Witchcraft & Second Sight in the Highlands & Islands of Scotland / Tales and Traditions Collected Entirely from Oral Sources

by John Gregorson Campbell

There is a sept of Macdonalds called MacCannel, of whom it is said in Tiree, that when one dies and the body is laid out to be waked, all the dead of the race enter the room, go round the body, upon which each lays his hand, and then in solemn procession march out again. This is the case at every death of one of the sept, but only those who have the second sight can see the shades. A man married to one of the MacCannels, whose father had been long dead, enraged her beyond measure, on the occasion of the death of one of the sept, by asking her why she had not gone to Ballevullen (where the death had occurred), last night to see her father.

The spirits of the dead came back to reveal secrets and give good advice. Those who hid iron during their lifetime, and died without telling where, could not rest till they had told their secret. Notoriously bad men, misers, oppressors of the poor, and all whose affections were set too much on the things of this world, were believed after death to wander about their former haunts. They seek to be where they left their treasure. They do not speak till they are spoken to, and it requires great courage in a living person to address the spirits of the dead. The last buried had to watch the churchyard till the next funeral; and if the strings of the winding-sheet were not untied, it was also a belief that the spirit could not rest.

It is very imprudent to enter into a compact with another, that whoever dies first will come back to tell his fate to the survivor. The agreement is unholy, and will entail sorrow, whether the dead man’s position is in weal or woe.

Two herdsmen at the summer pastures for the cattle (bothan àiridh) in “the wilds of far Kintail” entered into a compact of this kind. One of them died, and a substitute came in his place. The newcomer observed that his companion was anxious not to be alone for any time, however short, but one day he had to go to the strath for yeast (deasgainn), the two being engaged in brewing spirits, and did not return till far on in the night. The survivor of the two who had made the paction, being thus left alone, when night came on took to mending his shoes and singing at his work to keep his courage up. His thoughts constantly reverted to his dead companion, and the bargain made with him, and the more he thought the more uneasy he became. At midnight a scraping noise began on the top of the house, as if some one were trying to make an entrance. The scraping became louder and louder, and the shoemaker, in the agony of terror, but pretending to think the noise was made by his comrade who had gone to the strath, called out, “I know it is you trying to frighten me” (cuir eagal orm). As soon as he spoke, a man, whom he recognised as his dead companion, entered the hut, wrapped in the grave clothes, but after saying it was a good thing for him where he (the dead man) had gone, went away and left him unharmed.

In another case of a similar agreement between two youths in the same district, the survivor forgot all about the paction, till one night he was met on the public road by the figure of his departed friend, which told him to meet it alone at a certain place (which it named) at a certain hour, otherwise it would be worse for himself. The man, terrified beyond measure, consulted the parish minister as to what he ought to do, but the minister merely advised him to pray that no evil would come of his rash and unguarded compact. He consulted an old man, who told him to go to the place appointed and take a ball of iron in his hand, and hold it out to the ghost when shaking hands. The man went, the ghost crushed the ball of iron and the man escaped, otherwise the spirit, which could only have come from a bad place, would have crushed his hand into atoms.

A woman in Flodigarry, in Skye, whose husband had been killed by witchcraft (buidseachd), saw him after his death sitting by the fireside. On being spoken to, the ghost asked, why they had not shaved him before putting his body in a coffin?[31]

BONES OF THE DEAD AND PLACE OF BURIAL.

It was part of the lesson impressed on the young Highlander, to treat that which belonged to the dead with reverence. The unnecessary or contemptuous disturbing of graves, bones, or other relics of humanity was reprobated, and sometimes warmly resented. This praiseworthy feeling towards the dead was strengthened by the pride of race and ancestry, which formed so prominent a feature of the Highland character, and by sundry tales of wide circulation.

The story has been already told of the tailor who irreverently gave a kick to a skull, and was ever after haunted by the man to whom it had belonged. It is told of one who disturbed a grave at night, that, on his taking up a skull in his hand, a feeble voice, that of the disturbed spirit, said, “That’s mine.” He dropped that skull and took up another, when a like voice said, “That’s mine.” The man cried out, “Had you two skulls?”