CHAPTER X.

DREAMS AND PROPHECIES.

Dreams (_Bruadar_) have everywhere been laid hold of by superstition as indications of what is passing at a distance or of what is to occur, and, considering the vast numbers of dreams there are, it would be matter of surprise, if a sufficient number did not prove so like some remote or subsequent event, interesting to the dreamer, as to keep the belief alive. On a low calculation, a fourth of the population dream every night, and in the course of a year, the number of dreams in a district must be incredible. They are generally about things that have been, or are, causes of anxiety, or otherwise occupied men’s waking thoughts. “A dream cometh through the multitude of business,” Solomon says, and a Gaelic proverb says with equal truth “An old wife’s dream is according to her inclination” (_Aisling caillich mas a dùrachd_). Its character can sometimes be traced directly to the health or position of the body, but in other cases, it seems to depend on the uncontrolled association of ideas. Out of the numberless phantasies that arise there must surely be many that the imagination can without violence convert into forebodings and premonitions.

To dream of raw meat indicates impending trouble; eggs mean gossip and scandal; herring, snow; meal, earth; a grey horse, the sea. To dream of women is unlucky; and of the dead, that they are not at rest. In the Hebrides, a horse is supposed to have reference to the Clan Mac Leod. The surname of horses is Mac Leod, as the Coll bard said to the Skye bard:

“Often rode I with my bridle, The race you and your wife belong to.”[72]

In some districts horses meant the Macgnanean, and a white horse, a letter.

_Prophecies (Fàisneachd)._—In Argyllshire and Perthshire, the celebrated Thomas the Rhymer (_Tòmas Reuvair, T. Réim_) is as well known as in the Lowlands of Scotland. He is commonly called “the son of the dead woman” (_mac na mna mairbh_), but the accounts vary as to the cause of this name. One account says, he was, like Julius Caesar, taken out through his mother’s side, immediately after her death; another, that the cry of the child was heard in the mother’s tomb after her burial, and on the grave being opened Thomas was found in the coffin. A third account says, that a woman, whose husband had been cut in four pieces, engaged a tailor, at the price of the surrender of her person, to sew the pieces together again. He did so in two hours time. Some time after the woman died and was buried. Subsequently, she met the tailor at night, and leading him to her tomb, the child was found there. Both the Highland and Lowland accounts agree that Thomas’s gift of prophecy was given him by a Fairy sweetheart, that he is at present among the Fairies, and will yet come back.

The Highland tradition is, that Thomas is in Dunbuck hill (_Dùn buic_) near Dunbarton. The last person that entered that hill found him resting on his elbow, with his hand below his head. He asked, “Is it time?” and the man fled. In the outer Hebrides he is said to be in Tom-na-heurich hill,[73] near Inverness. Hence MacCodrum, the Uist bard, says:

“When the hosts of Tomnaheurich come, Who should rise first but Thomas?”[74]

He attends every market on the look-out for suitable horses, as the Fairies in the north of Ireland attend to steal linen and other goods, exposed for sale. It is only horses with certain characteristics that he will take. At present he wants but two, some say only one, a yellow foal with a white forehead (_searrach blàr buidhe_). The other is to be a white horse that has got “three March, three May, and three August months of its mother’s milk” (_trì Màirt, trì Màigh, agus trì Iuchara ’bhainne mhàthar_); and in Mull they say, one of the horses is to be from the meadow of Kengharair in that island. When his complement is made up he will become visible, and a great battle will be fought on the Clyde.

“When Thomas comes with his horses, The day of spoils will be on the Clyde. Nine thousand good men will be slain, And a new king will be set on the throne.”[75]

You may walk across the Clyde, the prophecy goes on to relate, on men’s bodies, and the miller of Partick Mill (_Muilionn Phearaig_), who is to be a man with seven fingers, will grind for two hours with blood instead of water. After that, sixteen ladies will follow after one lame tailor,[76] a prophecy copied from Isaiah iv. 1. A stone in the Clyde was pointed out as one, on which a bird (_bigein_) would perch and drink its full of blood, without bending its head, but the River Trustees have blasted it out of the way that the prophecy may not come true. The same prophecy, with slight variation, has been transferred to Blair Athole in Perthshire. “When the white cows come to Blair, the wheel of Blair Mill will turn round seven times with people’s blood.”[77] The writer was told that the Duke of Athole brought white cattle to Blair more than fifteen years ago, but nothing extraordinary happened.

Other prophecies, ascribed to the Rhymer, are, “the sheep’s skull will make the plough useless,” “the south sea will come upon the north sea,” and “Scotland will be in white bands, and a lump of gold will be at the bottom of every glen.”[78] The former has received its fulfilment in the desolation caused by the extension of sheep farms, the second in the making of the Caledonian canal, and the last in the increase of highroads and houses.

In the North Highlands, prophecies of this kind are ascribed to _Coineach Odhar_ (_i.e._ Dun Kenneth), a native of Ross-shire, whose name is hardly known in Argyllshire. He acquired his prophetic gift from the possession of a stone, which he found in a raven’s nest. He first found a raven’s nest with eggs in it. These he took home and boiled. He then took them back to the nest, with a view to finding out how long the bird would sit before it despaired of hatching them. He found a stone in the nest before him, and its possession was the secret of his oracular gifts. When this became known an attempt was made to take the stone from him, but he threw it out in a loch, where it still lies.

He prophesied that “the raven will drink its fill of men’s blood from off the ground, on the top of the High Stone in Uig,”[79] a place in Skye. The High Stone is on a mountain’s brow, and it is ominous of the fulfilment of the prophecy, that it has fallen on its side. Of the Well of Ta, at _Cill-a-chrò_ in Strath, in the same island, he said:

“Thou well of Ta, and well of Ta, Well where battle shall be fought, And the bones of growing men, Will strew the white beach of Laoras; And Lachlan of the three Lachlans be slain Early, early, At the well of Ta.”[80]

In Harris a cock will crow on the very day on which it is hatched, and a white calf, without a single black hair, will be born, both which remarkable events have, it is said, occurred. A certain large stone will roll up the hill, turning over three times, and the marks of it having done so, and the proof of the prophecy, are still to be seen. On the top of a high stone in Scaristavor parks,[81] the raven will drink its fill of men’s blood, and the tide of battle will be turned back by Norman of the three Normans (_Tormod nan trì Tormoidean_) at the Steps of Tarbert (_Càthaichean an Tairbeart_).[82]

_The Lady of Lawers._—Of similar fame for her prophetic gifts was the Lady of Lawers (_Bantighearna Lathuir_), one of the Breadalbane family, married to Campbell of Lawers. Her prophecies relate to the house and lands of Breadalbane, and are written, it is believed, in a book shaped like a barrel, and secured with twelve iron hoops or clasps in the charter room of Taymouth Castle. This book is called ‘The Red Book of Balloch.’

An old white horse will yet take the lineal heirs of Taymouth (or, according to another version, the last Breadalbane Campbells) across Tyndrum Cairn. When she said this there were thirty sons in the family, but soon after twenty-five of them were slain in the battle at _Sron-a-chlachair_ near Killin (_Cill-Fhinn_).

If the top stone were ever put on Lawers Church no word uttered by her would ever come true, and when the red cairn on Ben Lawers fell the church would split. In the same year that the cairn, built by the sappers and miners on Ben Lawers, fell, the Disruption in the Church of Scotland took place.

“A mill will be on every streamlet, A plough in every boy’s hand, The two sides of Loch Tay in kail gardens; The sheep’s skull will make the plough useless, And the goose’s feathers drive their memories from men.”[83]

This was to happen in the time of “John of the three Johns, the worst John that ever was, and there will be no good till Duncan comes.”

A stone called the ‘Boar Stone’ (_Clach an Tuirc_), a boulder of some two or three hundred tons in a meadow near Loch Tay, will topple over when a strange heir comes to Taymouth, and the house will be at its height of honour when the face of a certain rock is concealed by wood.