Part 11

The ceremonies of the evening were numerous—such as, ducking for apples in a tub of water, the pulling of kail stocks, the three dishes or “luggies,” the wetting of the shirt sleeve, the sowing of hemp seed, pulling the stalks of corn, throwing the clue of blue yarn into the pit of the kiln, the white of eggs put into a glass of water, reading of fortunes in tea-cups; these and many more were the superstitious ceremonies of Hallowe’en.

Perhaps there is no part of the Highlands of Scotland where the practice of using the flaming torches of Hallowe’en is so much observed, even still, as in the braes of Aberdeenshire. Not later than last year, our Gracious Majesty, no doubt in order to preserve those relics of ancient times, caused these blazing torches to be kindled by the youth of the place, around Balmoral Castle. The torches are considered by the natives to be the means of protecting, not only their farms and other possessions from the ravages of the fairies, but likewise mothers and newly-born infants. While the landed possessions were duly surrounded that evening by the torch-bearers, the dwellings where children had born were encompassed with still greater care, for the safety of the mothers and their young offspring, which the fairies were on the watch to snatch away. The torch-bearers used great care in carrying their fire in the right-hand, and therewith running around their premises from right to left, thus observing the “Deas-iuil,” or the right hand direction. The “Tuath-iuil,” being the left-hand, or wrong direction, would render their precautions entirely abortive. In this manner they protected their properties, and prevented the fairy thieves from snatching away the unbaptised infants from their mothers’ bed, placing in their room their own ugly and deformed children. Martin, in his _History of the Western Isles_, informs us, “That this was considered an effectual means to preserve both the mother and infant from the power of evil spirits, who are ready at such times to do mischief, and sometimes carry away the infants, and return poor, meagre skeletons; and these infants have voracious appetites. In this case it was usual for those who believed that their children were thus taken away, to dig a grave in the fields on quarter-day, and there to lay the fairy-skeleton till next morning, at which time the parents went to the place, where they doubted not to find their own child instead of the skeleton.” They had also, in other localties, recourse to the barbarous charm of burning, with a live coal, the toes of the suffering infant, the supposed changeling. The Fairies were not contented with abstracting handsome children—beautiful maidens and wives sometimes disappeared.

“The Miller of Menstrie,” in Clackmannan, who possessed a charming spouse, had given offence to the fairy court, and was, in consequence, deprived of his fair helpmate. His distress was aggravated by hearing his wife singing in the air—

Oh! Alva woods are bonnie, Tillicoultry hills are fair; But when I think o’ the bonnie braes o’ Menstrie, It mak’s my heart aye sair.

After many attempts to procure her restoration, the miller chanced one day, in riddling some stuff at the mill-door, to use a posture of enchantment, when the spell was dissolved, and the matron fell into his arms. The wife of the Blacksmith of Tullibody was carried up the chimney, the fairies, as they bore her off, singing—

Deidle linkum doddie; We’ve gotten drucken Davie’s wife, The smith o’ Tullibody.

“Those snatched to Fairyland,” says Dr. Buchan,[10] “might be recovered within a year and a day, but the spell for the recovery was only potent when the fairies made, on Hallowe’en, their annual procession.” Sir Walter Scott relates the following:—“The wife of a Lothian farmer had been watched by the fairies. During the year of probation, she had repeatedly appeared on Sundays in the midst of her children, combing their hair. On one of these occasions she was accosted by her husband, when she instructed him how to rescue her at the next Hallowe’en procession. The farmer conned his lesson carefully, and, on the appointed day, proceeded to a plot of furze to await the arrival of the procession. It came, but the ringing of the fairy bridles so confused him, that the train passed ere he could sufficiently recover himself to use the intended spell. The unearthly laugh of the abductors, and the passionate lamentations of his wife informed him that she was lost to him for ever.”

“A woman,” says Dr. Buchan, “who had been conveyed to fairyland, was warned by one she had formerly known as a mortal, to avoid eating and drinking with her new friends for a certain period. She obeyed, and when the time expired, she found herself on earth restored to the society of mankind.”

A matron on another occasion was carried to fairyland to nurse her new-born child, which had been previously abducted. She had not been long in her enchanted dwelling when she furtively anointed an eye with the contents of a boiling cauldron. She now discovered that what had previously seemed a gorgeous palace, was, in reality, a gloomy cavern. She was dismissed, but one of the wicked wights, when she demanded her child, spat in her eye, and extinguished its light for ever.

About the middle of last century, a clergyman at Kirkmichael, Perthshire, whose faith was more regulated by the scepticism of philosophy, than the credulity of superstition, would not be prevailed upon to yield his assent to the opinion of the times. At length, however, he felt from experience that he doubted what he ought to have believed. One night, as he was returning home at a late hour, from a meeting of Presbytery, and the customary dinner which followed, he was seized by the fairies, and carried aloft into the air. Through fields of ether and fleecy cloud he journeyed many a mile, descrying the earth far distant below him, and no bigger than a nut-shell. Being thus sufficiently convinced of the reality of their existence, they let him down at the door of his own house, where he afterwards often recited to the wondering circle, the marvellous tale of his adventure. Some people will believe that “spirits” of a different sort had a little to do with the worthy minister’s conviction, and that his “ain gude grey mare” had more to do with bringing him to his own door than the fairies.

It is difficult to describe a Hallowe’en as enjoyed by a family circle in olden times. An eye-witness has given the following account of it:—“When I entered the house, the tide of enjoyment was rolling on in full career. I listened and thought I heard an unusual noise in the apartment immediately above. The noise, however, was by no means of an alarming kind. It appeared to be the obstreperous romping of a parcel of youngsters. I found that the ladies of the house had brought together a number of young friends to burn nuts and duck for apples. I ascertained that previous to my appearance, they had already gone through the greater part of the ceremonies of the evening. They had pulled stocks, burnt nuts, and were now collected with earnest and somewhat awe-stricken faces, round a table on which stood two or three wine-glasses full of pure water. They were, in fact, about to commence the ceremony of dropping the egg—a ceremony which is performed by puncturing a fresh egg with a pin, when the person whose destiny is to be read holds it over a glass of pure water, into which he allows a few drops from the egg to fall. The glass is then held up to the candle, and some important event in the future life of the inquirer is found exhibited hieroglyphically in the glass,—the egg droppings assuming an endless variety of shapes, in which the skilful in these matters discover a resemblance to things, which, by association, clearly point out coming circumstances and events. All this was done by an old, weird sybil, who had been invited for the special purpose of reading to the young folks the various signs and indications of this privileged right. We all tried our fortunes after the most approved manner of egg-dropping, by the direction of the withered sybil already alluded to, and who, indeed, looked the very ‘beau ideal’ of a witch, or fortune-teller of coming events. She was old, shrivelled, and haggard—had a shrill, sharp voice, and was withal marvellously loquacious. She seemed to be deeply in earnest, and to be strongly impressed with the solemnities which were going forward, and was more than once highly displeased with what she considered our irreverence for these matters, and the unbecoming and ill-timed levity with which we heard each other’s fortunes foretold. We had all now tried our luck, with various results, but there was one young gentleman, who, I thought, seemed rather disinclined to go through the ceremony—and indeed, he finally endeavoured to back out altogether by a forced joke. We all urged him on, however, and at length fairly drove him to the experiment. ‘Come awa, come awa, my bonny man,—excuse me for speaking that way, but ye ken I’ve kent ye sin ye was a bairn, and hae dandled ye mony a time on my knee. Come awa, and lat’s see what luck is to be yours. I’m sure it’ll be gowd in goppins, and true love to brook it—a bonnie lady wi’ a bonnier tocher.’ Whilst the old woman was speaking, the youth, having advanced close to the table, was in the act of dropping, with rather an unsteady hand, the egg into the glass. This done: ‘Here Janet,’ he said, with an affected laugh, and at the same time handing the glass to her across the table—‘Now, give me all the good things of this life, let not one be awanting on your peril.’ Well, all awaited in silence the announcement of our friend’s future fortune, as we felt a degree of interest, nay of awe, stealing in upon us, which gradually allayed the light spirit with which we had entered the apartment. The old woman had now gently raised the glass between her eye and the candle, and having peered through it for a second—‘Eh! gude guide us, Sirs,’ she exclaimed, ‘Gude guide us, what’s this we hae here; but it canna be, it canna be, let me see,’ and she looked with an increased intensity at the fatal signs. ‘Ay! ay!’ she said again, ‘it’s but owre true, my bairn, my bairn,’ she added, and laying down the glass on the table. ‘Are ye sure it was your glass ye gae me?’ ‘Sure enough, Janet, sure enough, what’s all this fuss about?’ ‘What is it, Janet, what is’t, what is’t?’ now burst from both old and young, all being wound up to a pitch of the most intense interest to know what was that fate which Janet’s expressions so particularly and fearfully hinted at. ‘I insist on knowing,’ said the young gentleman, striking his hand on the table with a sort of good-natured energy, for he affected to be laughing at the time. ‘I insist upon it,’ he said, ‘for the edification of all present. Come then, Janet, any thing you like short of premature death and ruin, and crossed love.’ ‘But it’s short o’ neither, my bairn! Alas! it’s short o’ neither,’ said the old woman gravely and seriously. ‘It’s indeed short o’ neither—there’s a winding sheet there wi’ a fearful rent in it, and that ye ken, betokens a violent death; there’s a’—here, perceiving that things were getting rather serious, I suddenly burst in with an affected shout of hilarity, overturned the glass, talked loudly and obstreperously, and insisted upon our adjourning to the apartment we had left. So, with a wild, but assumed glee, we hurriedly descended to the room below.

“We endeavoured to enjoy ourselves, but still a weight seemed to have been laid upon the spirits of us all, which nothing could remove. We all felt the absurdity of permitting such a frivolous circumstance as the egg-dropping to depress us, but we could not hide from ourselves the fact that it had depressed us, and more particularly so, as our excellent host—a kind-hearted youth of twenty-three—had evidently taken the sybil’s vaticinations too severely to heart. Under this feeling, and after our kind host had made such ineffectual attempts to restore the gaiety of the evening, the party broke up, each went his own way, and I retired to bed. ‘Confound that old hag,’ said my friend, just as I was about to part with him for the night; ‘confound her, she has spoiled our evening’s enjoyment with her nonsense. Wasn’t it evident,’ he said, ‘that our friends were damped by the fooleries up-stairs?’ I said, avoiding a direct answer, ‘that we had spent a very pleasant night, and if there was any feeling of the kind he alluded to, a night’s sleep would entirely remove it.’ I met my friend and his aunts next morning at breakfast, where he more than once alluded to the circumstance during our meal; and indeed fairly allowed that, in despite of the contempt with which he viewed such things, he could not help the idea of the rent winding-sheet still retaining its hold on his imagination.

“It will serve no purpose to relate the history of this unfortunate youth. The impression of the old hag’s prediction never left him, but increased in intensity as some years passed on. He became addicted to intemperate habits, and utterly heedless of his worldly affairs. He squandered his patrimonial estate, and ruined his aged aunts, who lived with him. Ultimately, he wandered in beggary to a neighbouring city, and frequented the lowest haunts of dissipation, where he was found by a friend, who had gone in search of him, but found exactly an hour after he had swallowed a vial of laudanum. He opened his eyes, and knew his friend, who had just procured a surgeon; but all in vain. His last words were—‘Oh! the winding sheet; the rent winding-sheet!’ and in less than two hours, he gently expired.”

There are instances of the minds of some having been unhinged through the influence of undue credulity in certain practices of this nature. It has frequently happened besides, that personal injury has been inflicted, unintentionally no doubt, by the frolics and fooleries of that evening. The throwing of cabbage runts and large round turnips down the “lums,” or chimneys of the cottars’ dwellings, have often struck violently upon the family group around the cosy ingle, and inflicted serious injuries. The ceremony of throwing the clue of blue yarn into the pit of the kiln is one that has been attended with unhappy results. Kilns for drying corn are generally erected in lonely places, apart from the other dwellings, owing to their liability to catch fire. On the other hand, the kiln-logies or pits, are dreary, dark, deep receptacles, of circular form, narrow below and wide above, like hollow cones inverted. During the romping frivolities of the domestic circle in performing as many of the games as they can, lots are cast as to the maiden who must resort to the kiln at the dark hour of midnight, with her clue of blue thread in her hand, to meet with her sweetheart, or to hear his name. The selected “lass” must go, and go alone, however dark and stormy the night. It requires no small fortitude to enter the damp, dark kiln, to climb to the upper ridge of the kiln-logie, and to sit in that weird position in utter darkness. By this time, however, a number of the young men, unknown to the girl, had resorted to the kiln, and concealed themselves in and around the place. The girl, with palpitating heart cast her clue in to the kiln-logie, retaining the end of the thread in her hand, and exclaiming, with tremulous voice, “Co e sud th’air ceann mo ròpain?” (Who is there at the end of my rope or thread?) Some of the youths, hidden in the kiln, would enter the aperture or fire-place below, lay hold of the clue in the pit, and cry with a feigned-unnatural voice, “I am here, what want ye with me?” “Who art thou, and what thy name, bold swain?” The replies to this query were various. Some said that they were the girl’s sweetheart, others, that they were wizards or beings of the supernatural order. Some even wickedly feigned to be the prince of darkness, when the preconcerted shrieking and howling of the hidden fellows so terrified the trembling young female above, as to render her a helpless maniac for life.

SACRED WELLS AND LOCHS.—The veneration that has been paid for ages to “Sacred Wells,” and the confidence placed in their charms all over the kingdom for the curing of diseases, both mental and bodily, falls next to be noticed. It appears of old that if a well had a peculiar situation, if its waters were bright and clear, it was dedicated to some tutelary saint, by honouring it with his name. Thus we have St. Fillan’s, St. Conel’s, St. Catherine’s, St. Bernard’s, St. Cuthbert’s wells, and a host of others in Scotland. We have hundreds of holy wells in England, such as St. Chad’s, St. John’s, St. Mary’s, St. Madern’s wells, all remarkable for something. We have St. Winifred’s holy well in Flintshire, the most famous in the three kingdoms, at whose shrine Geraldus Cambrensis offered his devotions in the twelfth century. The vast majority of holy wells were frequented for any disease, while some wells were visited for special ailments, for the cure of which they had been celebrated. St. Tegla’s well was patronised by sufferers from the falling sickness; St. John’s, Balmanno, Kincardineshire, by rickety children, and sore eyes. The waters of Trinity Gask, Perthshire, will render all baptised therein proof against every plague. In the Island of St. Kilda there are two wells—“Tobar nam buadh” (the spring of virtues), celebrated for deafness, and “Tobar a’ chleirich” (the clerk’s well)—which, though covered twice a day by the sea, never becomes brackish. At Kirkden, in Angus, there is a well said to cure all sores, by mere washing, after the applications of skilled physicians had proved ineffectual. But by far the most interesting wells in this country are those formerly resorted to for the cure of insanity. Of these may be mentioned St Fillan’s well, near Tyndrum, Perthshire, as well as St. Nun’s celebrated fountain in Cornwall. The curing process at St. Fillan’s may be described as a specimen. The lunatics were first plunged into the water, wherein they were tumbled and tossed about rather roughly. They were then carried into the adjacent Chapel of St. Fillan’s and there secured with ropes, tied in a special way. A celebrated bell, which has a history of its own, was then placed with great solemnity on the patient’s head. There the poor creature was left all night alone in the dreary chapel, and, if in the morning he was found unloosed, hopes were entertained that he would recover his reason, but the case was hopeless if found still in his bonds. Very frequently the patients were released from the bonds and tormentors by death, caused by the cold, and all the cruelties inflicted upon them. St. Catherine’s well, near Edinburgh, was regarded in olden times with great awe, because there appeared a black substance on its surface which could be set on fire. This dark-looking, greasy substance or oil, was supposed to proceed from the strata of coal underneath, and it was believed to cure all sorts of cutaneous diseases. In the north end of Skye, and a little beneath the towering cliffs of the far-famed Quiraing, there is a conflux of pure, fresh-water springs, which form a small elliptical pond of considerable depth. It is a beautiful spot, pleasantly hemmed in with shrubs and bushes. It is called “Loch Sianta,” or the Holy Lake. Owing to the natural beauty of this little Hebridean Siloam, the natives conceived it to be favoured with its divinity, to whom, in the days of darkness and superstition, they were extremely punctual in making offerings of various kinds. Invalids resorted thither, drank of its waters, washed themselves therein, and received cures thereby for their mental and bodily ailments. These superstitions have, however, long ceased, and Loch Sianta, though beautiful as ever, has lost its ancient charms in this more enlightened age. On the first Sunday of May (old style) the well at “Creagag” or Craigie, in Munlochy Bay, was believed to possess powerful charms against diseases, witchcraft, fairies and such like. For weeks before the time, old and young prepared for their pilgrimage to this well. All behoved to bring their offerings. Coloured threads and rags of cloth were brought in thousands, and hung upon the rocks and brushwood, as propitiatory gifts to the saint of the healing waters. Even in St. Kilda the divinities of “Tobar nam buadh” and “Tobar a’ chleirich” had to be propitiated by offerings, in the shape of shells, pins, needles, pebbles, coins, or rags, otherwise their tutelary saint would be inexorable. So common, indeed, was this habit, that at the Rugwell, near Newcastle, the shrubs and bushes near the spring were densely covered with rags. And many of my readers are old enough to have seen crowds of the good citizens of the Highland Capital flocking on a May morn eastward to the well at Culloden to taste of its waters, and to cover with their offerings of rags the branches of the surrounding trees. There is a place beyond Kessock Ferry, near the point of Kilmuir, called “Craigie-How,” where there is a cave close to the sea-beach. In this cave a little water falls down from the roof in drops on the stones below. These drops are to this day considered a complete cure for deafness, if properly applied. The patient lies down, and lays his head on the flags, and lets the water fall first into the one ear and then into the other. After some formalities are gone through, the patient rises, and the deafness is believed to be gone!

Loch Maree also has its Sacred well. The scenery of this part of Gairloch, in Ross-shire, is unsurpassed, and perhaps rarely, if at all equalled, by that of any other quarter of the kingdom. The mountains which surround Loch Maree are of great height, and of beautifully characterised outline. Their lofty, jagged, serrated peaks, like Macbeth’s witches, “so withered and so wild in their attire,” present the finest specimens of the grand and picturesque to be met with anywhere. The gigantic Slioch (Sliabhach) towering to a height of more than 4000 feet, is seen from afar, even from the remotest of the Northern Hebrides. Within the bosom of these mountains lies enshrined the far-famed Loch Maree, with its many wooded islets, so varied in size and so different in appearance. About twenty-seven of these lie in a cluster near the middle of the lake (opposite the Loch Maree Hotel), which is eighteen miles in length, and two in average breadth.