You may walk across the Clyde, the prophecy goes on to relate, on men’s bodies, and the miller of Partick Mill (Muilionn Phearaig), who is to be a man with seven fingers, will grind for two hours with blood instead of water. After that, sixteen ladies will follow after one lame tailor,[76] a prophecy copied from Isaiah iv. 1. A stone in the Clyde was pointed out as one, on which a bird (bigein) would perch and drink its full of blood, without bending its head, but the River Trustees have blasted it out of the way that the prophecy may not come true. The same prophecy, with slight variation, has been transferred to Blair Athole in Perthshire. “When the white cows come to Blair, the wheel of Blair Mill will turn round seven times with people’s blood.”[77] The writer was told that the Duke of Athole brought white cattle to Blair more than fifteen years ago, but nothing extraordinary happened.
Other prophecies, ascribed to the Rhymer, are, “the sheep’s skull will make the plough useless,” “the south sea will come upon the north sea,” and “Scotland will be in white bands, and a lump of gold will be at the bottom of every glen.”[78] The former has received its fulfilment in the desolation caused by the extension of sheep farms, the second in the making of the Caledonian canal, and the last in the increase of highroads and houses.
In the North Highlands, prophecies of this kind are ascribed to Coineach Odhar (i.e. Dun Kenneth), a native of Ross-shire, whose name is hardly known in Argyllshire. He acquired his prophetic gift from the possession of a stone, which he found in a raven’s nest. He first found a raven’s nest with eggs in it. These he took home and boiled. He then took them back to the nest, with a view to finding out how long the bird would sit before it despaired of hatching them. He found a stone in the nest before him, and its possession was the secret of his oracular gifts. When this became known an attempt was made to take the stone from him, but he threw it out in a loch, where it still lies.
He prophesied that “the raven will drink its fill of men’s blood from off the ground, on the top of the High Stone in Uig,”[79] a place in Skye. The High Stone is on a mountain’s brow, and it is ominous of the fulfilment of the prophecy, that it has fallen on its side. Of the Well of Ta, at Cill-a-chrò in Strath, in the same island, he said:
“Thou well of Ta, and well of Ta,
Well where battle shall be fought,
And the bones of growing men,
Will strew the white beach of Laoras;
And Lachlan of the three Lachlans be slain
Early, early,