On this occasion of universal hilarity, the natural coldness and jealousy which generally subsist between the human species and their supernatural neighbours are changed into perfect harmony and benevolence. Like two belligerent armies, whose hostility towards each other is more the offspring of public duty than private resentment, and who, therefore, during the intervals of war, exhibit in their mutual intercourse the marks of personal good will; so, in like manner, those two classes forget for the night all animosity, in their more laudable zeal to contribute to each other’s gratification. Nay, stern Satan himself relaxes for this night his avarice; and, alive to no other object than the promotion of universal enjoyments, dispatches showers of his emissaries to the several kiln-pots, peat-stacks, and barn-yards in the Highlands, to afford to those adventurers who desire it a peep into the secrets of futurity.
Such a display of seeming benevolence, did it proceed from any other individual than Satan, could not fail to meet with some share of applause. But heads of families, whose opinions are entitled to some respect, have been known to affirm, that Satan’s affected generosity on this occasion is nothing but a mere stratagem for inveigling the more effectually the young and unwary into his vile snares, and that he gets more game by those specious artifices than he could realize by any other means. Hence it is that the anxious parent this night, instead of extolling Satan’s generosity, is so intent on magnifying his perfidy; and in order the better to dissuade his offspring and family from the dangerous practices of the night, details, without qualification, his numerous treacheries on similar occasions.
But these ebullitions of the parent’s jealousy of Satan’s practices are soon subdued. The big-bellied bottle and bumper-glass will have a great effect in relaxing his heart of its illiberal suspicions. Speedily animated by the conciliating qualities of the “barley-bree,” and softened by the recollection of his own youthful frolics and manly deeds on similar occasions, he no longer regards as a crime those practices which he recently condemned; and the good-natured matron, being happy at her husband’s felicity, and averse to chide, they both tacitly connive at the family’s indulgence in the customary arts of divination.
Generally the first spell they try is pulling the stock of kail. Joining hand in hand they go forth to the kail-yard, previously blind-folded, lads, lasses, and children, equally anxious to have their fortunes told as their seniors. Pulling the first stock they meet with, they immediately return to the light to have an examination of its qualities; its being large or little, straight or crooked, is prophetic of the size and shape of its puller’s conjugal companion. If any earth adheres to the root, it indicates tocher or fortune; and the taste of the custoc or stem, whether sour or sweet, shows the nature of his disposition.
They go next to the barn-yard, and pull each a stalk of oats, and according to the number of grains upon the stalk the puller will have a corresponding number of children. It may be observed, that it is essential to a female’s good fame that her stalk should have the top-grain attached to it.
An individual goes to the barn, opens both its doors, then takes the instrument used in winnowing corn, called a wecht, and goes through all the gestures of letting down corn against the wind. This is repeated three several times, and the third time an apparition will pass through the barn, in at the one door and out at the other, having a retinue emblematical of his or her station in life.
A person goes privately to Tor-na-ha, or the kiln-pot, throws into it a clew of blue thread, which the person winds into a new clew. Towards the latter end something will hold the thread, on which the person demands, “Who holds?” An answer will be returned by the agent below, by naming the Christian name and sirname of the person’s future spouse.
A person steals out unperceived to the peat-stack—sows a handful of hemp-seed, calling out something to the following effect:—
“Hemp-seed, I saw thee,
Hemp-seed, I saw thee,