“A white lamb on my right side,
So will good come to me;
But not the little false cuckoo
On the first day of the year.”
Prophecies were also made from the way the wind blew on May mornings. In ’98 an old man, who was drawing near to his end and like to die, inquired from those around him—
“Where did you leave the wind last night?” (May Eve.)
They told him it came from the north.
“Then,” he said, “the country is lost to the Clan Gael; our enemies will triumph. Had it been from the south, we should have had the victory; but now the Sassenach will trample us to dust.” And he fell back and died.
Ashes are often sprinkled on the threshold on May Eve; and if the print of a foot is found in the morning, turned inward, it betokens marriage; but if turned outward, death. On May Eve the fairy music is heard on all the hills, and many beautiful tunes have been caught up in this way by the people and the native musicians.
About a hundred years ago a celebrated tune, called Moraleana, was learnt by a piper as he traversed the hills one evening; and he played it perfectly, note by note, as he heard it from the fairy pipes; on which a voice spoke to him and said that he would be allowed to play the tune three times in his life before all the people, but never a fourth, or a doom would fall on him. However, one day he had a great contest for supremacy with another piper, and at last, to make sure of victory, he played the wonderful fairy melody; when all the people applauded and declared he had won the prize by reason of its beauty, and that no music could equal his. So they crowned him with the garland; but at that moment he turned deadly pale, the pipes dropped from his hand, and he fell lifeless to the ground. For nothing escapes the fairies; they know all things, and their vengeance is swift and sure.