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

by John Gregorson Campbell

Some thirty years ago a man in Tiree, nicknamed the Poult (am Big-ein), was haunted for several months by the spectre of the person with whom he was at the time at service. The phantom came regularly every evening for him, and if its call was disregarded it gave him next evening a severe thrashing. According to the man’s own account, the spectre sometimes spoke, and, when he understood what it said, gave good advice. Its speech was generally indistinct and unintelligible. The person whose spectre it was, on being spoken to on the subject, got very angry, but the visits of the spectre ceased.

Only a few years ago a young man, also in Tiree, was on his way home about midnight from the parish mill, where he had been kiln-drying corn. He had to go against a strong gale of north-west wind, and, having his head bent down and not looking well before him, ran up against a figure, which he took to be that of a young man of his acquaintance. He spoke to it, and the figure answered in broken, inarticulate speech (tormanaich bruidhinn). Every evening afterwards during that half-year he had to leave the house in which he was at service to meet, he himself said, the spectre that had thus met him. A person who doubted this followed one evening, and saw him, immediately on leaving the house, squaring out in boxing style to some invisible opponent, and falling at every round. The haunted youth said the apparition gave him much information. It said the person whose semblance it itself bore was to die of fever, that the coffin was to be taken out of the house by certain individuals, whom it named, and was to be placed on two creels outside the door. On speaking to the lad whose apparition haunted him, the persecution ceased. The common opinion was that this was a case of imposture and design.

Near Salen, in Mull, a workman, when going home from his employment in the evening, forgot to take his coat with him. He returned for it, and the apparition (tamhasg) of a woman met him, and gave him a squeezing (plùchadh) that made him keep his bed for several days.

In the same island a man was said to have been knocked off his horse by an apparition.

A crofter (or tenant of a small piece of land of which he has no lease) in Caolas, Tiree, went out at night to see that his neighbour’s horses were not trespassing on some clover he had in his croft. He was a man who had confessedly the second sight. He observed on this occasion a man going in a parallel direction to himself, and but a short distance off. At first he thought it was only a neighbour, Black Allan, trying to frighten him, but, struck by the motion and silence of the figure, he stooped down, and then raised himself suddenly. The figure did the same, proof of its being a tamhasg or phantasm. The seer reached home, pale and ready to faint, but nothing further came of his vision.

Three years ago a man, who claims to have the second sight, was on his way home at night to Barrapol, in the west end of Tiree, from the mill (which is in the centre of the island) with a sack of meal on his back. He laid down the sack, and rested by the wayside. When swinging the burden again on his shoulder he observed a figure standing beside him, and then springing on the top of the sack on his back. It remained there, rendering the sack very oppressive, till he reached home, some miles further on.

The son of a seer in Coll was away in the south country. The seer when delving saw his son several times lending assistance, and on two occasions when coming home with a creelful of peats, after taking a rest by the way, saw him helping to lift the creel again on his back. Before long word came of his son’s death.

Alexander Sinclair, from Erray, in Mull, was grieve at Funery in Morven. Two, if not three, of the servant women fell in love with him. He had to cross one night a bridge in the neighbourhood, between Savory and Salachan, and was met by the apparitions of two women, whom he recognised as his fellow-servants. One, he said, was the figure of a dark little woman, and lifted him over the parapet. The other was that of the dairymaid, in the house in which he was, and it rescued him. The adventure ended by his marrying the dairymaid.

A man, going home at night to Ledmore (Leudmòr), near Loch Frisa, in Mull, saw the kitchen-maid of the house in which he was at service waiting for him on the other side of a ford that lay in his way. Suspecting the appearance, he went further up the stream to avoid it, but it was waiting for him at every ford. At last he crossed, and held on his way, the apparition accompanying him. At the top of the first incline, the apparition threw him down. He rose, but was again thrown. He struggled, but the figure, he said, had no weight, and he grasped nothing but wind. On the highest part of the ascent, called Guala Spinne, the apparition left him. After going home, the man spoke to the woman whose spectre had met him. “The next time,” he said, “you meet me, I will stab you.” This made the woman cry, but he was never again troubled by her apparition.

A native of Glenbeg in Ardnamurchan, Henderson by name, was at service in Kilfinichen in Mull. One of the servant maids there made him a present of a pair of worsted gloves. After returning home from service, he had, one evening towards dusk (am bial an anmuich, lit. in the mouth of lateness) to go from Glenbeg to Kilchoan, by a path across a steep incline on the side of the lofty Ben-shianta, towards the projection known as “The Nose of the Macleans” (Sròin Chloinn Illeathain). Steep mountain paths of this kind are called Catha, and this particular catha is called Catha na Muice (the pig’s pass). Near the top of the ascent (aonaich), and where the difficult path ceases (bràighe na Catha), there is a narrow step (aisre), which only one person at a time can cross, leading towards another ascent (aonaich). When going up the first ascent, or cadha, Henderson was joined by the apparition of the woman who had made him the gloves in Kilfinichen. She was on the up side of him, and he saw, when he came to the aisre, if she chose to give him a push, he would be precipitated into the black shore (du-chladach), which the rocks there overhang, and become a shapeless bundle (seirgein cuagach). He blessed himself, and taking courage crossed in safety. When he got on more level ground, over towards Correi-Vulin, he took the gloves she had given him, and threw them at her, saying “that is all the business you have with me.” He stayed that night in Laga Fliuch, and next day went to Kilchoan. On his return he looked for the gloves, and saw them where he had thrown them. He had no return of the vision.