Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1891-07-18
MIR. wAKEMAN,s JoURNKxINGs.
Scottish Superstitfons Good and
Evil Spirits of Tarns. GIens, Cairns
and Menhfrs-Brownies, Fairies
and Imps-The Leprachaun and
the Ban-Shee-Ominous Sounds of
Birds and Streams.
JEDBUReH, Scotland, July 9.

Birds and Streams.
JEDBUReH, Scotland, July 9.
Tothe Editor of the JOURNAL AND COURIER:
The superstitions of the peasant folk of
any country are not only interesting in
their suggestion of thought. feeling and
belief, but through them much of the
heart history of people can often be
traced. Scotland is peculiarly rich in
these forgivsble vsgaries. A profound
book might be written npon them. Such
a book would have much ethnologic and
sociologic value. In newspaper articles
the merest reference to the quaint things
discoverable on this line of study among
Scottish people can be made. For in not
quite years wanderings among the Scot
tish peasantry the number of these unique
things secured has been astonishing; and
an interesting fact at least to myself was
the gradual change in my own supersti-
ton regarding Scottish superstitions. 1
believed they would be found altogether
gloomy, savage, barbaric. But gradual
ly came to know that, however grim-vis-
aged the face OF the one confiding to me a
weird assertion of uncanny belief, the
masses of the peasantry, possibly barring
the northern croftsrs and all Scottish fish
ermen from the Solway to the Farce Is
lands, secuted and fiouted them, save
those of tender and winsome character.
Indeed among the most unlearned of
Scottish peasantry there is serious
ita a, - hrsp IN hatf
than ordinary wit and more palpable than
extraordinary humor which, rejecting the
essential slavery of superstitious prac-
tices, save in remote districts, insists on
retaining and enjoying the pleasure found
in an apparent and gravely asserted belief
in the superstitions themselves. a linger-
ing respect for, if not belief in, the old
spae-wife or "wise woman" the half
witch, fortune-teller and destroyer of
spells, charms and blights from the "evil-
eye" still exists almost universally in
Scotland; and one casting ridicule upon
her is instantly met with the reproof:
''The gift she hae is frae aboon, an what
he gies daurna be hidit,"-though the
speaker may have no more faith than your
self in the efficacy of the pretended spae-
wife's powers. The loss of the charm Of
possessing the superstition is begrudged.
Thus the weird, quaint things, many of
which might seem unaccourt table and re-
pulsive to us have become in lieu of book
lore folk and fireside lore out of which
endless entertainment is secured. Under
meath much of this there is deep and
earnest tenderness such as all hearts know
for many things without apparent reason,
Al. nf .Ft
repeated homeside tale, beloved custom
and that mysterious yet powerful hallow
ing which comes upon changeless places
and objects to mon.
Demonology and witchcraft in Scotland
are matters of too recent record to expect
that their weird influences are anything
like largely dispelled. Scottish romance
and poetry reek with ''the dell mischief"
of this order; but the glamor of this form
of mental superstition worship is not alone
sufficiently powerful to foster and preserve
the witches and warlocks to the imagina-
tions of the Scottish masses. There are
remote districts in the Scottish southeast
| ern and southwestern shires, for instance
| south of the Tweed in Roxburghshire, and
along the Solway and Irish sea, where the
| old wraiths, various and vagarous as in
Tam O'Shanter's time, seem fadeless; but
the great cradle and source of preserva-
ton of all uncanny things in Scottish su
perstition if STILL / am inclined to believe
from actual observation and study, the
| Scottish Highlands and islands. These
districts still annually send out into all
the lowland cities, villages and country
| side communities, great numbers of stur-
dy, honest, patient, though ignorant and
| superstitious, men and women who engage
in all manner of service. They are truly
| children of the mists. Their association
| in homes, in inns, on estates and even in
| factories, with lowland companions effects
ceaseless transmission of the bugaboos
they have brought from the mountains
and glens; and this in turn rekindles and
| keeps aflame IN the breasts of lowlanders,
ordinarily subject to later-dsy influences,
all the inherent love for the fierce and gen
tie spirits and sprites so marked among
! the lowly of all olden Celtic lands and race
/ divisions.
! These humble and unconscious mission
/ aries of superstition-eyer brave, tender
and imaginative folk-are reared from
! babyhood to manhood in what may be
truly termed a university of superstition.
In their lonely and isolated lives every
physical object and phenomenon of nature
has significance of good or Ill. Their
entire environment is rife with wild and
fierce ancestral tales and legends. Their
homes in some ''auld clachan" in the glens,
on the mountain sides, within the purple
straths, or clustered in the upland cOrries
or hollows, stand on Gaelic fanes, many of
which are two thousand years old The
pagan clachan (the sacred circle of
stopes'0 is gone. The later chspels are
razed to the ground But there the High
lander remains in his glen-side home
standing within the relics of antiquity
lost in the mists of oblivion. Thus down
through the centuries have come the wild
bardic songs, shreds of the barbsrous
rites, and echoes of the clang and clash of
awful mountain battles, the whole dim,
weird and spectral to his grave and silent
life; until every grotesque form in noun
tain landscape has demon shape; every
shadowy tarn or hollow glen has its presi-
ding evil spirit; every cairn or menhir is
the abode of warlock OF boyle; every float
ing cloud is the sable wing of some hover
ing and awful presence; every cry of bird
has especial and weird significance; every
stream and loch has its spirit of good OF
evil; and every trumpet blast of the tenn
pest is an undeniable challenge of person
fled maleyolence and fury. And if this
were not the omnipresent environment OF
the region, see how his life is threaded il
warp and woof from the cradle, with tbs
very spirit of demonology and superst
ton.
For eight months or the year lnese Ioli
are shut within their mountain homes b,
storm and flood. From time immemoria
almost the exclusive diversion has beeI
that incompatible nursery of superstition
the ceilidh pronounced "kailey," and Ga
lie for ''gossiping party.'O Here the sult
wives gather, and by the fiIckering hgh
: of the peat-fires recount, evening afte
evening the whole winter long, all the hsr
rowing tales their ripe and bardic fancie
conjure; veritsbly curdling the blood Will
, every ghastly tale possible to human in
vention; and sleeping the very soul in tn,
fumes of black art cauldrens, infinitely
more weird and hideous than Shakespear'
has conjured in the witch-scenes of Mao
beth So as the burns springing from th'
, misty crag-rimmed corries descend anC
water the welcoming plains of the low
lands, the endless streams of demonologI
descend from the weird and misty ceilidhi
of these crofters ancient homes and rem
der perennial the lowland growth of Scot
tish folklore and superstition.
In tracing the Gaelic mythology ther'
will be found two classes of immortals
One of these consisted of imps and de
mons having the power of taking upon
themselves the body of man or woman, al
will, and by wooing human men or wo-
men, and particularly in holding out nav
ishing promises of immortality, thus lead