At the well of Ta.”[80]
In Harris a cock will crow on the very day on which it is hatched, and a white calf, without a single black hair, will be born, both which remarkable events have, it is said, occurred. A certain large stone will roll up the hill, turning over three times, and the marks of it having done so, and the proof of the prophecy, are still to be seen. On the top of a high stone in Scaristavor parks,[81] the raven will drink its fill of men’s blood, and the tide of battle will be turned back by Norman of the three Normans (Tormod nan trì Tormoidean) at the Steps of Tarbert (Càthaichean an Tairbeart).[82]
The Lady of Lawers.—Of similar fame for her prophetic gifts was the Lady of Lawers (Bantighearna Lathuir), one of the Breadalbane family, married to Campbell of Lawers. Her prophecies relate to the house and lands of Breadalbane, and are written, it is believed, in a book shaped like a barrel, and secured with twelve iron hoops or clasps in the charter room of Taymouth Castle. This book is called ‘The Red Book of Balloch.’
An old white horse will yet take the lineal heirs of Taymouth (or, according to another version, the last Breadalbane Campbells) across Tyndrum Cairn. When she said this there were thirty sons in the family, but soon after twenty-five of them were slain in the battle at Sron-a-chlachair near Killin (Cill-Fhinn).
If the top stone were ever put on Lawers Church no word uttered by her would ever come true, and when the red cairn on Ben Lawers fell the church would split. In the same year that the cairn, built by the sappers and miners on Ben Lawers, fell, the Disruption in the Church of Scotland took place.
“A mill will be on every streamlet,
A plough in every boy’s hand,
The two sides of Loch Tay in kail gardens;
The sheep’s skull will make the plough useless,