  The anxiety of men to know the future, the issue of their labours, and the destinies awaiting them, makes them ready listeners to the suggestions of fancy, and an easy prey to deception. The mind eagerly lays hold on anything that professes to throw light on the subject of its anxiety, and men are willing victims to their own hopes and fears. Where all is dark and inscrutable, deception and delusion are easy, and hence augury of all kinds, omens, premonitions, divinations, have ever exercised a noticeable power over the human mind. The ordinary manner which superstition takes to forecast the future is to look upon chance natural appearances under certain circumstances as indications of the character, favourable or unfavourable, of the event about which the mind is anxious. Any appearance in nature, animate or inanimate, can thus be made an omen of, and an inference be drawn from it of impending Omens which proceed upon a similarity of character between the prognostic and its fulfilment are easy of interpretation. There are other omens which have no connection, natural, possible, or conceivable, with the impending event, and of which consequently the meaning is occult, known only to people of skill instructed in their interpretation. These probably had their origin in one or two accidental coincidences. For instance, if the appearance of a fox is to be taken as an omen, it will naturally be taken as a bad sign, the stinking brute can indicate nothing favourable; but no amount of sagacity will teach a person that an itching in the point of his nose prognosticates the receipt of important news, or the cuckoo calling on the house-top the death of one of the inmates within the year. His utmost acuteness will fail to find in a shoulder-blade any indication of destiny, or any prophetic meaning in the sediment of a cup of tea. The meaning of these is a mystery to the uninitiated, and it is easy to see how they might be reduced to a system and lead to the wildest delusions of fortune-telling. Everything a Highlander of the old school set about, from the most trifling to the most important, was under Probably the Greek a?te?a, prediction by an oracle, is cognate to the Gaelic manadh, a foretoken, anything from which a prediction can be drawn. Both among Greeks and Celts a great number of omens were taken from birds. As already mentioned, it is a bad sign of a person’s luck during the day that he should rise from bed on his left hand, wash himself with water in which eggs have been boiled, or the cakes for his breakfast should frequently break in the baking, or fall backwards. The coming evil can be averted in the latter case by giving plenty of ‘butter without asking’ (Im gun iarraidh) with the cakes. Indeed, ‘butter unasked for’ is of sovereign value as an omen of luck. A cake spread with it, given to fishermen, secures a good day’s fishing. It is reckoned good in diseases, particularly measles, Omens are particularly to be looked for at the outset of a journey. If the first animal seen by the traveller have its back towards him, or he meet a sheep or a pig, or any unclean animal, or hear the shrill cry of the curlew, or see a heron, or he himself fall backward, or his walking-stick fall on the road, or he have to turn back for anything he has forgot, he may as well stay at home that day; his journey will not prosper. A serpent, a rat, or a mouse is unlucky unless killed, but if killed becomes a good omen. If the face of the animal be towards one, even in the case of unlucky animals, the omen becomes less inauspicious. It is of great importance what person is first met. Women are unlucky, and some men are the most unfortunate omen that can be encountered. These are called droch cÒmhalaichean, i.e. bad people to meet, and it was told of a man in Skye, that to avoid the mischance of encountering one of them when setting out on a journey, he sent one of his own family to meet him. If he met any other he returned home. In a village in Ayrshire there are three persons noted for being inauspicious to meet, and fishermen (upon whom as a class this superstition has a strong hold) are much dissatisfied at meeting any of them. One of them is A hare crossing one’s path is unlucky, and old people, when they saw one before them, made considerable detours to avoid such a calamity. The disfavour with which this harmless animal and the pig were regarded no doubt arose from their being unclean under the Levitical Law. The hare chews the cud, but divides not the hoof; the pig divides the hoof, but does not chew the cud. The fox is unlucky to meet, a superstition that prevails also in East Africa. The King of Karague told Captain Speke that “if a fox barked when he was leading an army to battle, he would retire at once, knowing that this prognosticated evil” (Journal, p. 241). It is unlucky to look back after setting out. Old To be called after is a sure omen that a person will not get what he is going in search of. This belief gave great powers of annoyance to people of a waggish humour. When everything prognosticated success, and the fishing boat had left the shore, or the old man, staff in hand, had set out on his journey, some onlooker cried out, “There is the fox before you and after you”; or, “Have you got the fish-hooks?” or, “Have you taken the Bait-stone?” Of omens referring to other events in the life of man than the success of particular expeditions may be mentioned the following: A golden plover (Feadag, Charadrius pluvialis), heard at night, portends the near approach of death or other evil. The cry of the bird is a melancholy wailing note. A pied wagtail (Breac an t-sÌl, motaeilla alba), seen between them and the house, was a sign of being turned out of the house that year and ‘losing the site’ (call na lÀraich). The mole burrowing below a house is a sign the tenants will not stay long on that site. If the cuckoo calls on the house-top, or on the chimney (luidheir), death will occur in the house that year. In spring and early summer the omens of happiness and prosperity, or misery and adversity for the year, are particularly looked for. It is most unfortunate if the first foal or lamb seen that season have its tail toward the beholder, or the first snail (some say stone-chat) be seen on the road or on a bare stone, and a most unmistakable sign of misfortune to hear the cuckoo for the first time before tasting food in the morning, ‘on the first appetite’ (air a chiad lomaidh), as it is called. In the latter case, the cuckoo is said ‘to soil upon a person’ (chac a chuthag air), and, to Cock-crowing before midnight is an indication of coming news. Old people said the bird had ‘a tale’ to tell; and, when they heard it, went to see if its legs were cold or not. If cold, the tale will be one of death; if hot, a good tale. The direction in which the bird’s head is turned indicates the direction in which the tale is to come. In visiting the sick, it is a sign of the termination of the illness whether it be the right or the left foot that touches the threshold first. Women pretended to know when they laid their hand on a sick person whether he would recover. It is a good sign if the face of the chimney-crook (aghaidh na slabhraidh) be toward the visitor, but an evil omen if its back be toward him. |
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