Folklore of the Scottish Highlands

by Anne Ross

  An interesting incantation appears in the Records of the Presbytery of Kintyre and Islay, dated November 1697. A Malcolm MacMillan confessed he had practised a charm with a string, and some words he spoke over the string were entered into the Records in Gaelic. He used the string for the cure of rickets, demonic possession and other sudden distempers; he put the thread to his breath and said into it:

  I place the protection of God about thee,

  Mayest thou be shielded from every peril,

  May the Gospel of the God of grace

  Be from thy crown to the ground about thee.

  May men love thee

  And women not work thee harm.

  When cattle were being sent to pasture, or returning home from it, the person in charge of them would leave one or two beasts to follow behind, in the belief that this would ward off the Evil Eye, which allegedly required the whole stock to be in front of the herd.

  One very moving story about belief in the power of the ‘Eye’ and deep faith in the ability of white witches to undo the results is told of a little boy from Leitir, Loch Duthaich, who had the misfortune to have the ‘Eye’ put on him. The child became desperately sick and the parents were in despair; all conventional remedies failed. Finally the distracted father was advised to make the long journey to the head of Loch Carron where there was a woman famed for her powers of counteracting the fierce force of the Evil Eye. All he was required to do was to take some small piece of the boy’s clothing with him. The charmer took the piece of cloth, went away, and performed some secret rites. She then told the man to return home where he would find his little son fit and well. This he did, and was amazed to find the child sitting on his mother’s knee, lively and completely restored to health. But this particular cure took heavy toll of the charmer; the virtue had entirely left her, and for a day and a night she hung between life and death; she said she was always very ill after performing a counter-spell, whether it be for man or beast.

  Charm for thwarting the ‘Eye’:

  Twelve eyes against every malice,

  Twelve eyes against every envy

  Twelve eyes against every purpose

  Twelve eyes against every hope

  Twelve eyes against every intent,

  Twelve eyes against every eye,

  The twelve eyes of the Son of the God of life,

  The twelve eyes of the Son of the God of life.

  The writer has heard many traditions of the above kind, still extant amongst the old people in the Highlands and Islands, but there is understandably a deep reticence to talk about such things, and any detailed information known is usually imparted in strictest confidence. In central Perthshire there are still lingering memories about working the Evil Eye by means of sticks, the willow being used for this purpose; it was not possible to get an exact account of how this was done, but the counter-charm was performed by means of rowan. The whole process, however, was regarded as a close secret.

  Belief in the power of the Evil Eye then was extremely potent and widespread in the Scottish Highlands and has a long ancestry in the Celtic world. One of the earliest Irish tales, the magnificent mythological story of the war between the gods of Ireland, ‘The Second Battle of Moytura’ (see bibliography: Ross, A., Druids) concerns the malevolent god Balor Beumshuileach, ‘Balor of the Evil Eye’. The eye was kept permanently closed, so great was its power of destruction when unlidded; when Balor’s men were hard-pressed in battle, it took several men to lift the lid with sticks. The eye then sent out such potent rays of evil magic that the entire opposing forces could be wiped out by a single glance.

  In the Inner Hebrides the charm for curing the Evil Eye must allegedly be made on a Thursday or a Sunday; in different places, different rhymes were used. Campbell, in his Witchcraft, recounts how an Islay woman achieved miraculous cures for the ‘Eye’ by using the following rhyme, which he publishes rather unwillingly, as such things were not easily divulged to strangers — or indeed at all. In this case, an ancient charm had been transformed into a Christian prayer, which, as we have seen, must so often have been the case:

  If eye has blighted,

  Three have blessed,

  Stronger are the Three that blessed,

  Than the eye that blighted;

  The Father, Son and Holy Ghost;

  If anything elfin or worldly has harmed it,

  On earth above,

  Or in hell beneath,

  Do, Thou, God of Grace, turn it aside.

  This rhyme had to be repeated three times, in traditional Celtic fashion.

  Certain river stones were believed to have magical properties and these could be used both as amulets against evil, or, in the case of black magic, as charms to promote harm. In Glen Lyon in central Perthshire, every house, including the church (30), has its gateposts capped by a pair of fantastically shaped stones which have been worn into these weird forms by the action of the strongly-flowing river from which they have been taken. Local people will tell you that they are purely decorative, but one old man, well-versed in the traditional lore of the glen where he and his ancestors had always lived, informed the present writer that it was an ancient local belief that these strange stones from the nearby river had powers of keeping evil forces from the dwellings and the church. It was interesting to note that the War Memorial, higher up the glen, which is conical in shape and composed of ordinary stones, is crowned by a very fine example of these singular, water-worn boulders.

  River stones believed to be possessed of remarkable powers were often blackened in the fire, and incantations were made over them in order to bring harm to some unfortunate person who had incurred the hostility of the charmer. At the end of the nineteenth century, in the same area of central Perthshire, such a curse was carried out by means of a circle of blackened stones, the right state of the moon, and ritual chants; the victim did in fact die, although in normal health at the time. It became known to the local people what had been done, and by whom, and the man in question was evicted from his holding by the landlord or, as they put it locally, ‘sent over the hill’. The writer had this information from an old man, a native of the place where the event happened, whose father had actually witnessed the incident; the spot where the circle of blackened stones was made is still known. The alleged magical properties of certain stones are further discussed on p110 ff. Some charms were incanted for specific types of evil magic, others to counteract enchantment in general. One of the latter, much used in the Outer Isles, is associated, like so many, with the beloved saint, Brigit or Bride, originally a powerful goddess invoked widely over the pagan Celtic world and in Christian times venerated as Saint Brigit of Kildare where, in true pagan fashion, nine virgins perpetually attended her fire, which was never allowed to be extinguished.

  The charm placed by Brigit

  About her horses, about her cows,

  About her sheep, about her lambs:

  To keep them from eye,

  To keep them from omen,

  To keep them from spell,

  South and North.

  (Carmichael)

  A substance which was widely believed to be imbued with a certain magic power in the Highlands was cheese. This was regarded as a potent protection against the danger of wandering away from the correct track in the thick mists which come down so suddenly in the wild mountainous country of the north. and entirely blot out the dangerous cliffs and bogs that form so great a hazard to the traveller. Many wells are known as the Cheese Well (Tobar a’ Chàise), and it seems likely that it was at one time a custom to make an offering of cheese to a sacred well in some remote place, in order to obtain protection from the understandable fear of becoming enshrouded in one of these dread mists and meeting a miserable fate in barren bogland and treacherous countryside.

  A charm used for the cure of sickness in man or beast was known as eòlas, ‘knowledge’. Hundreds of such charms have been collected all over the Highlands and Islands; there is a strong Catholic influence in these cha
rms as the names of the saints invoked indicate, especially St Brigit, St Columba, St Michael and St Peter. People possessing the power of white witchcraft used to utter such charms over the ailing creature, while performing the requisite ritual at the same time. The eòlas or charm must also be repeated over water to be drunk by or poured over a sick person or beast. When animals or human beings were sick, those seeking a cure for them would walk for miles in order to get a vessel of sacred water over which some charmer had made an incantation. People were not always willing to impart information about the words used in healing or about the ritual involved; sometimes those cured were sworn to secrecy as to how the healing was performed, and complete silence throughout the ritual was a frequent requisite. The writer has known charmers who would not divulge their methods even to their husbands or wives. The Church, as well as the medical profession, frowns on these practices; the Church because they are suggestive of paganism, the doctors because they have no faith in them. But even doctors of high repute in the Highlands who have, themselves, been unable to cure a sick person, have expressed astonishment when a swift cure has been effected by a sincere charmer.

  The eòlas was usually employed to cure illnesses of a limited kind such as toothache, bruises, urinary infections, swellings in the breast, epilepsy, and sprains, which were very common in rough, uneven country. The humblest of old women were often believed to have this power, and although any payment for a cure was prohibited, people often used to make some small present in kind for a bottle of special water and a healing charm. If the person seeking a cure had to make a long journey he must take up lodgings for the night before sunset. In some localities it was believed to be preferable if no lodging was taken on that night, and no food eaten. There are many stories told of the healing powers of certain people, often in conjunction with some sacred object or objects, such as stones, a holy well, a human skull and so on. One of the great curses of the Highlands and Islands was the high incidence of epilepsy, and many cures were tried in order to rid the afflicted person of the dread disease. One example of this which occurred in the parish of Nigg (Ross and Cromarty) in the nineteenth century concerns a boy of 15 who was very ill with epileptic fits. His distressed relatives first tried to cure him with the charm of mole’s blood. A plate was placed on the boy’s head; the live mole was held over the plate by the tail, its head cut off, and the blood allowed to drop onto the plate. Three moles were sacrificed, one after the other, but with no result. Next they tried the effect of a piece of the skull of a suicide; in order to obtain this, a journey of well over 60 miles had to be made. When the piece of bone was acquired, it was scraped to dust and mixed into a cup of water. This same ritual was performed in some parts of France, where ancient folklore is still in existence. The boy was made to swallow this concoction without knowing what it was. The results were not recorded, but the information was given to the informant, a patient of the doctor who noted the incident, by the sister of the epileptic boy. The skull of a suicide, often filled with water from a holy well, was a known and much-believed-in cure for epilepsy, but it was held in reserve as a final measure when all other, less dramatic remedies had failed. In Lewis, the skull of an ancestor would be dug up from a special place in the graveyard, after sunset and before sunrise, and water placed in it from a sacred well; this was then taken to the patient and he or she had to drink it; the whole ritual, from beginning to end, being performed in silence.

  Because all matters of belief and superstitious practice are somewhat delicate, and information is often imparted in confidence, it has been decided not to give details of names or exact localities where first-hand information on ancient and often non-Christian practices has been obtained, and ritual actually witnessed. The most remarkable example of a human skull being used in the cure of epilepsy with seemingly unfailing success was told to the writer by the guardian of the skull, the man who actually performed the cures. A holy well, on a remote hillside, was an essential part of the procedure, and the well was called Tobar á Chinn, ‘The Well of the Head’. The story is as follows. In an isolated township in Wester Ross, in some of the wildest and most beautiful country in the entire Highlands, some 200 years ago a local woman committed suicide. According to religious custom, no suicide could be buried in the churchyard; her body was thus interred on the moor, outside the sacred precincts. After a time, her skull suddenly appeared miraculously, lying on the surface of the ground. According to the guardian, the ‘wise men’ of the township recognised this as a sign that it was to be used as a cure for epilepsy, for the crania of suicides were believed to have more potent powers of healing than those of people who had died in any other way. The waters of the well higher up on the hill were believed to have certain healing powers, and it was a powerful and ancient Celtic belief, of which there are many examples, that by placing a human head in a venerated well, the powers of the water — whatever they were, healing in general, effecting specific cures, imparting fertility, and so on — were markedly increased by the magic powers with which the human head was accredited in the Celtic world down the centuries. The skull was taken to the well and kept in a small stone coffin-like container, where it still lies. The guardian, a local charmer, was appointed and the position has remained hereditary to this day; cures are still performed on occasion. The well is not supposed to be visited for any purpose other than the healing of epileptics, for it is locally believed that the powers of the water are not inexhaustible, and must be used with care. The writer was in fact taken to see the well and the head, and the ritual was explained in detail by the guardian himself. The well lies in a hollow in the hill, and it would be virtually impossible to chance upon it.

  The fame of the cure was apparently so great in the western Highlands and Islands that people who were seemingly incurable would travel there from great distances in the belief that it would not fail to bring relief from this deeply-distressing affliction. The patient and his or her companions must go to the house of the guardian. There, they would be instructed in the correct ritual; violation of any aspect of it would be certain to ruin all chances of a cure. The patient must climb the hill alone with the guardian. The ceremony had to be carried out after the sun had left the hill, and before it reached it again. Complete silence must be observed both on the long climb up to the well, and on the return to the house. Once the well was reached, the guardian took the skull from its stone cist and approached the well; the patient had to walk three times sunwise round the well (deiseal). The guardian then dipped the skull in the water and gave it to the suffering person in the name of the Trinity; this he did three times. He then put the ‘prohibitions’ on the patient, things that he must never do. What these were was not divulged. Then the descent back to the house was made. Before leaving for the hill, the guardian would ask the patient if he had complete faith in the power of the healing water. If there was any hesitation whatsoever about this, then he was not treated. It is widely believed all over the West that there has never been one failure to effect the cure. Although modern medical treatment for the control of epilepsy has lessened the popularity of this archaic folk healing, some people still prefer it, so great is their faith in its efficacy.

  Various other methods for curing the widespread disease of epilepsy, which did not necessarily involve a charmer, were resorted to in different parts of the Highlands. Sacrifices of different kinds could be made. For example, it was believed that if a hen or a cock, a drake or a gander were buried alive at the exact spot where the epileptic had his or her first falling fit, no second attack would ever occur. Carmichael records an account of this given to him by a Ross-shire woman. A boy whose sister had an epileptic fit came to her mother to get a black cock which he knew she had. The bird was immediately buried alive at the spot where the girl had fallen. The girl had reached middle age by the time this story was told to Carmichael, but she never had another attack of epilepsy. Again, in Ross-shire, in the nineteenth century a minister records how he talked to his mother-in-law
about the burying alive of a black cock at Evanton for the same purpose. She told him she had seen the girl in question fall in a fit on the floor of an upper room in the house. Straight away a hole was made at the spot where the girl fell, and a second hole made through the lower floor into the earth. A black cock was then procured, lowered down through the two floors and buried alive in the hole. Carmichael also records that some years previous to his writing, a boat was crossing Loch Duthaich from Letterfearn to Dornie, when a man in the boat had an epileptic fit. The other men took bearings, turned back to the shore, and obtained a black cock which they put, together with a stone, in a sack. When they reached the point where their companion had had his fit, they threw the sack with its victim into the water. The man, allegedly, never had another epileptic fit. Sometimes the blood of a black cock was sprinkled over one who was afflicted by the falling sickness; if no black cock was available, the blood of a black cat was used instead.

  5 Supernatural beings, omens and social customs

  Daily life in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland was dominated by superstitions and by a strong belief in spirits and supernatural beings of various kinds. The Church naturally disapproved of these blatantly pagan traditions but so deeply rooted were they in the daily lives of the people that they were almost impossible to eradicate. Supernatural beings, baleful and benign, haunted virtually every feature of the wild, mountainous landscape or the low-lying Islands, studded with bogs and waters and girdled with beautiful but treacherous shores. It was necessary for one going on a journey, no matter how brief, to be armed with talismans of various kinds to counteract the evil powers of many of the malevolent beings they were constantly in danger of offending or which might inadvertently cross their paths. It was necessary, according to belief, to arm oneself with protective amulets such as white quartz pebbles, a piece of wood from some sacred tree such as the rowan; and of course the Bible, kept in the pocket, was another potent source of protection. Not all the various creatures who shared with mankind the wild terrain were hostile; indeed, many could be protective and positively helpful to those in danger. One of the most widely known in the rich repertoire of ‘fairy’ lore was the ubiquitous each-uisge (water-horse, less commonly, tarbh-uisge, water bull), usually a dangerous being, which sometimes appeared in the form of a beautiful horse, occasionally saddled and bridled, as if waiting for some unwary traveller, who would be glad to shorten his journey by jumping onto the obliging animal’s back and — as he thought — obtaining a convenient lift to his place of destination. There are many different versions of this widespread motif. Sometimes the trusting traveller would be dragged into a lake or river and devoured by his steed; at other times, if he were quick-witted enough, he could manage to escape.