Those who have seen old women, of the Madge Wildfire school, cursing and banning, say their manner is well calculated to inspire terror. Some fifteen or twenty years ago, a party of tinkers quarrelled and fought, first among themselves, and then with some Tiree villagers. In the excitement a tinker wife threw off her cap and allowed her hair to fall over her shoulders in wild disorder. She then bared her knees, and falling on them to the ground, in a praying attitude, poured forth a torrent of wishes that struck awe into all who heard her. She imprecated “Drowning by sea and conflagration by land; may you never see a son to follow your body to the graveyard, or a daughter to mourn your death. I have made my wish before this, and I will make it now, and there was not yet a day I did not see my wish fulfilled,” etc., etc. “Once,” says one who is now an old man, “when a boy I roused the anger of an old woman by calling her names. She went on her knees and cursed me, and I thought I was going to die suddenly every day for a week after.”
The curse causeless will not come, but a curse deserved is the foreshadowing of the ultimate issue of events. The curse of the oppressed, who have no man to deliver them, is at times but the presage of the retribution which the operation of the laws of the moral world will some day bring about. Hence we find such expressions as, “She cursed him and obtained her wish.” The curse came upon the oppressor, not because of the malediction, but because what was asked for was part of the natural sequence of events in the moral government of the world. For this reason, the curse of the poor is undesirable. There is something wrong in the relation between superior and inferior when it is uttered; authority has been misused, and wisdom and patience have been awanting, selfishness has overstepped its due limit, and the just influence of the superior has degenerated into wantonness of power. In the expatriations from the Highlands, there was much in this respect to be reprobated, and it is most creditable to Highlanders, and is greatly to be ascribed to the influence of religion over them, that in the songs made at the time of the Clearances, there are no curses against the oppressor.
A common expression in the imprecations used by old women was, “May no benefit be in your cheese, and no cheese in your milk.”[86]
There is said to be a curse on an estate in Argyllshire, that a lineal descendant will never succeed to it, and on one of the principal castles in Perthshire, that no legitimate heir (oighre dligheach) will own it till the third generation (gus an treasa linn). This latter curse was paused by the haughtiness of an old woman, a former mistress of the castle, who lived entirely on marrow.
All evil wishes can be counteracted by the bystander saying, after each curse, “The fruit of your wish be on your own body” (Toradh do ghuidhe far, etc.). On the occasion above referred to, of the banning by the tinker wife, her frightful tirade became ludicrous from the earnestness with which this was done by one of the native women who was listening.
SPELLS (Geasan no Geasaibh).
A person under spells is believed to become powerless over his own volition, is alive and awake, but moves and acts as if asleep. He is like St. John’s father, not able or not allowed to speak. He is compelled to go to certain places at certain hours or seasons, is sent wandering or is driven from his kindred and changed to other shapes.
In nursery and winter evening tales (sgialachdun ’us ur-sgeulun) the machinery of spells is largely made use of. In the former class of tales they are usually imposed on king’s children by an old woman dwelling near the palace, called “Trouble-the-house” (Eachrais ùrlair, lit. confusion of the floor). Her house is the favourite place for the king’s children to meet their lovers. She has a divining rod (slacan druidheachd), by a blow from which she can convert people into rocks, seals, swans, wolves, etc., and this shape they must keep till they are freed by the same rod. Nothing else can deliver them from the spell.
The story usually runs that the king is married a second time. His daughter by the first marriage is very handsome, and has a smooth comb (cìr mhìn) which makes her hair, when combed by it, shed gold and precious gems. The daughters by the second marriage are ugly and ill-natured. When they comb their hair there is a shower of fleas and frogs. Their mother bribes Trouble-the-house to lay spells on the daughter of the first marriage. Unless the princess enters the house the old woman is powerless to do this. One day the beautiful princess passes near the house, and is kindly and civilly asked to enter. “Come you in,” says the designing hag, “often did I lick the platters and pick the bones in your father’s house.”[87] Misled by this artful talk, the princess enters, is struck with the magic rod, and converted into a swan.
It is a popular saying that seals and swans are “king’s children under enchantments” (clann sigh fo gheasaibh). On lonely mountain meres, where the presence of man is seldom seen, swans have been observed putting off their coverings (cochull) and assuming their proper shape of beautiful princesses in their endeavours to free themselves from the spells. This, however, is impossible till the magician, who imposed them, takes them away, and the princesses are obliged to resume their coverings again.