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IN popular phraseology the
devil was "Nick" or "Old Nick," a term derived from niken or
necken, a Danish word which signifies to destroy. To his special
emissaries, the sorcerers, " Old Nick " was, as we have shown, supposed to
appear in a variety of forms, generally in the likeness of the lower
animals. He was believed to choose shapes conformable to his errands.
Distracted by persecution, and with their imaginations excited by their
untoward surroundings, the adherents of the Covenant were led to fancy that
Satan pursued them in corporeal forms. Under the dim twilight he seemed to
cross their path in the mountain correi, in the lonesome cavern, or in other
solitary places. Alexander Peden, the prophet of the Covenant, was supposed
to have personally encountered the devil in a cave. Between the devil and
two Covenanters occurred a conflict in the Forest of Ettrick. On the Moffat
Water, in a wild ravine, Halbert Dobson and David Dun, two proscribed
Presbyterians, had constructed a hiding-place. Here the devil appeared to
them in the aspect of a marauder; but he was, on being assailed with their
Bibles, compelled to flee, leaving behind him a bundle of hides. Hence the
lines: Little ken'd the
wirrikowI
What the Covenant would do;
What o' faith, and what o' pen,
What o' might and what o' men,
Or he had never shown his face,
His reekit rags an' riven toes,
To men o' nieik an' men o' mense,
For Hab Dob and Davie Din
Dan the deil oure Dob's Linn.
Weir' quo he, an' ' weir' quo he,
Haud the Bible til his e'e;
Ding him oure, or thrash him doun,
He's a fause, deceitfu' loon.'
Then he oure him, an' he oure him,
Ike oure him, an' he oure him
Habby held him griff and grim,
Davie thrash him hip an' line';
Till like a bunch o' basket skins
Doun fell Satan oure the Linns."
John Graham of Claverhouse was regarded as a
personal ally of the Evil One, who had shown him the secret of becoming
bullet-proof. But they had prepared a preternatural defiance to leaden shot
only, which becoming known to one in the opposing army, he at the battle of
Killiecrankie discharged from his firelock at the Jacobite leader a silver
button. And thus he fell mortally wounded.
During the months of
February, March, and April 1695, the house of Andrew Jackie, mason at
Ring-croft, in the parish of Rerrick, and Stewartry of Kirkcudbright, was a
scene of commotion. Into the house, by an invisible hand, were thrown stones
and missiles of all sorts. Voices were heard uttering fierce adjurations.
Missives were found scattered about inscribed with blood. Members of the
household were beaten with invisible rods, and dragged about roughly. '1'1he
neighbouring clergy assembled, and in a written narrative certified as to
the strange proceedings. The cause remained undiscovered.
Among the AVodrow MSS. there is the narrative of
a female to whom, in 1701, the devil appeared in different shapes, including
those of a hare, a hog, and a ram. More commonly he became manifest in a
form presenting the, head of a man with the four legs of a beast, or as "a
long-wound corpse with a black face." By casting heavy weights upon the
floor the demon shook the patient's bed; he also chased her from room to
room, and when she refused to surrender her Bible he struck her upon the
head. Men watched, but without detecting any imposture.
The devil employed spiritual agents who were
described by ecclesiastics as "the light infantry of Satan." Of these the
most conspicuous was "the genie." This imaginary being occupied the forests,
and also frequented the air and rivers ; it raised storms and allayed them,
and interfered largely with human affairs. Persons who bore the name of
Tweed were believed to have as an ancestor the genie of the river of that
name. When, in a remote age, some pious individuals at Old Deer, in
Aberdeenshire, began to erect a place of worship, they were surprised to
find the work supernaturally impeded. At length the genie of the district
was heard to exclaim:—
"It is not here, it is not here
That ye're to big the Kirk o' Deer,
But on the tap o' Tillery,
Where many a corpse shall after lie."
The church was accordingly built on a knoll or
small mount, embraced by a bend of the Ugie. In the Macfarlane MSS. there is
an account of a spirit named Lham-dearg which haunted the forest of
Glenmore. Clad like an ancient warrior, he exhibited a bloody hand. To the
combat be challenged all he met. 'Three brothers whom lie compelled to fight
with him died soon afterwards.
A supposed abettor of the Evil One,
water-kelpie, is poetically described as "the angry spirit of the waters."
He assumed the likeness of a small black horse, and in this shape practised
mischief. Frequenting the banks of rivers, he allured strangers to mount
him, and then darted with them into the water, emitting an unearthly laugh.
A place near Loch Vennachar is named Coill-a-chroin,—that is, the wood of
lamentation, — owing to the tradition that a water-kelpie, in the shape of a
pony, having there induced a number of children to mount him, immediately
darted with them into the lake. Water-kelpie was rendered useful to mankind
when his head could be secured by a pair of brauks. According to the legend,
he was branked by the builder of the parish church of St Vigeans, near
Arbroath, and so compelled to drab the large stones used in its
construction. On being rescued from his restraint he evinced a terrible
resentment, and predicted that a minister of St Vigeans would commit
suicide, and that this event would be followed by the fabric of the church
falling upon those who attended the first communion thereafter celebrated.
At the beginning of the eighteenth century as minister of St Vigeans
deprived himself of life, and the parishioners afterwards refused to join in
the communion. lifter many years the incumbent insisted on celebrating the
ordinance, but as he proceeded, the congregation retired from the building,
a few only remaining.
From marine caverns "Shelly-coat" walked forth in gigantic proportions, clad
in a coat of shells which lie kept beneath a rock, and wore curing his
visits to mankind. He destroyed as he went, and the rustling of his coat
quelled the stoutest heart. In Shetland a marine supernatural, known as the
Nuggle, was believed to haunt lochs and streams. In form resembling a
Shetland pony, he had, instead of a tail, a sort of wheel appendage, which,
carefully concealed from the observer, had the art of inducing passers-by to
take a ride on him; when in the manner of water-kelpie, lie cast them into
the water. The Nuggle stopped mills, but in gratifying this mischievous
propensity was checked when a burning branch was dropped into the
shaft-hole. Apart from
the brownie and the elf, there was a supernatural which had its home in hill
centres and in the mountain cave. This was the "brisk," otherwise the Drew
or Trew, which, possessing a figure between a goat and a man, was ordinarily
mischievous, [In northern districts, when a cow was off her food, or if a
calf did not take kindly to chewing the cud, the trew was supposed to have
been exercising a baneful influence. Consequently "a wise woman" was sent
for, who worked up a dough ball of oatmeal, and after placing it in a dog's
mouth compelled the cow or calf to swallow it.] yet, like water-kelpie or
the brownie, might be induced to yield some industrial help. In the "Lady of
the Lake" Sir Walter Scott has celebrated the Urisk in connection with a
copse-clad cavern or hollow, which rests romantically in the mountain of
Benvenue, overhanging the southern bank of Loch Katrine. By the Ettrick
Shepherd is described a supernatural monster which frequented a mountain at
Glen Aven. "Falm," writes the Shepherd, "appears to be no native of this
world, but an occasional visitant, whose intentions are evil and dangerous.
He is only seen about the break of day, and on the highest verge of the
mountain. His head is twice as large as his body, and if any living creature
cross the track over which he has passed before the sun shine upon it,
certain death is the consequence."
In the Isle of Skye, "Gruagach," a sort of
female Urisk, was supposed to linger about sheep-pens and dairies. She beat
with a small wand anyone who refused to supply her daily with a portion of
dairy produce. The milkmaids of the Isle of Trodda propitiated Gruagach by
pouring milk daily into the small cavity of a stone.
To a female syren which lingered on the
mountains of Perthshire belonged the threefold nature of the brownie, the
fairy, and the witch. By her beauty, alluring travellers to follow her, she
drew them to a sequestered spot and there proceeded to slaughter them. On
the tradition of a hunter being destroyed by a Perthshire siren, Sir Walter
Scott founded his ballad of "Glenfinlas."
Supernatural cattle were associated with the
more secluded lochs. In Loch Awe, a water bull had his lair; another was
associated with the depths of Loch Rannoch. These could not be killed save
with silver bullets. A water cow occupied St Mary's Loch in Yarrow. "A
farmer in Bowerhope," writes the Ettrick Shepherd, "once got a breed of her,
which he kept for many years until they multiplied exceedingly, and he never
had any cattle throve so well, until once, on some outrage or disrespect on
the farmer's part towards them, the old clam came out of the lake one
pleasant March evening, and gave such a roar that all the surrounding hills
shook again, Upon Which her progeny, nineteen in number, followed her all
quietly into the loch, and were never more seen."
A notion, which still prevails in Persia,
largely obtained in the Highlands. It was believed that a "wraith," or
tutelary spirit attended every soul from birth to burial. Presenting the
aspects, and wearing the attire of his human charge, the tutelary spirit
accompanied and generally preceded him in all his movements. A protector in
danger he, when death was approaching, conveyed to relatives intimation of
its approach. In the discharge of the last duty the wraith became visible,
appearing in his ward's likeness and wearing his ordinary apparel, or a
snow-white vestment. A
tutelary spirit was occasionally found in the ;lost of an ancestor. To a
note which Sir Walter Scott has appended to "The Antiquary," we are indebted
for the substance of the following narrative:—
Mr R--d, of Rowland, a landowner in the Vale of
Gala, was prosecuted for a large sum, the accumulated arrears of teinds (or
tithes), for which he was said to be indebted to a noble family. Mr R--d was
satisfied that his father had purchased exemption from the titular, but he
was unable, either in his own repositories, or among the papers of those who
had transacted business for his father, to discover any evidence of the
transaction. He therefore deemed a defence useless, and had resolved to ride
to Edinburgh next day to make the best terms in a compromise. He went to
bed, deeply concerned about his expected loss. He slept, and in a dream
conceived that his father, who had many years been dead, was talking «vith
him. The paternal shade announced that lie had actually purchased the teinds,
and that the papers relating to the transaction were in the possession of a
solicitor who had transacted business for him on that occasion only. He
named the solicitor, who still lived. 'If he has forgotten the transaction,'
he added, 'call it to his recolIection by this token, that, when I came to
pay his account, there was difficulty ill getting change for a Portugal
piece of gold, and that we were forced to drink out the balance at a
tavern.' In the morning Mr R--d proceeded to the residence of the solicitor,
whose name had occurred in the dream. He found a very abed gentleman, long
retired from business. At first he could not recollect about the matter, but
the mention of the Portugal piece of gold recalled it to his memory. He made
an immediate search for the papers, and recovered them, so that Mr R--d
carried to Edinburgh the documents necessary to gain the cause which he was
on the verge of losing.
To the chiefs of ancient houses belonged
spiritual guardians of a high order, which remained attached to those under
the cloud of trial, and even when their lands were alienated. To the family
of Shaw of Rothiemurchus was attached a spiritual protector, known as "Bodach-an-Dun,"
or the ghost of the hill. When the Shaws were dispossessed of their family
estate Boclach sung these lines of lamentation:--
"Ho! ro, theidd sin sa chiomachas,
Theidd sinna fhonn's odhige;
'Sged thug iad uainn ar duchas,
Bidh ar duil ri cathair na firinn."
According to the family legend, Bodach continues
to guard the graves and protect the memorial-stones at Rothiemurchus of the
old barons. When death was about to enter the family of the chief of Maclean
the spirit of an ancestor rode round the family mansion three times, shaking
the bridle of his horse.
In the north-western Highlands the peasantry
believe that the "wraith" of the last person whose remains have been buried
in a churchyard continues there to bear watch until on another interment he
is relieved from his charge. On this subject Dr Alexander Stewart writes
thus:- "Sailing past
the beautiful island of St Mungo, in Loch Leven, the burial-place for many
centuries of the people of Nether Lochaber and Glencoe, the following
conversation took place between an old man who managed the sails while we
steered. It was in Gaelic, but the substance we present in English :—`You
were at the funeral on the island the other day, sir?' observed our
companion. 'That I was, John," we answered. `The deceased,' naming him, 'was
a very decent man.' 'He was a fine old Highlander,' he replied, 'and I
believe he was pious.' Donald ,' naming a person we both knew, 'is very ill,
and not likely to long survive.' `I saw him to-day,' we observed, and I fear
you are right. He cannot exist very long.' `Well, sir, it will be a good
thing; for John (the person recently buried); his term of watching will be
short.' 'I do not understand your meaning,' we remarked, with some
curiosity. 'The man is dead and buried; what watching should he have to do?'
Why, sir, don't you know that the spirit of the last person buried in the
island has to keep watch over the graves till the spirit of the next one
buried takes his place?' `I really did not know this,' we replied; `and is
the belief common? Do you personally believe it?' My companion answered,
'Well, sir, it is generally believed; and having always heard that it was
so, I cannot well help believing it too. The spirit who watches is present
day and night. Some people have seen them. My mother once pointed out to me,
when I was a small boy, an appearance as of a flame of light on the island
slowly moving about, and she assured me that it was the watching spirit
going his rounds.' `What particular object has the spirit in watching?' we
asked. `I don't exactly know,' was the answer, 'but he seems to take general
charge of the dead until his successor arrives."'
With some leading events are
apparitions associated. It is related both by Fordun and Boece that in the
year 1285 a ghost, or an appearance which resembled a ghost, danced at a
ball during the festivities which at Jedburgh attended the nuptial
festivities of Alexander III. In his metrical life of Wallace Henry has
represented his hero as having, soon after his slaughter of the traitor
Fawdoun, witnessed his apparition, bearing "hys awne hede in hys hand."
Prior to his expedition which resulted in the disaster of Flodden, James
IV., as he worshipped in St Michael's Church, Linlithgow, at the hour of
vespers, was accosted by a venerable figure with long hair, and clad in a
blue robe bound by a linen girdle. The figure warned him to desist from his
undertaking, under the penalty of being summoned into the eternal world.
About the same period, at the hour of midnight, a spectral figure at the
Market Cross of Edinburgh summoned a muster-roll of the Scottish army to
shortly appear before his master. John Knox relates that James V., not long
previous to his death, saw in vision the apparitions of two persons who in
his service had gone into perdition.
Within the walls of Glammis Castle there is a
haunted chamber, of which the entrance is unknown. And there, according to
the legend, will, up to the day of doom, be performed fearful orgies. For
Alexander Lindsay, fourth Earl of Crawford—"the Tiger Earl," who lived in
the fifteenth century—having, when in the chamber, been advised to abandon a
game at which he was always losing, he refused to do so, adding, with
imprecations, that he would not give up till doomsday. At that instant the
devil appeared, and the chamber and company evanished. And in stormy nights,
when the winds howl drearily around the castle, the doomed gamesters are
supposed to be heard mingling their curses with the blast.
In popular superstition it was a common belief
that the "host of a murdered person continued to haunt the scene of
slaughter, either until the assassin was discovered or the remains had
received Christian burial. A daughter of the Baron of Cromlix, in
Perthshire, having been betrothed to Sir Molise Graham, "the Black Knight of
Kilbryde," permitted him to lead her to a sequestered spot of his forest,
where he basely seduced and slew her. Concealing her remains, he retired to
his castle. Her ghost thereafter haunted him, and after his death it
continued to glide in the forest in a blood-stained robe, and to beckon all
who noticed it to follow. For many years none were venturous enough to
comply, but at length a chieftain of the family undertook, if the spectre
should cross his path, to obey its wishes. His courage was put to trial, for
one dark evening the spectre appeared to him in his garden. Moving forward,
the knight followed. Descending to the bottom of the glen, it pointed to a
particular spot. There the chief caused an excavation to be made, when were
found the remains of the long-deceased Lady Anne, whose disappearance had
heretofore been a mystery. When the remains were interred in a churchyard,
the spectre ceased to appear.
On the 10th June 1754, Duncan Clerk and
Alexander Bain Macdonald were tried in the Justiciary Court on the charge of
murdering Sergeant Arthur Davies. The sergeant, who with a party of men was
stationed in Braemar, disappeared on the 28th September 1749, while
prosecuting solitary sport on the Hill of Christie, in Glencorrie. Long
afterwards Alexander Macpherson, a native of the district, have out that he
had seen the ghost of the deceased, which had directed him to proceed to the
Hill of Christie, there to discover and inter his bones. The ghost, he said,
had appeared to him on two occasions, while on the second it had named Clerk
and Macdonald as the murderers. Macpherson added that he had found the
bones. Having elicited from Macpherson that the apparition talked to him in
Gaelic, the prisoners' counsel remarked that "this was pretty well for the
ghost of an English sergeant," a remark which so influenced the jury that
they overlooked other evidence amounting to legal proof of the guilt of the
prisoners libelled, and brought in a verdict of "not guilty."
In the Hebrides and on the
west coast future events were foreshadowed by spectral appearances. Such a
belief has descended from the Ossianic age. In the poem of "Conlath and
Cutllona," it is said to Toscar in relation to "the ghost of the night," "It
was thy father, O Toscar, and he foresees some death among his race."
Those who had the faculty of witnessing spectral
appearances which boded coming events were styled Taibhsem or vision-seers,
their faculty being known as Taisch or the second sight. Unlike other
pretenders to necromancy, these vision-seers refused to exercise their gifts
for money. Nor of their skill did they speak boastfully. On the contrary,
the Taibhsearr referred to their faculty as an unfortunate possession, owing
to the painful visions with which it was associated. The seventh child of
the same sex born in succession was held to be endowed with the faculty.
During a vision the eyeballs of the seer were
turned upward, and rendered so rigid that, when the vision closed, help was
needed to restore them to ordinary use. And visions occurred without
premonition. A morning vision implied an immediate fulfilment, and a vision
at noon was realised before the close of the day. The later the hour of
vision the more distant was the time of its accomplishment. Certain visions
were not realised till after the lapse of years. The vision of a shroud was
a prognostic of death, its height above the person whose death was foretold
indicating the portion of time to ensue before the event. When the shroud
rose to the middle, the death of the person seen would occur within a year;
when the head was covered, death was near. Other signals may be remarked.
When the seer observed a woman at a man's left hand, she was to become his
wife; when two or three women stood at a man's right hand, these were to be
his wives in succession. The seer could foresee the erection of houses and
the planting of orchards in localities covered with huts and cowhouses. He
foresaw the death of children by remarking a spark of fire falling into the
bosom of those who were to be bereaved while the vision of empty seats in a
household intimated the removal of parents or adults. Visions of funeral
trains were common. At their occurrence the aged seer became pensive, and
the novice was covered with a thick sweat or fell into a swoon. When a seer
was beholding his vision, lie could enable another of the Taibhsear, on
taking him by the hand, to witness similar phenomena.
Not infrequently the faculty of Taisch was
exercised by the household bard, or family minstrel. By Professor Walker, in
his "MS. Life of a Manse Household," is related the following "Sir Archibald
Kennedy, Dart., of Culzean (who died in 1710), retained in his household a
bard who claimed the faculty of interpreting signs. As Sir Archibald's
daughter, Susannah, was with some of her father's family walking in Culzean
Park, a game hawk was observed circling overhead; and when she sportively
threw up something by way of lure, it gently dropped and settled on her
wrist. The seer, who was present, instantly exclaimed) that the owner of the
bird was destined to be Miss Susan's future husband). But the prophecy was
scorned when the silver rings attached to the hawk's feet were examined, and
found to bear the name of the Earl of Eglinton, his lordship being at that
time married to his second wife. In the evening, however, an express arrived
announcing the death of Lady Eglinton, and before the expiration of a
twelvemonth the prediction of the seer was fulfilled. Susannah Kennedy
became Countess of Eglinton in 1709."
In his "Schools and Schoolmasters" Hugh Miller
relates, with a slight comment, a remarkable incident of his childhood. His
father, who was a seaman at Cromarty, was in the exercise of his vocation
sailing at some distance on the coast, but a letter had lately been received
from lain reporting his safety. It was the early winter of 1807, when Mr
Miller had just complete([ his fifth year. The remainder of the narrative we
present iii his own words:-
"Day had not wholly disappeared, but it was fast
posting on to night, and a grey haze spread a neutral tint of dimness over
distant objects, but left the near ones comparatively distinct, when I saw
at the open door, within less than a yard of my breast, as plainly as I ever
saw anything, a dissevered hand and arm stretched towards me. Hand and arm
were apparently those of a female; they bore a livid and sodden appearance,
and directly fronting me, where the body ought to have been, there was only
a blank transparent space, through which I could see the dine forms of the
objects beyond. I was fearfully startled, and ran shrieking to my mother,
telling what I had seen ; and the house-girl, whom she now sent to shut the
door, apparently affected by my terror, also returned frightened, and said
that she too had seen the woman's hand."
To this relation Mr Miller adds, that while the
apparition may have been a momentary affection of the eye, its coincidence
with the probable time of his father's death "seems at least curious."
The metrical chroniclers of Wallace and Bruce
introduce the Highland seer in connection with their heroes. By an assassin
of James I. was consulted one of the fraternity. A vision-seer is alleged to
have foretold the unhappy career and violent death of Charles I. Sir George
Mackenzie, afterwards Lord Tarbet, when sojourning in the Highlands, under a
dread of Cromwell's government, employed a portion of his time in
investigating the nature of the faculty. A narrative of its manifestations
lie communicated to the celebrated Robert Boyle, which, with the
communications of others on the same subject, is included in the "Diary" of
Samuel Pepys. The curious details of the Taisch, contained in John Frazer of
Tyree's "Authentic Instances," appeared in 1707, and in 1716 those of
Martin, in his "Description of the Western Islands." In 1763, Macleod of
Hamir, under the signature of Theophilus Insulanus, published a treatise on
the Second Sight, which in-eluded numerous illustrations of the gift,
industriously collected. In his "Journey to the Hebrides," Dr Samuel
Johnson, in reference to the supposed faculty, refuses to reject the
testimony by which it is supported. By an intelligent literary writer
resident in the Highlands, we are informed that a belief in the second sight
still lingers among the people of the west coast and also of the Hebrides.
The vision-seer is poetically celebrated in the "Lady of the Lake," also in
"Lochiel's Warning." |
