VISIONS AND SECOND-SIGHT.
Perhaps the most common class of superstitions in Gairloch comprises
those represented by or connected with "visions" or the gift of
"second-sight." It is often difficult to discriminate between the two;
but as a general rule "visions" maybe considered as recalling the past,
whilst "second-sight" brings the immediate but unseen present or the
near or sometimes the more remote future within the ken of its
possessor. The following stories seem to be examples of one or other of
these superstitions.
The appearance to Alastair Mac Iain Mhic Earchair, early in the
nineteenth century, of the great chief of Gairloch, Hector Roy
Mackenzie, with his bodyguard of twelve chosen heroes all wearing kilted
plaids of Mackenzie tartan, and their noiseless departure, is narrated
in Part I., chap. ix. In addition to the details there given, old
Alastair told Ruaridh an Torra, the present repository of the tale, that
before the spectral heroes disappeared he handed his snuff-mull to them,
and they each in turn helped themselves to its contents. Alastair always
expressed his astonishment that they should have been able to enjoy the
snuff as they apparently did.
In 1884 I heard of a young man having seen a spirit. He was very
reserved on the subject, but when closely questioned he said it was on a
pretty dark night in the previous year that the form of a man passed him
on the road. He spoke to the figure, but there was no reply; and this he
considered proof positive of the ghostly nature of the appearance!
Two men, of the utmost credibility and respectability, declare that they
saw on separate occasions, by daylight, the figure of a woman dressed in
brown sitting or walking within a considerable house in Gairloch parish.
On each occasion the woman mysteriously disappeared, and no trace of her
could be discovered. The appearances were supposed to be prophetic of
some incident that has since occurred, or will shortly occur, at the
house in question.
Seers of visions and possessors of second-sight are always reticent, and
every one has a delicacy in speaking of cases that have occurred among
persons now living. Thus it is difficult to procure accounts of recent
cases, and I have thought it best not to press inquiry in this
direction. Here, however, is an instance which came under my own notice
within the parish of Gairloch. A shooting party was invited, and a
number of beaters engaged for the occasion. Several of those who had
been similarly employed before declined to attend, because it had been
rumoured that the figure of a strange man dressed in dark blue clothes
had been seen walking in the coverts the evening before, and it was
thought that the appearance of the supposed spectre portended the death
of some one at the shoot. Happily the day passed off without casualty.
Second-sight may be (1) a faculty frequently exercised by the individual
possessing it, who becomes known as a seer; or (2) it may be manifested
on one occasion only, under exceptional circumstances, by some one not
otherwise credited with this supernatural power. Our next story tells of
a woman whose second-sight was of the first of these descriptions.
Simon Chisholm, who has long been forester and gardener at Flowerdale to
Sir Kenneth Mackenzie, Bart. of Gairloch, remembers a woman named
Seonaid Chrubach, or Jessie the cripple, who was reputed to be a witch,
and to have the faculty of second-sight. She lived near Flowerdale, and
was a queer bad woman. She wore a short tight-fitting jacket like a man,
and a short petticoat resembling a man's kilt. She used to afford much
amusement to sailors, singing ribald songs to them, and would visit
various ports as far north as Ullapool for the purpose. When Simon
Chisholm was a young boy a number of lads one day caught Jessie, and,
believing in her witchcraft, tied her to the middle of a long piece of
rope. They took her to the moat or ditch then remaining below Flowerdale
House, in the midst of which the old Tigh Dige had formerly stood, and
dragged her many times backwards and forwards through the water of the
moat. Jessie survived this ill-treatment many years. It would be about
1835 that Jessie came one day to the house of Simon Chisholm's father at
Flowerdale. His family have been there for several generations; they say
his ancestor came to Gairloch as attendant to a lady who became the wife
of one of the lairds of Gairloch. Simon was still a boy, and was at home
when Jessie came to the house. Jessie looked very pale and haggard; she
said she felt faint and ill. After resting a while, she told them that
on her way she had met a shepherd with his dog, driving a flock of
sheep; she minutely described the shepherd and the dog and sheep, and
even stated the colour of the dog. At that time there were no sheep at
Flowerdale, only black cattle; Sir Francis Mackenzie, the then baronet
of Gairloch, had a celebrated strain of them, and bred them in
considerable numbers. The following year, at the same time of the year
as that at which Jessie had seen the vision, Sir Francis substituted
sheep for the black cattle, and the shepherd, the dog, and the sheep
exactly corresponded with Jessie's description.
Our next narrative is an illustration of the other class of
manifestations of second-sight. At the date of this story the blacksmith
at Poolewe had his house and smithy where the Pool-house stable now
stands. It was close by the east side of Poolewe bridge, from which the
spectator can look down into the deep gloomy pool in which the River Ewe
joins the brackish waters of Loch Ewe. The smith had a son, a boy,
almost a young man; he was in sickly health at the time, and died
shortly afterwards. The late Rev. William Rose, Free Church minister of
Aultbea and Poolewe, who died in April 1876, told me that one day the
smith's son had walked over to Gairloch, and returning somewhat
exhausted, came into his father's house (the door being open), and
instantly sat down on the nearest chair. No sooner was he seated than he
fell from the chair in a fainting fit. He presently came round, and on
recovering consciousness the first thing he said to his family was,
"What are all these people on the bridge for?" They pointed out to him
that there was no one on the bridge. He then told them, that as he had
approached the bridge he had seen it crowded with people, that he had
had to push his way through them, and that he had felt very much
frightened. Those members of the smith's household who were at home had
seen no one on the bridge; the doors and windows of the house faced the
bridge, and were not thirty yards from it, so that no individuals, much
less a crowd, could have been on the bridge without the family having
noticed them. The following day, the 3d October 1860, was a day that
will never be forgotten by those who witnessed its terrible events. A
number of open boats with their crews were at the head of Loch Ewe near
Boor, Cliff House, and Poolewe, setting nets for herrings, when a storm
suddenly came on, far exceeding in violence any other storm before or
since, so far as those now living remember. A hurricane sprang up from
the west-north-west, of such extraordinary force as actually to lift
boats and their crews from the water, and in one or two cases to
overturn the boats. Happily most of the men clung to their boats, and
were soon washed ashore. One boat was carried rapidly past the point
called Ploc-ard, by Inverewe House. As she was passing close to some big
stones one of her crew jumped out on to a rock, but was washed off and
drowned. In another boat, opposite Cliff House, there were four men; the
boat was capsized and three of the men were drowned; the fourth had tied
himself to the boat, which came ashore by Cliff House; he was taken to
the house, and restoratives being applied soon recovered. About a score
of the boats ran into the pool under Poolewe bridge. And thus the vision
of the smith's son was fulfilled, for at the very hour at which he had
crossed the bridge on the preceding day, a multitude of the fishermen's
friends and relations, breathless with agonising anxiety, crowded the
bridge and its approaches watching the arrival of the boats. The tide on
this awful evening rose one hundred and fifty yards further up the shore
and adjoining lands than on any other occasion remembered in the
district. The bodies of the drowned men were recovered, and were buried
in the Inverewe churchyard, where the date of this memorable storm is
recorded on a gravestone over the remains of two of the men named
William Urquhart and Donald Urquhart.
James Mackenzie narrates, that when he was fourteen years of age (about
1822) he lived with his parents at Mellon Charles, but went to the
school at Mellon Udrigil. This school was attended by about sixty
scholars. He went home to Mellon Charles every Saturday night, and
returned to Mellon Udrigil each Monday morning. At the time of the
following extraordinary occurrence the Rev. Dr Ross was holding
sacramental services at Loch Broom, and many of the people had gone from
Mellon Udrigil to this sacrament; most of the women had remained at
home. It must have been about midsummer; that was always the time of the
Loch Broom sacrament. When James Mackenzie returned to Mellon Udrigil on
the Monday morning he learned that all the people who were at home on
the preceding day had seen a strange sight. The whole sea between the
Black island and Priest island, and the mouth of Little Loch Broom had
appeared to be filled with ships innumerable; to use James Mackenzie's
precise words, "the sea was choke full of great ships, men-of-war. It
was a great sight." Whilst the people were watching, vast numbers of
boats were sent out from the ships filled with soldiers with scarlet
coats. Many of the boats rowed direct for Mellon Udrigil, and the
red-coats landed from them on the rocks on the shore. They seemed so
near that the people could make out the individual soldiers. Mrs
Morrison, the wife of Rorie Morrison of Tanera, who then lived at Mellon
Udrigil House, buried the boxes containing her valuables in the sand
lest the red-coats should carry them off to the ships. The girls at the
shielings on the hills on the Greenstone Point retreated to the highest
tops, so that they might have time to escape if the soldiers should
appear to be coming near. But no soldiers came, and the whole thing was
a vision.
More than fifty years ago Donnachadh na Fadach (Duncan Macrae) was
living at Inveran. He employed Donald Maclean, who was stopping at
Londubh at the time, to work in the garden at Inveran, and Donald walked
to and from Inveran every day. He told James Mackenzie, Duncan Macrae,
and other persons, that he often saw companies of soldiers in red
uniforms marching to and fro along the tops of Craig Ruadh, Craig Bhan,
and the hills behind and beyond Inveran. These visions of Donald
Maclean's are said to have impressed his own mind very deeply at the
time, and his earnest accounts of them are well remembered by the older
people. It is an actual fact that the visions are now generally
understood at Poolewe and Londubh to have been prophetic of the visits
to me at Inveran of the Poolewe section of the Gairloch volunteers, who
wear scarlet Highland doublets, and have several times come to Inveran
in uniform.
The appearance of the great fleet seen from Mellon Udrigil with the
boats filled with red-coats, and the visions of the red-coats near
Inveran, are closely analogous to the strange appearances of troops seen
by numbers of people on Saddleback in Cumberland on the midsummer eves
of 1735, 1743, and 1745, and to the similar appearances elsewhere
referred to in the account given of the Saddleback visions in Miss
Harriet Martineau's "Guide to the English Lakes," such as the spectral
march of troops seen in Leicestershire in 1707, and the tradition of the
tramp of armies over Helvellyn on the eve of the battle of Marston Moor.
Hugh Miller, in his "Scenes and Legends of the North of Scotland" (page
485), refers to visions of troops near Inverness at the time of the
commencement of the war with France. There were similar appearances in
England reported in the newspapers when I was a young man, which were
supposed to have been mirage-like reflections of the gatherings of
troops going to take part in the Crimean war. One theory is, that all
the visions of this character have been of the nature of mirages, or
reflections on transparent vapour similar to the "Fata Morgana." This is
certainly a suggestion that ought to be taken into account, but, as Miss
Harriet Martineau says in her book, it "is not much in the way of
explanation."
Whatever the visions or appearances at Mellon Udrigil and near Inveran
may have been, the evidence is very strong that they really were seen as
stated.