RAISING STORMS AND DROWNING PEOPLE.
The belief that witches can trouble the sea and raise the wind is widespread, reaching even to the native Africans. It is part of the regular traffic of Finland witches to sell wind to mariners,—as in the case of their Celtic sisters, tied in knots upon a thread. The following story is common to many places.
A boatman from one of the southern islands was long detained in Lewis by adverse winds. He was courting a witch’s daughter, and applied to her mother for a favourable wind. He gave her a pound of tobacco, and, assisted by neighbouring witches, after three days’ exertion, she produced a string with three knots upon it. The first knot was called ‘Come gently’ (Thig gu fòill), and when he loosened it, as he left the shore, a gentle breeze sprang up. The second knot was called ‘Come better’ (Teann na’ s fhèarr), and on its being untied the breeze came stiffer. As he neared the harbour, he out of curiosity loosened the last knot, the name of which was ‘Hardship’ (Cruaidh-chàs). A wind came “to blow the hillocks out of their places” (séideadh nan cnoc), and sent the thatch of the houses into the furrows of the plough-land, and the boatman was drowned. In Harris, they say the boat was drawn up on land and secured before the last knot was untied. She was capsized and smashed to pieces.
The following, known as “Big Macmhuirich’s Supplication” (Achanaich Mhic Mhuirich Mhòir), is another form of the Celtic belief.
‘Macpherson of power’ (Mac-Mhuirich nam buadh), a noted wizard in South Uist, was on a passage by sea on a calm day. The skipper said to him, “Ask for a wind, Mac-Vuirich.” He did so, saying:
“An east wind from the calm aether,
As the Lord of the elements has ordained,
A wind that needs not rowing nor reefing,
That will do nought deceitful to us.”
“Weak and trifling you have asked it,” said the skipper, “when I myself am at the helm.” Mac-Vuirich answered:
“A north wind hard as a rod,
Struggling above our gunwale,
Like a red roe sore pressed,
Descending a hillock’s narrow hard head.”
“It does not attain to praise yet,” said the skipper, and Mac-Vuirich went on:
“If there be a wind in cold hell,
Devil; send it after us,
In waves and surges;
And if one go ashore, let it be I,
And if two, I and my dog.”
A sea came, that rolled the boat’s stern over her bows, and all were drowned but Mac-Vuirich and his dog.
The power of this wizard over the elements was also shown on another occasion. The MacRanalds were coming to attack the MacNeills of Barra, to whom Mac-Vuirich was favourable. Their boat was seen coming along the wild and rocky coast on the west of Skye, and was sunk by the mighty wizard uttering the following words:
“A south-west wind toward Eiste point,
Mist and rain,
Clan Ranald on a breaking board,
I reck it not;
A narrow unsteady vessel,
A lofty pointed sail,
A lading of empty barrels,
And bilge-water to the thwarts,
A weak irascible crew
Having no respect one for another.”
As might be expected, such a boat did not go far before sinking.
The usual way witches took to shipwreck a vessel was to put a small round dish (cuach) floating in a milk-pan (measair) placed on the floor full of water. They then began their incantations, and when the dish upset, the ship sank.
On one occasion three witches from Harris left home at night after placing the milk-pan thus on the floor, in charge of a servant-maid, who was straitly enjoined not to let anything come near it. The girl’s attention was, however, called away for a short time, and a duck came in and took to squattering about in the water on the floor. The witches on their return in the morning, asked if anything had come near the milk-pan. The girl said no, and one of them said, “What a heavy sea we had last night coming round Càbag head!”
A few years ago a boat was lost coming from Raasa to Skye. The witches, who caused the calamity, were seen at work in the Braes of Portree, beside a stream. Three of them were engaged in the evil task, and a man was present along with them. Jobs of the kind require the presence of a man. A cockle-shell (slige coilleig) was placed floating in a pool, and a number of black stones were ranged round the edge of the pool. When the incantation was at its height, the black stones barked like dogs, and the cockle-shell disappeared.
A farmer in Mull and his little daughter were walking along an eminence that overlooked the Sound, through which a number of ships were passing at the time. The little girl asked, “What will you give me, father, if I sink all these ships?” Thinking she was in fun, he asked her how she would do it. She stooped down, and looked backwards between her legs at one of the vessels. The ship whirled round and sank. In this expeditious manner all the ships in sight were sunk, but one. The man asked why this one did not sink. The girl said it was because there was rowan-tree wood on board, and she could not touch it. He then asked who had taught her all this? She said it was her mother. The man, who was a good man, and before ignorant of his wife’s dabbling in witchcraft, gathered his neighbours and burned herself and daughter.
A witch was engaged to destroy a boat coming to Tiree. Another witch, however, wished its safety. The former came in shape of a gull, that hovered about the boat, and kept it back (a head wind?). The other came as a cormorant (sgarbh), followed in the wake of the boat (an uisge na stiùirceach, lit. the waters of the rudder), and saved it. (Favourable tide?)
A former Lord Macdonald (Mà-Cònuill) was on his way by boat to Uist, and experienced very unfavourable weather. When near his destination, a towering wave, or, as it is called in Gaelic, ‘a drowning sea’ (muir bhàite), nearly overwhelmed the boat, and two birds, a skua (croma-ritheachar) and an ordinary gull, were observed fighting in the air. The one was Yellow Claws, daughter of Donald, son of Cormac (spòga Buidhe ni’ a Dò’uill ’ic Cormaig), the other Hump-backed Blue-eye from Cràcaig (Gorm-shùil chrotach a Cràcaig), both celebrated witches. The former was for sinking the boat, the latter for saving it. Sometime after Blue-eye met Lord Macdonald in Edinburgh, and reminded him of the incident, and her own services on the occasion. He just remarked, “There was indeed such a circumstance.”
A ship, sailing from Greenock, was to be destroyed by the Captain’s wife and two other witches. An apprentice overheard them planning this, and saying that they would come upon the ship on a certain day as three rolling waves, and the ship would be sunk, unless the waves were cut with a sword. At the time said the apprentice was allowed the command of the vessel, and standing in the bow with a drawn sword, cleft the waves, and defeated the witches.
A boat from Hianish, Tiree, went out fishing on the day before the New Year. The morning was calm, but when the boat was returning the wind rose and the sea became very heavy. The best steersman in the boat took the helm. Another, sitting on the hindmost thwart (tota shílidh), after looking for a while towards the stern, asked the helm from him, and being again and again refused, at last took it by force. When he got the rudder below his arm, he said, “Now, come on!” and the boat reached shore in safety. He then explained that he had been seeing a gull, unseen by the first steersman, following the boat, and had recognised her as a woman of the neighbourhood. This woman had an illegitimate child by the first steersman, and it was thought her object in raising the storm and following so close in the wake of the boat, was to snatch her seducer with her and drown him.
Ian Garve (stout John), laird of Raasa (Iain Garbh Mac-ille-Challum Ratharsa), a man celebrated in Highland song and legend for his great personal strength, was drowned by a witch who had this mysterious power of raising storms. The event occurred on Easter Monday (Di-luain Càisge), in the great ‘storm of the Borrowing Days,’ of which a contemporary historian says “the like of this tempest was not seen in our time, nor the like of it heard in this country in any age preceding,” A.D. 1625; yet the traditions of the event are still fresh in popular memory. The witch was Ian Garve’s own foster-mother (muime), and resided on the islet of Trodda (Trodaidh), on the east of Skye. She overheard a friend of hers say he wished Ian Garve, who was known to have gone to the Lewis, was drowned, and took up seriously words spoken only in jest. Others say she was bribed by an enemy to effect the hero’s destruction. He left Loch Sealg in Lewis to proceed home on a calm day. The witch was dairymaid (banachag) in Trodda, and, seeing the boat coming, put milk in a large dish, and a small empty dish floating in it. A boy was placed standing in the doorway, where he could see both the milk-pan and Ian Garve’s boat. She herself stood with her foot in the ‘swey’ or chimney crook, and began her unholy incantations. Soon the dish in the milk-pail began to be violently agitated. The boy reported it first as going round sunwise (deiseal), then as going round against the sun and striking the sides of the basin, and finally as being capsized and floating bottom upwards (air a bial foidhpe). The storm had been all this time increasing, till at last it blew a perfect hurricane. That night the heap of shingle on East-side (Du-sear), called Moll-stabhan, was washed ashore. Ian Garve’s boat disappeared simultaneously with the capsizing of the bowl, and all on board perished. Three ravens hovered about the boat as the storm was rising, and it became afterwards known that these three were Yellow Claws (Spòga Buidhe) from Màiligeir on East-side, Hump-backed Blue-eye (Gorm-shùil chrotach) from Cràcaig near Portree, and Doideag from Mull. When the boat was between Bare Skerries (Sgeire maola) and Trodda twenty birds flew about, and some of them assumed the shape of frogs (muileacha màg) on the deck. All the witches in Scotland were there, but were unable to sink the boat till Ian Garve said to the frogs, “What the brindled one has brought you here?”[8] After that he became distracted from the number of birds and frogs coming upon him. A raven lighted on the gunwale of the boat, and Ian Garve, striking at it with his sword, cleft the boat to the water’s edge. The first news of the drowning was heard on Minigeig Hill (Monadh mhinigeig) in Badenoch, and the particulars became known by the telling of other witches. Another account says the hero appeared that night to his wife in her dreams, and said:
“On Monday the wind arose,
And gathered its fury and rage;
Tell the mother of my body
’Twas the evils made the hunt.”[9]
The shade came thrice and repeated this. Next day the wife told the dream to her mother-in-law, who exclaimed, “Then my beloved is lost” (tha mo laogh-sa caillte).
By far the most celebrated tale of this class is that of the destruction of Captain Forrest’s ship by witches in the Sound of Mull.
Viola (Bheòla), daughter of the King of Spain, dreamt of a remarkably handsome man, and made a vow not to rest till she found him. She fitted out a boat, and in the course of her wanderings came to Tobermory Bay. Here she saw MacLean of Dowart, who proved to be the man she was in search of, and, though he was a married man, became too intimate with him. MacLean’s wife in her jealousy caused her servant Smollett, a south countryman, to blow up the ship with all on board. After setting fire to a fuse leading to the magazine, Smollett made his escape, and by the time the explosion took place reached Pennygown, a distance of ten or twelve miles. The cook was blown to Srongarve (sròn-garbh, rough nose), near Tobermory, where there is a cleft still bearing the name of the Cook’s Cave (Uamh Chòcaire). The Princess herself fell somewhere in the sound, and was buried at Cill, the Loch Aline burying-ground in Morven.[10] Upon the news of the dreadful event reaching Spain, Captain Forrest (whose name is not very Spanish) was sent with a ship to take vengeance upon the Mull people by taking off the right breast of every Mull woman. When the ship came the Lady of Dowart sent for Doideag, the Mull witch, and by her means, with assistance procured from neighbouring witches, Captain Forrest’s ship was sunk before next morning. Doideag shut herself up in a house alone at Guirman Point (Rutha Ghuirmein), near Dowart, and there made her incantations. A rope was put through a hole in a rafter, and all night long the handmill (brà) was hoisted up to the beam, lowered, and hoisted again. A native of Tiree reported that, having come that evening to Doideag’s house, he was compelled by her to hoist and lower and hoist the mill-stone all night without rest or refreshment, while the witch herself went away to Tiree and elsewhere for help. On her return she said that when in Tiree she had been detained a little in extinguishing a fire, which had been caused by a spark falling among the fodder in the stirk-house belonging to the man who was her unwilling assistant. As the quern was raised a gale sprang up, and increased in fury as the operation went on. At the same time gulls (others say hooded-crows, others black cats) appeared on the yard-arms of the devoted ship. Captain Forrest knew the Black Art himself, and went below. As word was brought him that another gull had appeared in the rigging, he said, “I will suffice for this one yet” (Fòghnaidh mi fhìn dhi so fhathast). He could keep the ship against some say eight, others nine, witches, but “ere a’ the play was play’d” there were sixteen, some say eighteen, on the yards. Their names depend on the fancy of the narrator. All the Mull witches (na doideagun Muileach) were there, and the most powerful of the sisterhood from the surrounding districts. Nic-ill’-Domhnuich from Tiree is commonly mentioned.[11] All accounts agree that when Big Blue-eye from Mey (Gorm-shùil Mhòr bha sa Mheigh), the powerful Lochaber witch, came, the ship sank. Shortly before this Captain Forrest told a sailor to look up and see how many gulls were on the yards (seall suas co miad faoileann air an t-shlait). On being told eighteen, he said, “We are lost.” In the morning Doideag was told her house had been unroofed in the gale, but she was comforted by being told the dreaded ship had gone down opposite Coire-na-theanchoir Bay. “If you are without a house, Captain Forrest is without a ship” (ma tha thusa gun tigh, tha Captain Forrest gun long).