And the goose’s feathers drive their memories from men.”[83]
This was to happen in the time of “John of the three Johns, the worst John that ever was, and there will be no good till Duncan comes.”
A stone called the ‘Boar Stone’ (Clach an Tuirc), a boulder of some two or three hundred tons in a meadow near Loch Tay, will topple over when a strange heir comes to Taymouth, and the house will be at its height of honour when the face of a certain rock is concealed by wood.
CHAPTER XI.
IMPRECATIONS, SPELLS, AND THE BLACK ART.
IMPRECATION (Guidhe).
The imprecations, which form so important a part of the vocabulary of thoughtless and profane swearing, are in Gaelic corruptions of English expressions. Thus, one of the commonest—diabhul Mac-eadhar is a corruption of ‘devil may care,’ and though no language has a monopoly of oaths and curses, and English is not always to blame, it is some satisfaction that needless profanity is not entirely of native growth.
Most Gaelic imprecations are mere exclamations, condemnatory not so much of the person himself as of what he is saying or doing. Of these the following are of common use:
A bad meeting to you! (Droch còmh ’l ort!).
A bad growth to you! (Droch fàs ort!).