Superstitions of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland

Two selected extracts from John Gregorson Campbell's Superstitions of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland and Witchcraft and Second Sight in the Highlands and Islands. These two works, first published in 1900 and 1902, are collected and edited with a commentary by Ronald Black in The Gaelic Otherworld, published by Birlinn.

By John Gregorson Campbell

The object aimed at in the following pages is to put before the reader a statement, as complete and accurate as the writer can attain to, of the Superstitions and Antiquities of the Scottish Highlands and Islands. In other words, the writer has endeavoured to gather full materials relating to that subject, and to arrange them in a form that many prove of some scientific value.

In pursuit of this object, it has been deemed advisable to derive information solely from oral sources. Books have been purposely avoided as authorities, and a rule has been laid down, and strictly adhered to, not to accept any statement in print regarding a Highland belief, unless also found current among the people. In the few books there are, having any reference to Gaelic lore, the statements have been so frequently found at variance with popular beliefs that this rule has been a necessity. There are a few honourable exceptions, but in general what is to be found in print on this subject is not trustworthy.

A want of acquaintance with the Gaelic language or with Highland feelings and modes of thought, is usually the cause of error. The writers think in English, and are not careful to eliminate from their statements thoughts derived from English or classical literature, or to keep from confusing with Celtic beliefs ideas derived from foreign sources, and from analogous creeds existing elsewhere. This gives an unconscious tinge to their statements, and (what is more to be regretted) sometimes makes them full up with extraneous and foreign elements what seems to them gaps or blanks in beliefs they but imperfectly understand.

Introductory

The term bòcan (pronounced baucan) is a general name for terrifying objects seen at night and taken to be supernatural - bugbears, ghosts, apparitions, goblins, etc., in all their variety. The word conveys as much the idea of fright in the observer as of anything hurtful or violent in the object itself. It is derived from bòc, to come in a swelling and resistless flood, not an unapt description of the manner in which fear takes possession of its victims.

Any object indistinctly seen may prove a hobgoblin of this kind. It may be merely a neighbour playing pranks by going about in a white sheet, a stray dog, a bush waving and sighing in the night wind, or even a peat-stack looking large in the imperfect light. There is a story of a man on Loch Rannoch-side who fought a bush in mistake for a ghost in a hollow which had an evil name for being haunted. The conflict continued until dawn, when he was found exhausted, scratched and bleeding.

At the bottom of a dell or hollow through which the public road lies, in the island of Islay, there was a gate across the road bearing the above name, which means 'the Beard Gateway'. At this place things unearthly were encountered after dark. One night a man saw an indistinct object coming towards him. He could give no account of it, but that its mouth was wide open as if to devour him, and that from the width of its gape he could see its lungs (sgamhan) down its throat. He was accompanied, fortunately, by a large Newfoundland dog, which rushed between his legs at the 'thing', and a terrific fight ensued. He ran away home, leaving them at it. In the morning the dog came without any hair on its body, and shortly after its return expired.

About the middle of February a party was coming home from the market held on the Imire Còmhnard ('Level Ridge') at Ballygrant ('Ugly Town'). Before parting they entered a roadside inn. One of them, Ewen MacCorkindale, had, after leaving, to pass through the Beard Gateway and the haunted dell. His companions made fun of him, and asked him if he was not afraid of the bodach (the 'carle' or 'cold man') who haunted the dell. Out of foolhardiness Ewen proposed 'the health of the bodach (the old man), and let the cailleach (the old wife) go to the dogs'.

When he reached the haunted spot, two apparitions - an old man and an old woman - met him. The old woman endeavoured to attack him, but the old man kept her off, and ever after, at every opportunity, the same scene was rehearsed - the old wife attacked him and the old man defended him. The latter also told him to go to a smithy in Ireland (others say to two brothers in Cantyre) and get a dirk made, and as long as he kept this on his person the old woman would not venture to attack him. The dirk bent three times in the making, and from its possession Ewen acquired the title of Eoghan na Biodaig ('Ewen of the Dirk').

As he was working one evening by moonlight in the harvest field, he left the dirk on a stook of corn along with his vest. The carlin wife got between him and the dirk and gave him such a squeeze that he put out three mouthfuls of blood. The bodach came, but too late, to his rescue. It, however, told him that if he survived till cock-crowing five years would be added to his life. Ewen woke up now and then to ask if the cock crew yet, but when it did it was too late.

Very likely the poor man died of some rupture or heart disease. The dirk was preserved by his son.

The number of these (resembling Luideag) seen about fords or or bridges and near the public road in lonely places, as has been already said, are numberless. Every unusual sight and sound in the locality which has the name of being haunted becomes a goblin to the timorous, and one of the most tiresome forms of ghost stories is how the narrator was nearly frightened out of his wits - the quantity of which is not mentioned - by a horse (standing with outstretched neck, and its head towards him which he mistook for a gigantic human figure), by a white he-goat in the face of a rock, the plaintive cries of an owl, etc., etc.

Most ghosts, however, are dependent not so much on the imagination of the individual spectator as on accumulated rumours, and their explanation is to be sought in men's love of the marvellous and tendency to exaggeration. On the high road leading from the Wood of Nant (Coill' an Eannd) to Kilchrenan on Lochaweside, two or three summers ago, the traveller was met by a dark shadow which passed him without his knowing how. On looking after him, he again saw the shadow, but this time moving away, and a little man in its centre, growing less as the shadow moved off. The little man was known as Bodach Beag Chill a' Chreunain.

About the same time a ghost haunted the neighbourhood of Inveraray, and caused great annoyance to the post and others travelling late. A man had a tussle with a ghost at Uchdan a' Bhiorain Duibh in Appin, and said it felt in his arms like a bag of wool. Phantom men were to be seen at Uchdan na Dubhaig above Balachulish; at Ath-Flèodair, a ford near Loch Maddy in Uist, 'things' are perpetually seen, and it takes a vary courageous man to go from Potree home to Braes in Skye after dark. A mile above the manse, where the road is most lonely, and near the top of a gradual ascent, sounds of throttling are heard and dark moving objects are seen.

In the island of Coll, the top of the ascent above Grisipol had at one time an evil reputation as a haunted spot. At the summit of the pass there is a white round rock called Cnoc Stoirr. One night a man on his way to the west end of Coll reached the place about midnight, as was joined by a man on horseback. The rider said not a word, and accompanied him for near three miles to the 'Round House' (as a house built for the accommodation of the farm-servants of Breacacha Castle was called). Whenever he attempted to enter any of the houses on the way, the silent horseman came between him and the house and prevented him. When they came to the Round House the cock crew, and the horseman disappeared over the gate in a flame of fire. The man was lifted into the house, pouring with sweat and going off in fainting fits.

In Glen Lyon in Perthshire there is a village called Caisle, and near it a ford (now a bridge) and ravine called Easa Chaisle. In the early part of the present century, clods and stones were thrown by unseen hands at parties crossing this ford at night. At last no-one would venture to cross. A harum-scarum gentleman of the neighbourhood, popularly looked upon as an unbeliever and a man without fear of God or man, crossed one night, and the clods as usual began to fly about him. He cried out, "In the name of God I defy all from the pit!" - and on saying this a mysterious sound passed away up the ravine, and clod-throwing at the place was never afterwards heard of.

The district now forming the parishes of Kilmartin and Kilmichael, at the west end of the Crinan Canal, is known in the neighbourhood as Argyle (Earra-Ghaidheal), probably from a Celtic colony from Ireland having settled there first. The people, for instance, of Loch Aweside say of a person going down past Ford that he is going down to Argyle. In course of time the name has been extended to the county.

The public road leading through the district was once infested by a ghost which caused considerable terror to the inhabitants. A person was got to lay it. He met the ghost and exorcised it in the name of Peter and Paul and John and all the most powerful saints, but it never moved. As last he called out peremptorily, "In the name of the duke of Argyle, I tell you go get out of there immediately!"

The ghost disappeared at once, and was never seen again.

(From pages 291 to 292)