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

by John Gregorson Campbell

A woman in the island of Harris, known as Fionnaghal a Mhoir, was celebrated for her gift of Second Sight. A young man related to her went to Appin, in Argyleshire, with a boat. One day, when taking a smoke, he expressed a wish that Fionnaghal a Mhoir had a draw of his pipe. Next day, and long before it could be known in Harris the youth had expressed such a wish, Flora, daughter of the Big Man (for that is the meaning of her name), told her friends that a pipe was being offered her all night by the young man, and that she was anxious enough to have a smoke from it, but could not.

A young girl in Kennovay, Tiree, holding a bowl of milk in her hands, expressed a wish a certain woman (naming one, who was a taibhsear) had the bowl to drink. Next day the woman indicated in the wish told the girl she had a sore time of it all night keeping the bowl away from her lips.

In very recent times, not above four years ago, as the driver of the mail-gig was going through the Wood of Nant (Coill an Eannd), between Bonawe and Loch Awe, at night, he was met by the figure of his sweetheart, and received from it such a severe thrashing that he had to turn back. On telling this to herself, afterwards, she acknowledged, that on the night referred to she was very anxious about him, and wished she could intercept him in case, at his journey’s end, he should go to a house where fever had broken out.

A woman in Lismore, making a bowl of gruel (brochan blàth) in the evening, expressed a wish her husband, who was then away at the fishing at Corpach, near the entrance to the Caledonian Canal, had the drink she was making. When her husband came home, he said to her, “I tell you what it is, you are not to come again with porridge to me at Corpach.” He said he had seen her all night at his bedside offering him his gruel.

The power ascribed to strong wishes, or rather the evil consequences by which they may be followed, is still more forcibly illustrated by the following tale.

A young woman at Barr, Morvern, beautiful and much esteemed in her own neighbourhood, was about to be married. Other maidens were in the house with her, sewing the dresses for the marriage. As they sat at work, she sighed and said, she wished her intended was come. At that moment, he was on his way coming over the shoulder of Ben Iadain, a lofty mountain near hand, of weird appearance and having the reputation of being much frequented by the Fairies. He observed his sweetheart walking beside him, and as the shadowy presence threw him down, he struck at it repeatedly with his dirk. The bride got unwell, and, before the bridegroom reached the house, died. The ‘fetch’ left him shortly before his arrival, and her death was simultaneous with its disappearance.

It has been said that the appearance of the spectre was considered entirely independent of the thoughts or volition of the person whose image it bears. Yet the tales of the Second Sight indicate some mysterious connection between men and their doubles. Strongly wishing, as in the above instances, causes at times a person’s likeness to be seen or heard at the place where he wishes to be, and the original (so to call him) may be affected through his double.

A man in Islay encountered a ghost, and threw his open penknife at it. The weapon struck the phantom in the eye, and at that moment, a woman, whose likeness it bore, though several miles away, was struck blind of an eye.

A young woman, residing in Skye, had a lover, a sailor, who was away in the East Indies. On Hallowe’en night she went, as is customary in country frolics, to pull a kail plant, that she might know, from its being crooked or straight or laden with earth, what the character or appearance or wealth of her future husband might be. As she grasped a stock to pull it, a knife dropped from the sky and stuck in the plant. When her lover came home, she learned from him, that on that very night and about the same hour, he was standing near the ship’s bulwark, looking over the side, with a knife in his hand. He was thinking of her, and in his reverie the knife fell out of his hand and over the side. The young woman produced the knife she found in the kail-stock, and it proved to be the very knife her sailor lover had lost.