Folklore of the Scottish Highlands

by Anne Ross

  The Seer also prophesied the clearance of the Highlands to make way for sheep and deer forests, and he foretold the breakdown of the clan system. He said there would be a white house on every hillock, and this is taken to mean the shooting lodges that came to be scattered all over the Highlands, although there was, of course, no thought of them in Kenneth’s day. One of his most remarkable prophecies was, again, about Tomnahurich (also called Tom-na-Sithichean, ‘The Fairies Hill’). He said the day would come when the hill would be under lock and key and the fairies which were alleged to inhabit it would be secured within. He could have had no knowledge that a large cemetery would be built there long after his death. The chained fairies — being some two to three feet in height, according to my own informants — would be the spirits of the dead (as they are often alleged to be); there is a strong link between the fairy ‘host’ and the souls of the departed according to Celtic belief. The hill was not, in fact, turned into a cemetery until after 1859. One prophecy, as yet unfulfilled, was that the Island of Lewis would be laid waste by a violent battle which would continue until the contending parties, after great losses on both sides, reached Tarbert in Harris. After this event, there was to be a great period of peace for Lewis; this kind of prophecy evidently refers to clan warfare, and so seems unlikely to be realised now.

  Many of these prophecies can still be heard in the Highlands, where the name of the Brahan Seer is legendary. Kenneth prophesied that a loch above Beauly would burst its banks and the flood would destroy a nearby village, and, although that has not yet come about, people were concerned about it even as recently as the twentieth century. He also made a prophecy about Clach-an-t-Seasaidh (a standing stone), near the Muir of Ord. This stone originally stood upright to a considerable height, and was pointed at the top. Now it lies broken on the ground. According to one version of the legend about its destruction, the Seer said that the day would come when ravens would gorge themselves on the blood of the Clan MacKenzie from the top of the stone after a violent battle which would be fought on the Muir of Ord. He also said that the MacKenzies would be so decimated after this fight that the remainder of the clan would be taken over to Ireland in an open fishing boat. Ireland was believed to have been their place of origin. It is thought that Clach-an-t-Seasaidh refers to the remains of a so-called Druidical Circle still visible near Beauly, at a place called Windhill. Another traditional prophecy concerns an Iron Age fort on Knockfarrel, near Loch Ussie where Kenneth lived, in the Strathpeffer Valley. There is a well there called Fingal’s Well, inside the fort ruins. Local tradition has it that this well was used by the fort-dwellers until one day Fingal (the famous Irish hero, Fionn mac Cumhaill) drove them away, put a large stone (known as Clach an Tiompain) over the well to keep the waters in control and then jumped over the valley; this is one of the numerous tales of Fingal’s famous leaps. Fingal’s son Ossian (Oisín) was allegedly the last survivor of this great confederation of warriors, who were banded together under the overall leadership of Fionn. They are always described as being huge in size, like the pagan Celtic deities amongst whom their origins are clearly to be found. They are usually referred to as giants in the vast oral tradition of both Ireland and Gaelic Scotland where many a long and dreary winter was ameliorated by the heroic tales, told night after night by the sgeulaiche in the different townships and districts.

  The people never tired of listening to the exploits of these huge men and their womenfolk, and even St Patrick is alleged to have requested that he should meet Fionn and he would go with the giant on a tour of the ancient places of Ireland. After heavy rain, if a stick is struck against the stone, a hollow sound is produced, indicating a cavity below, and water can be seen. The Seer prophesied that if ever this stone should be moved, Loch Ussie would force its way up through the well and flood the valley below so that ships could sail up Strathpeffer and be fastened to Clach an Tiompain; this would occur when the stone should be moved after having fallen three times. It has fallen twice, and is propped up a few steps from the roadside as one approaches the Strathpeffer wells. Kenneth MacKenzie’s magic stone is locally believed to lie at the bottom of Loch Ussie. He is alleged to have thrown it into a pool, which immediately swelled, and became Loch Ussie. This is a typical story of the origins of some loch or river.

  No matter how garbled and conflicting many of the traditions of the seventeenth-century Seer are, there is no doubt his prophetic powers made a deep and lasting impact on the folk mind in the Highlands of Scotland. Kenneth obtained his gift from the possession of a magical stone. People possessed of straightforward Second Sight, however, do not require any ‘aid’ for their vision; it comes upon them at random, and, usually, against their will. They dread their mysterious power, which may suddenly manifest itself at any period of their life — in youth, middle years, or old age. It is believed that these people have the power of seeing a person’s doppelgänger or ‘other self’. If a person sees his own ghost then his death is believed to be imminent. It sometimes happens that a person returning to his township from some journey stands aside to let a funeral procession pass by. He recognises the dead from his relations and goes home to say he is sorry to know that such and such a person has died; sometimes he is made to join the procession and act as a bearer and the supernatural weight of the coffin can throw him down on the ground; he then cannot avoid seeing the real burial.

  The writer has met people with this unhappy gift, and witnessed the veracity of what they ‘see’, and their distress at this faculty they would wish to lose. The person in question is not dead at the time of the experience, but the premonition of his death by a seer usually means that death will follow soon after. Sometimes this gift — or curse — would seem to run in families and therefore to be inherited; at others, it can begin suddenly, with no family history of such powers. The appearance of the apparition often indicated what was to befall the person in question. If he had been actually laid in a coffin, or was wearing grave-clothes, that would indicate that his death was imminent; if he was wearing ordinary clothes then he would not die for some time. The appearance and behaviour of the apparition would be repeated in detail when the real event occurred. The seer could become unhappily haunted by an apparition and be forced to meet it regularly; he never dared to divulge whose spectre it was. These spectres of the living and the ability to see them constitute a totally different group of supernatural phenomena from ghosts proper, and isolated unnatural experiences. Apparitions of this kind could, on occasion, be actually physically dangerous and attack the living seer. Examples of this extraordinary gift of the Second Sight are numerous; it seems to be very much a feature of Celtic societies, and belief in the Sight is ancient as the traditions of Fionn and his magic power of seeing things in the early Irish tales indicates.

  Some examples of the things witnessed by people with the gift of Second Sight are as follows. Urine was regarded as a powerful substance in combating the supernatural. There is a story on record about a man from the Island of Tiree who had the Sight. It was a custom in the island that anyone coming upon a drowned body should turn it over. The seer, coming upon such a corpse, was overcome with fear and ran away, without first moving it as tradition demanded. The body was in due course buried, but the dead man began to haunt the seer and caused him great terror. At last things became so bad that one night the apparition dogged his steps home and then stood between him and his own door, barring his entrance. He shouted desperately to his wife to come and sprinkle the doorposts with urine. When she had done this, the ghost leapt above the door and the man entered his house and was no longer disturbed by the menacing vision. It was believed widely in the Highlands that the dead had the power to lay heavy burdens on the living, and to physically punish them. It was also thought by those with faith in the Second Sight that one should never wish too ardently for anything. Such wishes could affect a person with the Sight. He could be fatally wounded by means of his ‘double’, or spiritual body. There are many tales told of people s
eeing such spirits and throwing dirks, or other missiles at them, and hitting them; some person, whose ‘fetch’ they in fact were, would, at that moment, be struck blind. People gifted with the Second Sight were often believed to be capable of telling the appearance of someone’s future bride or groom. They could see the taish (‘appearance’) of the woman, sitting beside her husband to be. Death was, however, unfortunately the most common event foretold by taishers. Seers could also witness events happening at a distance and see if they resulted in evil or good; i.e. someone’s son falls overboard and his father is deeply agitated until he is rescued. He ‘sees’ the whole episode, which is later confirmed. Glasses which were destined to be used at the feast after a funeral were believed to rattle before someone’s death. There are a great number of variants of actual experiences people have had, but they all add up to the basic ability to see the person doomed to die before his death, even that of the seer himself, and to see the fetch or spectre of the living long before his actual death.

  People were very superstitious about their boats, and if a seer saw anything untoward near to or in a boat, no one would go near it. This is an understandable superstition amongst a people who depended so much on sea transport and fishing. Sometimes a boat would be sold because ‘something’ had been seen in connection with it; this still pertains to a certain extent in some of the more westerly Islands, where the only contact with some Islands or the mainland can be made by boat, and where fish form an important ingredient in the basic diet. Dogs and horses were widely believed to have powers of ‘seeing’ superior even to those of the most gifted taisher. Both could see ghosts and the ‘fetches’ of people about to die. Horses are believed to have superior powers of ‘seeing’ even to those of dogs. They will refuse to pass a haunted spot, or a place where some violent event such as a murder has, or is about to, take place. The writer has had direct experience of this phenomenon in the islands, where a horse will refuse to go over a particular bridge or pass an area near a burial ground where turves were cut for the graves. It is a widespread belief in the Highlands that dogs in a house will howl if a member of the household is about to die.

  Martin Martin was particularly impressed by the tradition of Second Sight in the Gaelic West and recorded many instances of great value and interest. He describes the Sight as the singular faculty of seeing an otherwise invisible object; he notes too that this faculty is not one that was inherited. According to the information he received on his travels in the Western Isles, if a vision is seen early in the morning, the event ‘seen’ would take place within a few hours. If at noon, it would occur that same day. If observed in the evening, it may come about that night. When a shroud was seen about a person in one of these visions, it was taken to be a sure sign of approaching death. The time of death or its proximity was judged by the height of the shroud about the person in question. If it was not seen above the waist, death was not to be expected for about a year or longer. As it could often be actually witnessed ascending upwards towards the head, so death was believed to be approaching within a few days, or even hours. Martin himself witnessed many examples of this, and, sceptical man though he was, he could not but be convinced of the veracity of this strange power. One, which was told to Martin shortly before he wrote on the subject, concerned the death of one known personally to him. The vision was recounted to one or two people only, Martin being one of these. It was told in the greatest of confidence. Martin paid no attention to what he had been told until the person in question died when it had been foretold, and this finally convinced him that there was some truth in the belief. This seer thereafter achieved notoriety, and in Martin’s day lived in the parish of St Mary’s, the most northerly parish in Skye. Martin records how he had heard that if a woman was seen standing at a man’s left hand, it was an omen that she would be his wife, whether they were unmarried or married to others at the time of the vision. If two or three women were seen at the same time standing close to a man’s left hand, the one next to him would be his first wife and the others would follow suit. Martin noted several instances of this actually coming about in his own time. Seers could often see a man who would visit a house in a short time; they could describe the visitor in detail, even if he was a total stranger. If the seer knew the person in question, he could tell his name and describe his character. Martin himself was ‘seen’ in this way by seers before he even set foot in a place, and where he and his appearance were totally unknown. Seers could also see gardens, houses and trees in places which were empty of all three; this usually came to pass in the course of time. It was believed that to see a spark of fire fall upon one’s arm or breast was a sign that a dead child would shortly be seen in the arms of the person concerned. Martin again notes several recent instances of this in his time.

  To see a seat empty when someone sitting in it was alive presaged that person’s death in the near future. When one (known as a ‘novice’) who had recently been gifted with the ‘Sight’ saw a vision in the night-time when out of doors, he entered the house and approached the fire, where he fell in a swoon. Martin tells how some seers find themselves in a cloud of people bearing a corpse along with them. After such a vision, the seer comes home faint and sweating and describes what he has seen. If there are any people among this supernatural host known to the seer he will tell their names, and also name the bearers, but the corpse is unknown to the seer in these instances. If several people possessed of the Sight were gathered together, they would not all see the vision at the same time. But it was believed that if a person with the Sight should touch, at the time of seeing the vision, another person also having this dread gift, then he too would see it. This preoccupation with death and all its trappings is very typical of the Celts and goes right back to the ancient widespread cult of the dead and the worship of graves and the ancestors. It is also very much a reflection of the Celtic passion for the tabulation of everything, and listing all things in a fit manner; nothing was left to happen as it would; everything must be explicable and predictable. This again is a very archaic trait in the whole Celtic character. One other method of foretelling death was by means of a cry — a taisg, according to Martin; in the Lowlands, he says, this is called a ‘Wrath’ (wraith?). The seer hears a loud cry out of doors resembling the voice of some particular person whose death it foretells. Martin says he heard of this recently in his own time, in the village of Rigg, Skye. Five women were sitting together in one room and they all heard a loud cry passing by the window. They thought it was the voice of a maid who was in fact one of the group. She reddened at the time, but was not herself aware of this. Next day she developed a fever and died the same week.

  According to Martin, future events could manifest themselves by smell. Fish or meat cooking over the fire could be smelt at a time when nothing was cooking; this would occur in a house where such an event was unlikely to come about for several months, the house being unoccupied at the time, but the premonition by smell seemingly always came true. Martin says that children, as well as horses and cows, had the power of Second Sight; a child would cry out when it saw a corpse or vision that could be witnessed by an ordinary adult seer. Martin himself had direct experience of this, being present in a house where a child suddenly cried out for no apparent reason. When he was questioned about this he said he had seen a great white thing lying on a board which was in a corner. No one believed him and thought it was pure imagination until a seer who was present told them that the child was correct; he himself had seen a corpse with a shroud about it, and the board in the corner was to be used as part of the coffin. It was in fact incorporated in the making of a coffin for a person who was in perfect health at the time of the vision. Horses were known to Martin, which had panicked and reared up when they saw sights unseen by ordinary men. At Loch Skeriness in Skye, a horse, fastened by rope on the common grazing, broke his tether and ran frantically up and down for no apparent reason. Two people from the neighbourhood happened to be a little distance from the beast and at the
same time they saw a largish gathering of men about a corpse, heading towards the church at Snizort. A few days later, a woman who lived some 13 miles from the church, and belonged to another parish, died. Cows were likewise believed to be able to see such doleful visions; if a cow sees something supernatural while it is being milked it will run away in fright and will not be capable of being pacified for some time after.

  Seers are said to be — and this is in fact often the case — melancholy people, given to moroseness on account of their undesirable power. Martin records that the people of the Isles in general, the seers in particular, are most temperate people, eating the simplest of foods and that in very moderate amounts. He confirms that seers, both male and female, were not epileptics or given to hysterical fits or any psychological disorders. He says that he knew of no mad people with this gift, nor did any of them commit suicide. It was, moreover, held that a drunk person could not see a vision. Martin’s insistence on the normality of people with the Sight is interesting testimony to the truth of their gift. Also, seers were not looked upon as visionaries by their friends; they were generally literate, innocent and well-meaning people; they (unlike Churchill’s Campbell) made no money on account of their powers. It was a faculty desired by none, and a great burden to those possessed of it. Martin recounts the tale of a boy whom he knew personally, who frequently saw a coffin at his shoulder and was terrified at this vision. He believed it presaged his own death and this was the meaning given to the uncanny sight by the boy’s friends. The boy was a servant in the village of Knockow, Skye, where a seer who lived there told the people that they were mistaken in so interpreting the boy’s experience. He told the lad to take the first opportunity that occurred for him to act as bearer of a coffin, even for a few moments. A few days later the opportunity presented itself when one of his acquaintances died. After this, the coffin at his shoulder disappeared, but he still continued to see many that concerned the death of others, at a distance from himself. In Martin’s day he was regarded as one of the most accurate seers in the Island of Skye. Another Skye seer, a woman this time, often saw a woman with a shroud up to her waist. She always stood with her back to the seer. Her clothing was identical with that worn by the woman. This vision continued to occur for some time until the woman did something to satisfy her family’s worry about this vision. She put on clothes different from her usual garments and, moreover, she wore them back to front. Next day the vision appeared facing her and she realised to her horror that it was in fact herself, her own doppelgänger. She apparently died shortly after this.