In some districts horses meant the Macgnanean, and a white horse, a letter.
Prophecies (Fàisneachd).—In Argyllshire and Perthshire, the celebrated Thomas the Rhymer (Tòmas Reuvair, T. Réim) is as well known as in the Lowlands of Scotland. He is commonly called “the son of the dead woman” (mac na mna mairbh), but the accounts vary as to the cause of this name. One account says, he was, like Julius Caesar, taken out through his mother’s side, immediately after her death; another, that the cry of the child was heard in the mother’s tomb after her burial, and on the grave being opened Thomas was found in the coffin. A third account says, that a woman, whose husband had been cut in four pieces, engaged a tailor, at the price of the surrender of her person, to sew the pieces together again. He did so in two hours time. Some time after the woman died and was buried. Subsequently, she met the tailor at night, and leading him to her tomb, the child was found there. Both the Highland and Lowland accounts agree that Thomas’s gift of prophecy was given him by a Fairy sweetheart, that he is at present among the Fairies, and will yet come back.
The Highland tradition is, that Thomas is in Dunbuck hill (Dùn buic) near Dunbarton. The last person that entered that hill found him resting on his elbow, with his hand below his head. He asked, “Is it time?” and the man fled. In the outer Hebrides he is said to be in Tom-na-heurich hill,[73] near Inverness. Hence MacCodrum, the Uist bard, says:
“When the hosts of Tomnaheurich come,
Who should rise first but Thomas?”[74]
He attends every market on the look-out for suitable horses, as the Fairies in the north of Ireland attend to steal linen and other goods, exposed for sale. It is only horses with certain characteristics that he will take. At present he wants but two, some say only one, a yellow foal with a white forehead (searrach blàr buidhe). The other is to be a white horse that has got “three March, three May, and three August months of its mother’s milk” (trì Màirt, trì Màigh, agus trì Iuchara ’bhainne mhàthar); and in Mull they say, one of the horses is to be from the meadow of Kengharair in that island. When his complement is made up he will become visible, and a great battle will be fought on the Clyde.
“When Thomas comes with his horses,
The day of spoils will be on the Clyde.
Nine thousand good men will be slain,
And a new king will be set on the throne.”[75]