RETURN OF THE DEAD.
A former minister of East-side, Skye, was in his lifetime addicted to visiting his cattle fold. His whole heart was given to his herds, and after his death his ghost was to be seen revisiting his former haunts. An old man undertook to meet and lay the ghost. The two met and saluted each other in the usual manner. When shaking hands, however, the man, instead of his hand, offered the ploughshare. After that the ghost never came back.
In the same neighbourhood, about thirty years ago, a man died suddenly. His wife watched the cows in harvest soon after this, lest they should leave the fank or enclosure, in which they were put at nights to keep them from wandering into the crops. She had occasion one night to leave her charge and go to a shop two miles away. On her return she went to close a gap (beàrn) in the fold (buaile). She found there her late husband, who told her not to be anxious, as he was watching in her stead. Every night after this he was visible to anyone who chose to go and look for him. He even came to the house to ceilidh, i.e. to while away the time, a favourite recreation in the Highlands (λέσχη of the ancient Greeks) of spending the evening, by gathering in a neighbour’s house to listen to gossip and tales and idle talk. The dead man’s attentions at last made the wife resolve to sell all she had and go to America. On the day of the sale the cattle could not be gathered; they seemed to be taken possession of by an undefinable terror, and the sale and projected emigration had to be abandoned. A little bird hovering about was evidently the cause of the wildness of the cattle. After this day the visits of the dead man ceased.