In the North Highlands he is also known as Bidein, Dithean, Bradaidh. It is said that Connan was a name given to him, and that aisling connain, a libidinous dream, means literally ‘a devil’s dream.’ The name must have been very local. There is a fable about Connan and his twelve sons pulling a plant in the peat moss, in which the name denoted the wren, and there was a St. Connan, whose memory is preserved in Cill-Chonnain, a burying-ground in Rannoch, and Feill-Connain, the autumn market at Dalmally in Glenorchy.
The occasions on which the devil has appeared in a bodily shape, have been at meetings of witches; at card-playing, which is the reading of his books; when he comes to claim his prey; and when summoned by masons or magicians. He is apt to appear to persons ready to abandon their integrity, and to haunt premises which are soon to be the scene of signal calamities. He sometimes comes in unaccountable shapes and in lonely places for no conceivable purpose but to frighten people.
The following tales will illustrate the character of his appearances and the notions popularly entertained regarding him.
CARD-PLAYING.
A party of young people were playing cards; a stranger joined them and took a hand. A card fell below the table, and the youth, who stooped to lift it, observed the stranger to have a horse’s hoof. The devil, on being thus detected, went up the chimney in smoke.
This story is universal over the Highlands. Cards are notoriously known as the devil’s books. When boys play them, the fiend has been known to come down the chimney feet foremost, the horse’s or pig’s foot appearing first. When going away, he disappears in smoke, and neighs horribly in the chimney.
RED BOOK OF APPIN.
This celebrated book contained charms for the cure of cattle, and was so powerful that its owner had to place an iron hoop about his head every time he opened it. All accounts agree that it was got from the devil, but they differ as to how this was done. Very likely the book was a treatise on the treatment and diseases of cattle, and the origin of the stories of its magic virtue lay in the fact that the Stewarts, who owned it, had a magnificent fold of Highland cattle.
The first, who got the book, rode an entire horse (an animal that no evil power can touch) to a meeting of witches. The devil wrote in a red book the names of the assembled company. The man, instead of letting the devil write his name, asked to be allowed to do so himself. On getting the book for that purpose he made off with it.