DEATH WARNINGS.
Death has always been deemed the greatest evil that afflicts humanity,
and the terrors and awe which its advent inspires have given superstition
its amplest scope. The “King of Terrors” no doubt throws its shadows
before it, but that foreshadowing belongs to medical diagnosis. The
superstition connected with it consists in making unusual appearances
and natural phenomena, having no relation to it beyond an accidental
proximity in time, forerunners of its dread approach. The mind loves
to dwell on the circumstances connected with the death of a departed
and dear friend, and amid a sparse population, death is not an event
of that frequency and daily occurrence which make it to the townsman
little heeded, till it affects himself and his friends. Besides, doubt
and scepticism are not spontaneous in the human mind, and whenever any
one states positively that he saw supernatural indications connected
with the death or spirit of one departed, he naturally and readily
finds credence. By being frequently told the tale becomes more and more
certain, and traditions, once they have attained the rank of beliefs, are
very slow in dying out. That the excitable and imaginative mind of the
Celt should, therefore, have a firm belief in supernatural fore-warnings
of death is not at all surprising.
Certain families and septs had death-warnings peculiar to themselves,
and whenever any of them was on his death-bed, particularly when the
death of a chief was at hand, some one about the house was sure to see
or hear the warning. Before the death of any of the Breadalbane family,
the descendants of Black Duncan of the Cowl (_Donncha du a churraichd_),
a bull was heard at night roaring up the hillside. The bellowing grew
fainter as it ascended the mountain, and died away as it reached the top.
The origin of this superstition probably is, that Black Duncan is accused
of having once had a bull’s head brought in at a feast as a signal for
the massacre of a number of the M’Gregors, whom he had invited in a
friendly manner to the castle. The clan Maclachlan were warned of death
by the appearance of a little bird; a sept of the M’Gregors, known as the
children or descendants of Black Duncan (_Clann Dhonncha dhui_), by a
whistle; another family of the same clan, “the children of little Duncan”
(_Clann Dhonncha bhig_), by a light like that of a candle. Other signals
were shouting (_sgairt_), cries of distress, screaming (_sgriachail_),
sounds of weeping, etc. When any of them foreboded death, it was heard
where no human being could be, and there was an unearthly tone about it
that struck a chill into the hearer’s heart.
Before the death of a duine wassal (_duin uasal_, a gentleman), a
light or meteor called _Dreag_ or rather _Driug_, was seen in the sky
proceeding from the house to the grave in the direction in which the
funeral procession was to go. It was only for ‘big men,’ people of
station and affluence, that these lights appeared, and an irreverent
tailor once expressed a wish that the whole sky were full of them.
HUGH OF THE LITTLE HEAD (_Eoghan a chinn bhig_).
This was the best known and most dreadful spectre in the West Highlands,
the phantom of a headless horseman, which made its appearance whenever
any of the Maclaines of Lochbuy, in Mull, were near their dissolution.
The spectral horseman is mounted on a small black steed, having a white
spot on its forehead, and the marks of the hoofs of which are not like
those of other horses, but round indentations as if it had wooden legs.
Whenever any of the sept which he follows are on their death-bed Hugh
is heard riding past the house, and sometimes even shows himself at
the door. He does not sit straight on his horse’s back, but somewhat to
one side, and the appearance of the almost headless body is that of a
water-stoup tied on the horse’s back. The history of the man who is thus
doomed to attend at the death of any of his clan is curious. Tradition is
not always uniform on the subject, but the following statement reconciles
most of the accounts and substantially agrees with them all.
Hugh was the only son of Hector the Stubborn (_Eachunn Reuganach_), first
chief of Lochbuy, in the fourteenth century, and brother of Lachlan
the Wily (_Lachunn Lùbanach_), first chief of Dowart. He got the name
of “Hugh of the Little Head” in his lifetime, and from the actions
ascribed to him fully bears his own testimony to the truth of the adage,
“A big head on a wise man and a hen’s head on a fool” (_Ceann mōr air
duine glic ’s ceann circ avi amadan_). Sayings of his, which tradition
has preserved, illustrate the curious shrewdness sometimes found in
connection with limited intellect. Thus, when his mother was being
carried for burial, he thought the pall-bearers were carrying the body
too high, and he told them not to raise her so high, “in case she should
seek to make a habit of it” (_mu ’m bi i ’g iarraidh a chleachdaidh_),
and the phrase has since continued, “to seek to make a habit of anything,
like Hugh of the Little Head’s mother.” He was married to a daughter of
the house of Macdougall of Lorn; and she proved but a very indifferent
wife. Tradition ascribes to her several nicknames, all of them extremely
opprobrious, “The Black-bottomed Heron” (_Chorra thòn du_), “Stingy,
the Bad Black Heron” (_Gortag, an droch chorra dhu_), “The Macdougall
Heron” (_Curra Dhùghaill_), and _Dubhag tòn ri teallaich_. He was a
fearless soldier, and altogether a very likely person to have been made a
wandering spectre of after his death.
Lochbuy first belonged to the Macfadyens. Maclaine (so the family spell
the name) having obtained a grant of the place from the Lord of the
Isles, deceitfully asked Macfadyen for a site for a sheep-fold (_crò
chaoraich_), and, having obtained a hillock for the purpose, proceeded
to build a castle. When the place was sufficiently fortified he shot
an arrow from it at Macfadyen, who sat at some distance picking bones
(_spioladh chnàmh_) at his dinner. In the end Macfadyen had to leave his
own land and go to Garmony (_Gar’moin’ an fhraoich_), where he supported
himself by coining gold, gathered in _Beinn an Aoinidh_, Mull, whence his
descendants became known as “the Seed of the Goldsmith’s” (_Siòlachadh
nan òr-cheard_). After this Lochbuy and Dowart quarrelled. The properties
of the two brothers adjoined, and between them lay a piece of ground, the
ownership of which they disputed. A ploughman belonging to Lochbuy was
ploughing on the debateable ground, when a friend of Dowart, who was out
hunting, shot him. Sometime after this Dowart’s two boys were on a visit
to Lochbuy, whose wife, being a relative of the murdered ploughman, went
a piece of the way home with the children, and at a well, since called
“The Well of the Heads” (_Tobar nan ceann_), took off their heads and
threw them into the well, leaving the bodies on the bank. For this foul
deed a deadly feud sprang up between the two houses, and Hugh’s wife,
being a foster-sister (_co-dhalta_) of Dowart’s wife, did not care though
her husband and the house of Lochbuy should be worsted.
This feud, joined to the other grievances of the “Crane,” led to
there being so little peace at Lochbuy that the old chief gave Hugh a
separate establishment, and allotted to him the lands of Morinish. Hugh
built himself a castle on an islet in _Loch Sguabain_, a small lake
between Lochbuy and Dowart. His wife urged him to go and get the rights
(_còiricheaa_), _i.e._ the title deeds, of the lands of Lochbuy, or
perhaps to go and get more, from his father, and at last he went. It was
explained to him that on his father’s death he would have a right to the
whole property, and he went away pacified. His wife, however, urged that
it would be a small thing for Lachlan the Wily, his father’s brother, to
come and take from him everything he had. He went again, an altercation
ensued, and he struck his aged father a violent blow on the side of
the head. This came to the ears of the old man’s brother, the chief
of Dowart. Glad of an excuse to cut off the heir presumptive and make
himself master of Lochbuy, and gratify his desire for revenge, Dowart
collected his men and marched to take Hugh to some place of confinement
or kill him. Hugh collected his own men and prepared to give battle.
Early on the morning of the fight, others say the evening before, Hugh
was out walking, and at the boundary stream (_allt crìche_) saw an Elfin
woman rinsing clothes, and singing the “Song of the M’Leans.”[28] Her
long breasts, after the manner of her kind (according to the Mull belief
regarding these weird women), hung down and interfered with her washing,
and she now and then flung them over her shoulders to keep them out of
the way. Hugh crept up silently behind her, and catching one of the
breasts, as is recommended in such cases, put the nipple in his mouth,
saying, “Yourself and I be witness you are my first nursing mother.” She
answered, “The hand of your father and grandfather be upon you! You had
need that it is so.” He then asked her what she was doing. She said,
“Washing the shirts of your mortally-wounded men” (_Nigheadh leintean
nam fir ghointe agad-sa_), or (as others say) “the clothes of those who
will mount the horses to-morrow and will not return” (_aodach nam fear
theid air na h-eich a màireach ’s nach till_). He asked her, “Will I
win the fight?” She answered that if he and his men got “butter without
asking” (_Im gun iarraidh_) to their breakfast, he would win; if not, he
would lose. He asked if he himself would return alive from the battle
(_an d’thig mise as beò?_), and she either answered ambiguously or not
at all; and when going away left him as her parting gift (_fāgail_) that
he should go about to give warning of approaching death to all his race.
The same morning he put on a new suit, and a servant woman coming in just
as he had donned it, praised it, and said, “May you enjoy and wear it”
(_Meal is caith e_). It was deemed unlucky that a woman should be the
first to say this, and Hugh replied to the evil omen by saying, “May you
not enjoy your health” (_Na na meal thusa do shlàinte_).
For breakfast, “Stingy, the Black Heron,” sent in curds and milk in broad
dishes. She did not even give spoons, but told Hugh and his men to put
on hen’s bills (_gobun cheare_) and take their food. Hugh waited long to
see if any butter would come, rubbing his shoes together impatiently,
saying now and then it was time to go, and giving every hint he could
that the butter might be sent in. At last he threw his shoe down the
house, exclaiming, “Neither shoes nor speech will move a bad housewife”
(_Cha ghluais bròg no bruidhinn droch bhean tighe_), and demanding the
butter. “Send down the butter, and you may eat it yourself to-morrow”
(_cuir anuas an t-ìm, ’s feudaidh tu fhein itheadh a màireach_). She
retorted, “The kicker of old shoes will not leave skin upon palm” (_Cha’n
fhàg breabadair na seana-bhròig craicionn air dearnaidh_). When the
butter came, Hugh said he did not want her curds or cheese to be coming
in white masses through his men’s sides (_tighinn na staoigean geala roi’
chliathach nam fear aige_), kicked open the milk-house door and let in
the dogs, and went away, leaving the breakfast untouched. The fight took
place at _Onoc nan Sgolb_, at the back of Innsri (_cùl na h-Innsribh_),
near _Ceann a Chnocain_, and not far from Torness in Glenmore. As might
be expected of fasting men, Hugh and his followers lost the fight. The
sweep of a broadsword took off the upper part of his head (_copan a
chinn_). Instead of falling dead, he jumped on the top of his horse, a
small black steed with a white spot on its forehead, and ever since is
“dreeing his weird” by going about to give warning when any of his race
are about to die.[29]
The ghostly rider of the black horse (_marcaich an eich dhui_), crosses
the seas in discharging his task. When coming to Tiree (where there
are now but two or three persons claiming to be of the sept of the
Lochbuy Maclaines), he takes his passage from _Port-nan-amhn’_ near
_Ru-an-t-sléibh_, in Treshinish, Mull. About fifty years ago a Mull
woman, living there, insisted that she had often, when a young woman,
heard him galloping past the house in the evening and had seen the sparks
from his horse’s hoofs as he rode down to the shore on his way to Tiree.
It is told of an old man of the Lochbuy Macleans in Tiree, that on his
death-bed the noise of a horse clanking a chain after it, was heard
coming to the house. Thinking it was Hugh of the Little Head, he said,
“The rider of the Black Horse is clanking on his own errand” (_straoilich
air ceann a ghnothuich fhein_). On looking out the awe-struck company
found the noise was caused by a farm-horse dragging a chain tether
(_langasaid_) after it.
On the high road between Calachyle and Salen in Mull, a strong man of
the name of Maclean was met at night by Hugh. The horseman spake never a
word, but caught Maclean to take him away. Maclean resisted, and in the
struggle caught hold of a birch sapling and succeeded in holding it till
the cock crew. The birch tree was twisted in the struggle, and one after
another of its roots gave way. As the last was yielding the cock crew.
The twisted tree may still be seen. The same story is told of a twisted
tree near Tobermory, and a similar one is localised between Lochaber and
Badenoch.[30]
Other premonitions of death were the howling of dogs, the appearance of
lights, loud outcries and sounds of weeping, apparitions of the doomed
person’s “fetch,” or coffin, or funeral procession, etc. These sounds and
appearances were more apt to precede an accidental and premature death,
such as drowning, and to understand them properly it will be necessary to
enter into an examination of the doctrine of the Second Sight.