AUGURY.[68]
The anxiety of men to know the future, the issue of their labours,
and the destinies awaiting them, makes them ready listeners to the
suggestions of fancy, and an easy prey to deception. The mind eagerly
lays hold on anything that professes to throw light on the subject of
its anxiety, and men are willing victims to their own hopes and fears.
Where all is dark and inscrutable, deception and delusion are easy, and
hence augury of all kinds, omens, premonitions, divinations, have ever
exercised a noticeable power over the human mind.
The ordinary manner which superstition takes to forecast the future is
to look upon chance natural appearances under certain circumstances as
indications of the character, favourable or unfavourable, of the event
about which the mind is anxious. Any appearance in nature, animate or
inanimate, can thus be made an omen of, and an inference be drawn from
it of impending good or bad fortune. If it be gloomy, forbidding,
awkward, or unpleasant, it is an unlucky omen, and the subsequent
event, with which the mind associates it, will be unfavourable, but
if pleasant, then it is a good omen, and prognosticates pleasant
occurrences.
Omens which proceed upon a similarity of character between the
prognostic and its fulfilment are easy of interpretation. There
are other omens which have no connection, natural, possible, or
conceivable, with the impending event, and of which consequently
the meaning is occult, known only to people of skill instructed in
their interpretation. These probably had their origin in one or two
accidental coincidences. For instance, if the appearance of a fox is
to be taken as an omen, it will naturally be taken as a bad sign,
the stinking brute can indicate nothing favourable; but no amount of
sagacity will teach a person that an itching in the point of his nose
prognosticates the receipt of important news, or the cuckoo calling
on the house-top the death of one of the inmates within the year. His
utmost acuteness will fail to find in a shoulder-blade any indication
of destiny, or any prophetic meaning in the sediment of a cup of tea.
The meaning of these is a mystery to the uninitiated, and it is easy
to see how they might be reduced to a system and lead to the wildest
delusions of fortune-telling.
Everything a Highlander of the old school set about, from the most
trifling to the most important, was under the influence of omens. When
he went to fish, to catch his horse in the hill, to sell or buy at the
market, to ask a loan from his neighbour, or whatever else he left home
to do, he looked about for a sign of the success of his undertaking,
and, if the omen were unpropitious, returned home. He knew his journey
would be of no avail. He consulted mystagogues as to his fate, and at
the proper seasons looked anxiously for the signs of his luck. Like
the rest of mankind, he was, by means of these, pleased or depressed
in anticipation of events that were never to occur. Hence the saying,
“Take a good omen as your omen, and you will be happy.”
Probably the Greek μαντεία, prediction by an oracle, is
cognate to the Gaelic _manadh_, a foretoken, anything from which a
prediction can be drawn. Both among Greeks and Celts a great number of
omens were taken from birds.
As already mentioned, it is a bad sign of a person’s luck during the
day that he should rise from bed on his left hand, wash himself with
water in which eggs have been boiled, or the cakes for his breakfast
should frequently break in the baking, or fall backwards. The coming
evil can be averted in the latter case by giving plenty of ‘butter
without asking’ (_Im gun iarraidh_) with the cakes. Indeed, ‘butter
unasked for’ is of sovereign value as an omen of luck. A cake spread
with it, given to fishermen, secures a good day’s fishing. It is
reckoned good in diseases, particularly measles, and a most excellent
omen for people going on a journey. Its not being given to Hugh of the
Little Head, on the morning of his last battle, was followed by his
losing the battle and his life.
Omens are particularly to be looked for at the outset of a journey. If
the first animal seen by the traveller have its back towards him, or
he meet a sheep or a pig, or any unclean animal, or hear the shrill
cry of the curlew, or see a heron, or he himself fall backward, or his
walking-stick fall on the road, or he have to turn back for anything he
has forgot, he may as well stay at home that day; his journey will not
prosper. A serpent, a rat, or a mouse is unlucky unless killed, but if
killed becomes a good omen. If the face of the animal be towards one,
even in the case of unlucky animals, the omen becomes less inauspicious.
It is of great importance what person is first met. Women are unlucky,
and some men are the most unfortunate omen that can be encountered.
These are called _droch còmhalaichean_, _i.e._ bad people to meet,
and it was told of a man in Skye, that to avoid the mischance of
encountering one of them when setting out on a journey, he sent
one of his own family to meet him. If he met any other he returned
home. In a village in Ayrshire there are three persons noted for
being inauspicious to meet, and fishermen (upon whom as a class this
superstition has a strong hold) are much dissatisfied at meeting any
of them. One of them is not so bad if he puts his hand to his face in
a manner peculiar to him. It is inauspicious to meet a person from the
same village as oneself, or a man with his head bare, or a man going
to pay rent. Old people going to pay rent, therefore, took care to go
away unobserved. A plain-soled person is unlucky, but the evil omen in
his case is averted by rolling up the tongue against the roof of the
mouth. The Stewarts were said to have insteps; water flowed below their
foot; it was, therefore, fortunate to meet any of them. All risk of a
stranger proving a bad _còmhalaiche_ is avoided by his returning a few
steps with the traveller.
A hare crossing one’s path is unlucky, and old people, when they saw
one before them, made considerable detours to avoid such a calamity.
The disfavour with which this harmless animal and the pig were regarded
no doubt arose from their being unclean under the Levitical Law. The
hare chews the cud, but divides not the hoof; the pig divides the hoof,
but does not chew the cud.
The fox is unlucky to meet, a superstition that prevails also in East
Africa. The King of Karague told Captain Speke that “if a fox barked
when he was leading an army to battle, he would retire at once, knowing
that this prognosticated evil” (_Journal_, p. 241).
It is unlucky to look back after setting out. Old people, if they
had to turn to a person coming after them, covered their face. This
superstition probably had its origin in the story of Lot’s wife. Fin
MacCoul, according to a popular tale, never looked back after setting
out on a journey. When he went on the expedition that terminated in
his being “in the house of the Yellow Forehead without liberty to sit
down or power to stand up,” he laid spells on his companions, that
no man born in Ireland should follow him. Fergus, who was born in
Scotland, followed, and Fin, hearing footsteps behind him, called out
without turning his head, in a phrase now obsolete, _Co sid a propadh
mo cheaplaich_? _i.e._, it is supposed, “Who is that following my
footsteps?”
To be called after is a sure omen that a person will not get what he
is going in search of. This belief gave great powers of annoyance to
people of a waggish humour. When everything prognosticated success, and
the fishing boat had left the shore, or the old man, staff in hand,
had set out on his journey, some onlooker cried out, “There is the fox
before you and after you”; or, “Have you got the fish-hooks?” or, “Have
you taken the Bait-stone?”[69] Immediately a damp was thrown on the
expedition, a return home was made for that day, and the wag might be
glad if the party called after did not make him rue his impertinence.
Of omens referring to other events in the life of man than the success
of particular expeditions may be mentioned the following:
A golden plover (_Feadag_, Charadrius pluvialis), heard at night,
portends the near approach of death or other evil. The cry of the bird
is a melancholy wailing note.
A pied wagtail (_Breac an t-sìl_, motaeilla alba), seen between them
and the house, was a sign of being turned out of the house that year
and ‘losing the site’ (_call na làraich_).
The mole burrowing below a house is a sign the tenants will not stay
long on that site.
If the cuckoo calls on the house-top, or on the chimney (_luidheir_),
death will occur in the house that year.
In spring and early summer the omens of happiness and prosperity, or
misery and adversity for the year, are particularly looked for. It is
most unfortunate if the first foal or lamb seen that season have its
tail toward the beholder, or the first snail (some say stone-chat) be
seen on the road or on a bare stone, and a most unmistakable sign of
misfortune to hear the cuckoo for the first time before tasting food in
the morning, ‘on the first appetite’ (_air a chiad lomaidh_), as it is
called. In the latter case, the cuckoo is said ‘to soil upon a person’
(_chac a chuthag air_), and, to avoid such an indignity, people have
been known, at the time of the cuckoo’s visit, to put a piece of bread
below their pillow to be eaten the first thing in the morning.
Cock-crowing before midnight is an indication of coming news. Old
people said the bird had ‘a tale’ to tell; and, when they heard it,
went to see if its legs were cold or not. If cold, the tale will be one
of death; if hot, a good tale. The direction in which the bird’s head
is turned indicates the direction in which the tale is to come.
In visiting the sick, it is a sign of the termination of the illness
whether it be the right or the left foot that touches the threshold
first.
Women pretended to know when they laid their hand on a sick person
whether he would recover.
It is a good sign if the face of the chimney-crook (_aghaidh na
slabhraidh_) be toward the visitor, but an evil omen if its back be
toward him.