LIGHTS.
It was deemed a good sign when lights were seen previous to a person’s death. The dreag was a light seen in the sky, leaving a tail (dreallsach) behind it, and, according to some, stopping above the house where the death was to occur; according to others, proceeding from above the house to the churchyard, along the line the funeral was to take. The dreag was seen only when a person of consequence was near his dissolution. Hence an irreverent tailor in East-side, Skye, said he wished the sky was full of dreags.
It was also a belief that the death-light went along the road a funeral was to take.
An old man in Druim-a-chaoin, in Lower Rannoch, being sceptical on this point, was one night called to the door to believe his own eyes. His house overlooked the public road, and stepping boldly down he stood in the middle of the road awaiting the approach of the death-light. When it reached him, it also stood, right before him. The old man gazed fixedly at the unearthly light, and at last an indistinct and shadowy form became visible in the middle of it. The form slowly placed the palms of its two hands together, and extended them towards him. With a startling suddenness it said “Whish!” and passed over his head. That old man never afterwards said a word against death-lights.
In another instance of the death-light proceeding along the highway in the same district, a hare-brained young man went to meet it, and stood waiting it behind his dirk, which he stuck in the middle of the road. When the light came to the dirk it stopped, and the young man gazing at it, at last saw a child’s face in its feeble glare. He then stooped down and drew his dirk from the ground. As he did so the light passed over his head.
Lights were also seen where a violent or accidental death was to occur, and might be seen by the person whose death they fore-tokened. Thus, at Brae-Glen (Bràighe Ghlinne) in Glen-Iuchar, where a river falls into Loch Sgamadail, in Lorn, lights were seen two years previous to the drowning of a man of the name of Maclachlan, in the stream when drunk. Maclachlan had seen these lights himself.
Lights, to which these mysterious meanings are attached, are generally mere ignes fatui. They have of late years become prevalent in the Hebrides, and various explanations are given of them. In Tiree they are called “Fairy light” (Teine sìth), and are said to be produced by a bird. In Skye and the northern islands they are called the “Uist light” (Solus Uithist), and the following extraordinary account is given of their origin:
A young girl one Sunday night insisted, in spite of her mother’s remonstrances, on starting with a hook and creel to gather plants in the field for some species of dye before the Sabbath was expired. Finding her counsels of no avail, the mother in a rage told her to go then and never return: the young girl never returned, but her hook and creel were found in the fields, and marks of fighting at the spot. When encountered, the light jumps three times, and its appearance is that of human ribs with a light inside of them. It is only an odd number that can see this light. Two will not see it, but three can. Like other supernatural appearances it could only speak when spoken to. A young lad once had the courage to speak to it. The light answered that it was the young girl whom the above fate befell: that she had done wrong in disobeying her mother, and breaking the Sabbath day; that it was her mother’s prayer that was the cause of her unrest; and that she was now doomed to wander about in the shape of this light till the end of the world.