The record-union., 1891-07-18
SCOTTISH SUPERSTITIONS.
Wakeman Wandering in the Land
of the Brownies.
Folk and Fireside Lore, Out of Which
Endless Entertainment is Secured
Faith in the Old Spae-Wife-De-
monology and witchcraft.
Regular Correspondence of RECoRD-UNIoN
Copyright, 1891.
JEDBURGH, Scotland, July 6, 1S9

Irregular Correspondence of RECoRD-UNIoN.
Copyright, 1891
JEDBURGH, Scotland, July 6, 1891.
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 forgivable vagaries. A profound
book might be written upon them. Such
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 a years wanderings among the
Scottish peasantry the number of these
unique things secured has been astonish-
ing; and an interesting fact, at least TO
myself, was the gradual change in my own
superstition regarding Scottish supersti-
tions. l believed they would be found
altogether gloomy, savage, barbaric. But
] gradually came to know that, however
grim -visaged the face of the one contid
ing to me a weird assertion of uncanny
belief, the masses of the peaSantry, possi-
bly, barring the northern crofters and all
Scottish fishermen from the Solway to
the Farce Islands, secuted and fiouted
them, save those of tender and Wlnsome
character.
Indeed among the most unlearned of
Scottish peasantry there is a serious.
though exquisite, vein of brightness bet
ter than ordinary wit and more palpable
than extraordinary humor which, reject
ing the essential slavery of superstitious
practices, save in remote districts, insists
on retaining and enjoying the pleasure
found in an apparent and gravely- asserted
belief in the superStitionS themselves. A
lingering respect for, if not belief in,
the old Spae-w 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 re-
proof: THE gift she hae is frae aboon,
an what He gies daurna be hidit''-
though the speaker may have no more
faith than yourself in the efficacy of the
pretended spae-wite's powers. The loss
of the charm of possessing the supersti-
ton is begrudged. Thus the weird,
quaint things, many of which might seem
unaccountable and repulsive to us, have
become in lieu of book lore folk and
hreSide lore out of which endless enter
tainment is secured. Underneath much
ness such as all hearts know for many
things without apparent reason, that grow
into life out of ancestry, oft-repeated
homeside tale, beloved custom, and that
mysterious yet powerful hallowing which
comes upon changeless places and OBJ
jects to men.
Demonology and witchcraft in Scotland
are matters OF too recent record to expect
that their weird influence are anything
like largely dispelled. Scottish romance
and poetry reek with "the deiI's mis-
chief 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 imaginations of the Scottish masses.
There are remote districts in the Scottish
southeastern and southwestern shires,
for instance south of the Tweed in Rox-
burghshire, and along the Solway and
Irish Sea, where the old wraiths, various
and yagarous as in Tam O'Shanter's time,
seem fadeless; but the great cradle and
source of preservation of all uncanny
things in Scottish superstition is still, l
am inclined to believe from actual obser-
vation and study, the Scottish Highlands
and islands. These districts still annu-
ally send out into all the lowland cities,
villages and countryside communities
great numbers of sturdy, honest, patient,
though ignorant and superstitious men
and women who engage in all manner of
service They are truly children of the
mlStS. 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
atiame in the breasts of lowlanderS, or
dinarily subject to later-day influences.
ali the inherent love for the fierce and
gentle spirits and sprites so marked
among the lowly of all olden Celtic lands
and race divisions.
These humble and unconscious mis-
sionaries of superstition-ever a brave
tender and imaginative folk-are reared
from babyhood to manhood in what may
be truly termed u university of supersti-
ton.
In their lonely and isolated lives every
physical object and phenomenon of ma
ture has significance OF good or i'll.
Their entire environments is rife with wild
and fierce ancestral tales and legends
Their homes in some 'auld clachann in
the glens, on the mountain sides, within
the purple straths, or clustered in the up
land corries or hollows. stand on Gaelic
tanes, many OF which are zoo years old.
The pagan clachan tthe sacred circle of
stoneS") is gone. The later chapels are
razed to the ground. But there the High
lander remains in his glen-Side home
standing within the relics of antiquity
through the centuries have come the wild
bardic songs, shreds of the barbarous
rites, and echoes of the clang and clash of
awful mountain battles, the whole DIM
weird and spectral 10 his grave and si-
lent life, until every groteSque form III
mountain landscape has demon shape:
every Shadowy tarn or hollow glen has
it's presiding evil spirit, every cairn or
menhir is the abode of wariock or boyle
every floating cloud is the sable wing of
some lowering and awful presence, every
cry of bird has especial and weird sig
nificance, every stream and locn has its
spirit of good or evil, and every trumpet
blast of the tempest is an undeniable
challenge of personified malevolence and
fury. And il this were not the omuipreS-
ent environment of the region, see how
his life is threaded in warp and woof from
the cradle with the very spirit of demon
ology and superstition.
For eight months of the year these folk
are shut within their mountain homes by
storm and flood. From time immemorial
almost the exclusive diversion has been
that Incompatible nursery of superstition
the ceiItdh pronounced 'Railev," and
Gaelic for ''gossiping party''). Here the
auld wives gather, and by the flickering
light Of the peat-iireS recount, evening
after evening the whole winter long all
the narrowing tales their ripe and bardic
fancies conjure, veritably curdling the
blood with every CHASTITY tale possible to
human invention, and sleeping the very
soul in the fumes of black art caldrons
infinitely more weird and hideous than
Shakespeare has conjured in the witch
scenes of Macbeth. So as the burns
Sprlnglng from the misty, crag- trimmed
corries descend and water the welcoming
IG hn