“I have heard,” said a Skyeman, “scores of times the dogs howling before a funeral was to take place in Kilmuir churchyard. It was because they saw the wraiths of the living” (tàslaich nan daoine beò). It is a universal Highland belief that certain dogs cry at night when any one in the house is to die.
In Lorn, a woman, going with leather to a neighbouring shoemaker, had on her way to cross a wooden bridge thrown over a mountain stream. She was accompanied by a young child, whom she left, while she herself crossed the bridge to leave the parcel of leather on the other side. As she was crossing a second time, leading the child, the stream came down in flood, as mountain streams do, and carried away the bridge. The woman and child were drowned, and their bodies were found further down the stream, at a place where, for fourteen days previously, a grey tailless bitch (galla chutach ghlas), belonging to a neighbour, used to go and howl piteously.
The fierce growling of a dog at night, when nothing is known to be in the house to excite its fury, is also supposed to arise from its seeing spirits, or the spectres, it is not known which, of the living or of the dead. Stories of this class usually run in the same groove. A shepherd or servant-man has a very good dog, which is in the habit of sleeping in the same room with himself. One night it suddenly gets up growling, and is heard making its way to the other end of the room. It returns howling faintly, springs into bed, and, lying with its forepaws resting on its master, snarls fiercely at something invisible. The occupant of the bed, not seeing anything to account for the dog’s fury, puts his head below the bedclothes and quakes with fear till daylight.
A horse in Vaul, Tiree, ordinarily a quiet beast used, when carting, to be most unaccountably startled especially when passing a certain boat, drawn up on the beach. This same boat has been mentioned already as having, in consequence of being spectre-haunted, been sold by people in the west end of Tiree to some villagers in the east end, who gave the loan of it to Vaul people. Lights began also to be seen about it, and it was ultimately sent back to the lenders, who again sold it to people in the west end. Here a melancholy loss of life occurred in it. A gale off the land suddenly sprang up, when the boat, with its six of a crew, was within a few hundred yards of the shore. The men were seen rowing hard to bring the boat to land, but they had at last to give up the attempt. Some days after, the boat came ashore in Coll, with only one of the crew in it. He was reclining on one of the thwarts dead. It was the horse and cart mentioned that took home his body. After that day the horse was never known to be unaccountably startled or frightened. Its former fits entirely forsook it.
CRYING HEARD BEFORE DEATH.
A wailing or unusual cry heard at night, where no one is known to be, or can be, is an indication that at that place some one will break into lamentation for the death of a friend, of which he will there first receive intimation, or will have otherwise cause to cry. The voice heard is not that of the “fetch” of the man, who is to be killed or drowned, but that of some mourner—a wife, or sister, or near relation. In these cries before a sudden death, the voices of women are the most frequently recognised.
A cry or scream, indicative of death, and believed to be uttered by a wraith, was called tàsg, and éigheach tàisg or éigheach tàsg, i.e. the cry of a wraith.
In the case of a man accidentally drowned on Trabay Beach in Tiree, a cry described as “a healthy cry” (glaodh fallain) was heard at night in the west end of the island several days previous to the disaster, and four miles from the scene of the accident, at the spot where the man’s brother first received the melancholy intelligence. The cry consisted of “òh” said thrice, and each time at the full length of a man’s breath (fad analach).
At the old quay in Port Appin, Argyleshire, the wailing of a woman was heard at night. Some days after, the mother of a young man who had been accidentally killed in Glasgow, there met the remains, which came by steamer, and she broke into loud lamentation.
At the Big Bridge (an Drochaid Mhor) above Portree Manse, on the road to Braes, in the Isle of Skye, strange sounds are heard by people passing there at night, such as the moaning of a dying person, sounds of throttling, etc. Mysterious objects, dogs, and indistinct moving objects are also seen at the haunted spot. These are supposed to denote that a murder will some time be committed here.