FOR your satisfaction I drew up some queries about the second-sighted
men, and having sent them to the northern parts of this kingdom, some
while ago, I received answers to them from two different hands,
whereof I am now to give you an account, viz.
Query 1.
If some few credible, well attested instances of such a knowledge as
is commonly called the second-sight, can be given ?
Answer.
Many instances of such knowledge can be given, by the confession of
such who are skilled in that faculty: for instances I refer you to
the fourth query.
Query 2.
If it consists in the discovery of present or past events only ? or if
it extend to such as are to come ?
Answer.
The second-sight relates only to things future, which will shortly
come to pass. Past events I learn nothing of it.
Query 3.
If the objects of this knowledge be sad and dismal events only; such
as deaths and murders ? or, joyful and prosperous also ?
Answer.
Sad and dismal events, are the objects of this knowledge: as sudden
deaths, dismal accidents. That they are prosperous, or joyful, I
cannot learn. Only one instance I have from a person worthy of credit,
and thereby judge of the joyfulness, or prosperity of it, and it is
this. Near forty years ago, Maclean and his Lady, sister to my Lord
Seaforth, were walking about their own house, and in their return both
came into the nurse's chamber, where their young child was on the
breast: at their coming into the room, the nurse falls a weeping; they
asked the cause, dreading the child was sick, or that she was scarce
of milk: the nurse replied, the child was well, and she had abundance
of milk; yet she still wept; and being pressed to tell what ailed her;
she at last said Maclean would die, and the Lady would shortly be
married to another man. Being enquired how she knew that event, she
told them plainly, that as they both came into the room, she saw a
man with a scarlet cloak and a white hat betwixt them, giving the Lady
a kiss over the shoulder; and this was the cause of weeping. All which
came to pass after Maclean's death; the tutor of Lovet married the
Lady in the same habit the woman saw him. Now by this instance, judge
if it be prosperous to one, it is as dismal to another.
Query 4.
If these events which second-sighted men discover, or foretel, be
visibly represented to them, and acted, as it were before their eyes ?
Answer.
Affirmatively, they see those things visibly; but none sees but
themselves; for instance, if a man's fatal end be hanging, they will
see a gibbet, or a rope about his neck: if beheaded, they will see
the man without a head; if drowned, they will see water up to his
throat; if unexpected death, they will see a winding sheet about his
head: all which are represented to their view. One instance I had
from a gentleman here, of a Highland gentleman of the Macdonalds, who
having a brother that came to visit him, saw him coming in, wanting a
head; yet told not his brother he saw any such thing; but within
twenty-four hours thereafter, his brother was taken, (being a
murderer) and his head cut off, and sent to Edinburgh. Many such
instances might be given,
Query 5.
If the second-sight be a thing that is troublesome and uneasy to those
that have it, and such as they would gladly be rid of?
Answer.
It is commonly talked by all I spoke with, that it is troublesome; and
they would gladly be freed from it, but cannot: only I heard lately of
a man very much troubled in his soul therewith, and by serious begging
of God deliverance from it, at length lost the faculty of the second-
sight.
Query 6.
If any person, or persons, truly godly, who may justly be presumed to
be such, have been known to have had this gift or faculty ?
Answer.
Negatively, not any godly, but such as are virtuous.
Query 7.
If it descends by succession from parents to children ? or if not,
whether those that have it can tell how they came by it ?
Answer.
That it is by succession, I cannot learn; how they came by it, it is
hard to know, neither will they tell; which if they did, they are sure
of their strokes from an invisible hand. One instance I heard of one
Alien Miller, being in company with some gentlemen, having gotten a
little more than ordinary of that strong liquor they were drinking,
began to tell stories and strange passages he had been at: but the
said Alien was suddenly removed to the farther end of the house, and
was there almost strangled; recovering a little, and coming to the
place where he was before, they asked him, what it was that troubled
him so ? He answered he durst not tell; for he had told too much
already.
Query 8. How came they by it ?
Answer.
Some say by compact with the Devil; some say by converse with those
daemons we call fairies. I have heard, that those that have this
faculty of the second-sight, have offered to teach it to such as were
curious to know it; upon such and such conditions they would teach
them; but their proffers were rejected.
This is all I could learn by tradition of that faculty, from knowing
and intelligent men. If this satisfy not these queries aforesaid,
acquaint me, and what can be known of it shall be transmitted.
I cannot pass by an instance I have from a very honest man in the next
parish, who told me it himself. That his wife being big with child
near her delivery, he buys half a dozen of boards to make her a bed
against the time she lay in. The boards lying at the door of his
house, there comes an old fisher-woman, yet alive, and asked him,
whose were those boards ? He told her they were his own; she asked
again, for what use he had them ? He replied, for a bed; she again
said, I intend them for what use you please, she saw a dead corps
lying upon them, and that they would be a coffin: which struck the
honest man to the heart, fearing the death of his wife. But when the
old woman went off, he calls presently for a carpenter to make the
bed, which was accordingly done; but shortly after the honest man had
a child died, whose coffin was made of the ends of those boards.
Sir, the original, whereof this that I have writ, is a true copy, was
sent by a minister, living within some few miles of Inverness, to a
friend of mine whom I employed to get information for me; as I
insinuated before: I have other answers to these queries from another
hand, which I purposed to have communicated to you at this time; but I
find there will not be room enough for them in this sheet; howbeit, in
case you think it fit, they shall be sent you afterward.
In the mean time, I shall tell you what I have had from one of the
masters of our college here (a north country man both by birth and
education, in his younger years) who made a journey in the harvest
time into the shire of Ross, and at my desire, made some enquiry
there, concerning the second-sight. He reports, that there they told
him many instances of this knowledge, which he had forgotten, except
two. The first, one of his sisters, a young gentlewoman, staying with
a friend, at some thirty miles distance from her father's house, and
the ordinary place of her residence; one who had the second-sight in
the family where she was, saw a young man attending her as she went
up and down the house, and this was about three months before her
marriage. The second is of a woman in that country who is reputed to
have the second-sight, and declared, that eight days before the death
of a gentleman there, she saw a bier or coffin covered with a cloth
which she knew, carried as it were, to the place of burial, and
attended with a great company, one of which told her it was the corps
of such a person, naming that gentleman, who died eight days after.
By these instances it appears that the objects of this knowledge are
not sad and dismal events only, but joyful and prosperous ones also:
he declares farther, that he was informed there, if I mistake not, by
some of those who had the second-sight, that if at any time when they
see those strange sights, they set their foot upon the foot of another
who hath not the second-sight, that other will for that time see what
they are seeing; as also that they offered, if he pleased, to
communicate the second-sight to him. I have nothing more to add at
present, but that I am, Sir, Your faithful friend,
And humble servant.