TÀRADH.
When a person strongly wishes to be anywhere, as for instance when a person on a journey at night wishes to be at home, his footsteps coming to the house, or the sounds of his lifting the door latch are heard, or a glimpse of his appearance is seen, at the time of his conceiving or expressing the wish, and even without any wish being present to the absent person’s mind, sights or sounds indicative of his coming may be seen or heard. This previous intimation is called his tàradh, and his double or shade, which is the cause of it, his tàslach. These mysterious intelligences are also called manadh nan daoine bèo, “the omens of living men.” The family, sitting round the evening fire, hear a footstep approaching the house, and even a tapping at the door. The sounds are so life-like that some one goes to open the door, but there is no one there. The sound is only the tàradh of an absent friend, storm-tossed or wayworn, and wishing he were at home.
The tàradh may be that of a complete stranger, who is not thinking of, and perhaps does not even know the place to which his tàradh has come. When there is to be a change of tenants the advent of the stranger is heralded, it may be years beforehand, by his double. It is said “thàinig a thàradh,” i.e. his wraith or forewarning has come. When a shepherd, for instance, from another part of the country, is to come to a place, his likeness, phantom, or tàradh, is seen perhaps years beforehand on the hills he is afterwards so frequently to traverse. It is not every kind of men who have this phantom or double, neither does it appear wherein those who have it differ from other men. At all events if all men have it, it is not always to be seen.
A feeling of oppression at night, and the sound of footsteps through the house and the noise of furniture being moved about, is the omen of a change of tenants, and the tàradh of the incoming tenant.
In the island of Coll, the chiefs of which in former times were among the most celebrated in the West Highlands, and where the return of the former lairds is talked about, and believed in, and prayed for among the few of the native population left, the figure of the Laird who is to come is said to have been seen by the castle servants, sitting in an empty chair, with a long beard flowing down to his breast.
A young man, sleeping alone in a house, in which a shop was kept by his father at Scarinish, Tiree, one night felt such an oppression on his chest that he could not sleep, and heard noises as if there were people in the house. He got up and made a thorough search, but found no one. Before long there was a change in the occupancy of the house.
On the uninhabited and lonely islet of Fladdachuain, to the east of Skye, some storm-stayed fishermen were boiling potatoes in a deserted bothy, and heard the noise of voices outside. On going out they could find no one. This occurred thrice. Some days after, and before the fishermen got away, a boat passing to the outer Hebrides was forced by stress of weather to take refuge in the same islet. The voices of its crew were exactly those previously heard. Nothing further occurred in connection with the sounds.
The spirit, thus coming in a visible or audible form about a treasure, by which the thoughts are too much occupied, or where a person wishes too much to be, is also denominated “falbh air fàrsaing,” i.e. going uncontrolled (?)
MARRIAGE.
Those gifted with the second sight were sometimes able to tell the appearance of a person’s future wife. They saw her taïsh, or appearance, sitting beside her husband, and this long before the event occurred, or was spoken of. For instance, a seer has been known to remark to a young man, who did not dream of marrying at the time, “I think your wife must belong to a big house, for she has a white apron on,” etc.