[29] Several striking examples of wraith appearance may be found in Wilson’s Folk-lore of Uppermost Nithsdale (1904).
[30] A wonderfully graphic account of a manifestation of “deid lichts” to a Dumfries lady occurs in the Dumfries and Galloway Monthly Magazine, 1822, p. 169.
[31] The dog.
“Open lock, end strife,
Come death and pass life.”
—“Meg Merrilees” in Guy Mannering.
[33] There seems to have been some variation in this usage. On the Borders, for example, the door was usually left wide open. (See Preparatory Note to “Young Bengie,” Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border.)
[34] Bearing upon this last statement of Mr Dudgeon’s, the writer has been told of a comparatively recent instance in the parish of Anwoth.
[35] “In the second session of the first Parliament of James VII., held at Edinburgh, 1686, an Act was passed called the ‘Act for Burying in Scots Linen,’ in which it was ordained, for the encouragement of the linen manufactures within the kingdom, that no person whatsoever, of high or low degree, should be buried in any shirt, sheet, or anything else, except in plain linen or cloth, of Hards made and spun within the kingdom, and without lace or point. There was specially prohibited the use of Holland, or other linen cloth made in other kingdoms: and of silk, woollen, gold, or silver, or any other stuff than what was made of Hards spun and wrought within the kingdom, under the penalty of 300 pounds Scots for a nobleman, and 200 pounds for every other person for each offence. One-half of this penalty was to go to the informer, and the other half to the poor of the parish of where the body should be interred. And, for the better discovery of contraveners, it was ordained that every minister within the kingdom should keep an account and register of all persons buried in his parish. A certificate upon oath, in writing, duly attested by two “famous” persons, was to be delivered by one of the relatives to the minister within eight days, declaring that the deceased person had been shrouded in the manner prescribed; which certificate was to be recorded without charge. The penalty was to be sued for by the minister before any judge competent; and if he should prove negligent in pursuing the contraveners within six months after the interment, he himself was liable for the said fine.”—Life and Times of Rev. John Wightman, D.D., of Kirkmahoe.
[36] Scots money, equal to one-twelfth value of our present currency, abandoned after 1760.
[37] Cere-cloth—a cloth smeared with wax, put upon the body after a modified embalming, only used, on account of its expense, by the rich.