A shoulder-blade sage in Tiree sat dawn to a substantial feast, to which he had been specially invited, that he might divine whether a certain friend was on his way home or not. He examined the shoulder-bone of the wedder killed on the occasion critically, unable to make up his mind. “Perhaps,” he said, “he will come, perhaps he will not.” A boy, who had hid himself on the top of a bed in the room, that he might see the fun, could not help exclaiming, “They cannot find you untrue.” The bed broke, and the diviner and his companions, thinking the voice came from the skies, fled. When the boy recovered he got the dinner all to himself.
Palmistry (Dearnadaireachd).—Of this mode of divination, as practised in the Highlands, nothing seems now to be known beyond the name. Probably from the first the knowledge of it was confined to gipsies and such like stray characters.
Divination by Tea, or Cup-reading (Leughadh chu-paichean).—When tea was a luxury, dear and difficult to get, the ‘spaeing’ of fortunes from tea-cups was in great repute. Even yet young women resort in numbers to fortune-tellers of the class, who for the reward of the tea spell out to them most excellent matches.
After drinking the tea, the person for whom the cup is to be read, turning the cup deiseal, or with the right-hand turn, is to make a small drop, left in it, wash its sides all round, and then pour it out. The fortune is then read from the arrangement of the sediments or tea-leaves left in the cup. A large quantity of black tea grounds (smùrach du) denotes substance and worldly gear. The person consulting the oracle is a stray leaf standing to the one side of it. If the face of the leaf is towards the grounds, that person is to come to a great fortune; if very positively its back, then farewell even to the hope “that keeps alive despair.” A small speck by itself is a letter, and other specks are envious people struggling to get to the top, followers, etc. Good diviners can even tell to their youthful and confiding friends when the letter is likely to arrive, what trade their admirer follows, the colour of his hair, etc.
CHAPTER X.
DREAMS AND PROPHECIES.
Dreams (Bruadar) have everywhere been laid hold of by superstition as indications of what is passing at a distance or of what is to occur, and, considering the vast numbers of dreams there are, it would be matter of surprise, if a sufficient number did not prove so like some remote or subsequent event, interesting to the dreamer, as to keep the belief alive. On a low calculation, a fourth of the population dream every night, and in the course of a year, the number of dreams in a district must be incredible. They are generally about things that have been, or are, causes of anxiety, or otherwise occupied men’s waking thoughts. “A dream cometh through the multitude of business,” Solomon says, and a Gaelic proverb says with equal truth “An old wife’s dream is according to her inclination” (Aisling caillich mas a dùrachd). Its character can sometimes be traced directly to the health or position of the body, but in other cases, it seems to depend on the uncontrolled association of ideas. Out of the numberless phantasies that arise there must surely be many that the imagination can without violence convert into forebodings and premonitions.
To dream of raw meat indicates impending trouble; eggs mean gossip and scandal; herring, snow; meal, earth; a grey horse, the sea. To dream of women is unlucky; and of the dead, that they are not at rest. In the Hebrides, a horse is supposed to have reference to the Clan Mac Leod. The surname of horses is Mac Leod, as the Coll bard said to the Skye bard:
“Often rode I with my bridle,
The race you and your wife belong to.”[72]