to fish in it. The owner, therefore, summoned the seer before the Sheriff and got him fined.