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

by John Gregorson Campbell

Tannas, or tannasg, a spectre, generally of the dead, and in the idea attached to it more shadowy, unsubstantial, and spiritual than a Bòchdan.

Tamhasg (pron. taüsg), the shade or double of a living person, is the common name for apparitions by which men are haunted, and with which, according to the doctrine of the second sight, they have to hold assignations.

Tàchar, a rare and almost obsolete word, but the derivatives of which, tacharan and tachradh, are still in common use. The only instances known to the writer of its occurrence are in the names of places. Sròn an tàchair, the Ghost-haunted Nose, is a rock between Kinloch Rannoch and Druim-a-chastail, in Perthshire, where faint mysterious noises were heard, and on passing which the wayfarer was left by the mysterious sprite which joined him in the hollow below. Imire tàchair, in the island of Iona, is a ridge leading from near the ecclesiastical buildings to the hill, and, till the moor through which it runs was drained in recent years, formed an elevation above a sheet of water,—a very likely place to have been haunted by goblins. The natives of the island have no tradition or explanation of the name. The derivatives tachradh and tacharan are applied to a weak and helpless person: when the first syllable is long, in pity; when short, contemptuously, as, e.g., an tăchradh grànda, “the ugly wretch.”

Tàslaich, a supernatural premonition, felt or heard, but not seen. Also applied to the ghosts of the living. For instance, a native of Skye being asked the reason why dogs were barking at night near a churchyard, said it was because they saw tàslaich nan daoine beò, the ghosts of the living, the premonition of a funeral.

Tàradh, noises (straighlich) heard at night through the house, indicating a change of tenants, a premonition by mysterious sounds of a coming event.

Taran, the ghost of an unbaptised child (Dr. Macpherson, p. 307), not now a common word.

Tàsg, perhaps a contraction of tamhasg, used commonly in the expression eigheach tàisg, the cry or wail of a fetch. Cf. taghairm, the spirit-call.

The whole doctrine of these apparitions of the living, or, as they are called in Cumberland, swarths, and premonitions of coming events, proceeds on the supposition that people have a counterpart or other self, an alter ego, which goes about unknown to themselves, with their voices, features, form, and dress, even to their shoes, and is visible to those who have the unhappy gift of the second sight. This phantasm, or other self, is not the life or the spirit of the person whom it represents. He has nothing to do with it; he may, at the time it is seen, be sunk in unconscious sleep, or his attention and wishes may be otherwise taken up, and death may not be at all in his thoughts. At the same time, it is not without some connection with him. Strongly wishing is apt to make one’s tàradh be heard at the place where he wishes to be, and if the person whose spectre is seen be spoken to the apparition disappears; but in general the taibhs is independent of all thought, or action, or emotion of the person whom it represents. The doctrine does not assert that all men have got such a double, much less that those who are most largely gifted with the second sight see it always, or even frequently. The spectres are visible to the seer only under exceptional circumstances, in certain situations, and at certain times. The most usual of these are after dusk and across a fire, when a sudden or violent death has occurred, or is to occur, when a friend is ill, when strangers are to come, or any event is impending calculated to make a deep impression on the mind.

Spectres are often seen with as much distinctness as external objects, and it would be a great injustice to the poor man, who claims to have visions of things that are not there at all, to say he is telling an untruth. To him the vision is really there, and it is but natural for him to think it has an existence separate from himself, instead of referring it to an abnormal state of his mind and nervous system. Some spectres “move with the moving eye,” being what the poet calls “hard mechanic ghosts”; others have their own proper motion, and probably arise in the brain. The former are the most common, and it was a test among taïshers, whether the figure seen was a wraith or not, to stoop down and raise themselves up again suddenly. If the figure did the same, it was an apparition, a tamhasg.

The gift of second sight was not in any case looked upon as enviable or desirable. Seers frequently expressed a wish that they had no such gift. In some instances it ran in the family; in others, but rarer cases, the seer was the only one of his kindred who “saw sights” (chì sealladh). Some had it early in life, upon others it did not come till they were advanced in life. These characteristics alone show it to be in its origin the same as spectral illusions. It arose from hereditary disease, malformation, or weakness of the visual organs, and derangements of mind or bodily health. It was not voluntary; the visions went and came without the option of the seer, and his being visited by them was deemed by himself and others a misfortune rather than a gift. A difference was also recognised in the kinds of apparitions visible to different individuals.