Superstition, in assigning to the devil a bodily shape and presence, endeavoured to make him horrible, and instead made him ridiculous. For this no doubt the monkish ceremonies of the middle ages are, as is commonly alleged, much to blame. The fiend was introduced into shows and dramatic representations with horns, tail, and the hoof of one of the lower animals; the representation was seized upon by the popular fancy, and exaggerated till it became a caricature. The human mind takes pleasure in mixing the ludicrous with the terrible, and in seeing that of which it is afraid made contemptible. There is, as is well known, but one step from the sublime to the ridiculous, and, in being reduced to a bug-bear, the impersonation of evil has only come under the operation of a common law. One bad effect to be traced to the travesty is, that men’s attention is diverted from the power of evil as the spirit that now worketh strife, lying, dishonesty, and the countless forms of vice, and the foul fiend is become a sort of goblin, to frighten children and lonely travellers.

In Gaelic the exaggeration is not carried to the same lengths as in English. There is nothing said about the fiend’s having horns or tail. He has made his appearance in shape of a he-goat, but his horns have not attracted so much attention, or inspired such terror, as his voice, which bears a horrible resemblance to the bleating of a goat. A native of the Island of Coll is said to have got a good view of him in a hollow, and was positive that he was crop-eared (corc-chluasach).90 He has often a chain clanking after him. In Celtic, as in German superstition, he has usually a horse’s hoof, but also sometimes a pig’s foot. This latter peculiarity, which evidently had its origin in the incident of the Gadarean swine, and in the pig being unclean under the ceremonial law, explains the cloven hoof always ascribed to him in English popular tales. In Scripture, the goat, as pointed out by Sir Thomas More, formed the sin offering, and is an emblem of bad men. The reason why a horse’s hoof has been assigned to him is not so apparent. In the Book of Job, Satan is described as “going to and fro in the earth”; and the red horses, speckled and white, which the prophet Zechariah (i. 8) saw among the myrtle trees, were explained to him to be those whom “the Lord hath sent to walk to and fro through the earth.” The similarity of description may be casual, but it is on grounds, equally incidental and slight, that many of the inferences of superstition are based.

In addition to his Scripture names, the arch-fiend is known in Gaelic by the following titles:

In the North Highlands he is also known as Bidein, Dithean, Bradaidh. It is said that Connan was a name given to him, and that aisling connain, a libidinous dream, means literally ‘a devil’s dream.’ The name must have been very local. There is a fable about Connan and his twelve sons pulling a plant in the peat moss, in which the name denoted the wren, and there was a St. Connan, whose memory is preserved in Cill-Chonnain, a burying-ground in Rannoch, and Feill-Connain, the autumn market at Dalmally in Glenorchy.

The occasions on which the devil has appeared in a bodily shape, have been at meetings of witches; at card-playing, which is the reading of his books; when he comes to claim his prey; and when summoned by masons or magicians. He is apt to appear to persons ready to abandon their integrity, and to haunt premises which are soon to be the scene of signal calamities. He sometimes comes in unaccountable shapes and in lonely places for no conceivable purpose but to frighten people.

The following tales will illustrate the character of his appearances and the notions popularly entertained regarding him.

A party of young people were playing cards; a stranger joined them and took a hand. A card fell below the table, and the youth, who stooped to lift it, observed the stranger to have a horse’s hoof. The devil, on being thus detected, went up the chimney in smoke.

This story is universal over the Highlands. Cards are notoriously known as the devil’s books. When boys play them, the fiend has been known to come down the chimney feet foremost, the horse’s or pig’s foot appearing first. When going away, he disappears in smoke, and neighs horribly in the chimney.

This celebrated book contained charms for the cure of cattle, and was so powerful that its owner had to place an iron hoop about his head every time he opened it. All accounts agree that it was got from the devil, but they differ as to how this was done. Very likely the book was a treatise on the treatment and diseases of cattle, and the origin of the stories of its magic virtue lay in the fact that the Stewarts, who owned it, had a magnificent fold of Highland cattle.

The first, who got the book, rode an entire horse (an animal that no evil power can touch) to a meeting of witches. The devil wrote in a red book the names of the assembled company. The man, instead of letting the devil write his name, asked to be allowed to do so himself. On getting the book for that purpose he made off with it.

By another account (and the person from whom it was heard was positive as to its being the only correct account) it was got by a young lad under the following circumstances. The youth was apprenticed to the miller at Bearachan on Lochawe-side. His master was unkind, and made him work more than he was fit for. One night he was up late finishing a piece of work. About midnight a gentleman, whom he did not recognize, entered the mill and accosted him kindly. Turning the conversation that ensued on the harsh conduct of the miller, the stranger promised to better the unhappy prentice’s condition if they met at the Crooked Pool (Cama-linn) in the Middle Mountain (Monadh Meadhonach) on a certain night. An assignation to that effect was made, but after the strange gentleman went away the lad got frightened, and next day told about the visitor he had. A conclave of sixteen ministers was called, and the matter was deliberated upon. As the youth had given his promise it was deemed necessary he should keep it, but he was advised to take a wand with him and at the place appointed trace a circle with it round himself, out of which he was not to move whatever temptation or terrors the stranger might bring to bear upon him. A committee of the clergy went to watch on a neighbouring eminence the result of the interview. The strange gentleman came at the appointed hour, and before giving the money promised, civilly asked the lad to write his name in a book. For this purpose the book was not handed but thrown to the youth, and he, on getting it into his possession, refused to give it up again. The strange gentleman now showed himself in his true colours. Finding remonstrances and coaxing of no avail to get the book or the lad out of the circle he got wild, and tried the effects of terror. First he became a grizzled greyhound (mial-chu riabhach), and came wildly dashing against the circle; then a roaring bull; then a flock of crows (sgaoth rÒcais) sweeping above the youth, so near that the wind caused by their wings would have carried him out of the circle if he had not clung to the heather. When cock-crowing time came the devil abandoned his attempts and disappeared. The book became the Red Book of Appin, and was last in possession of the Stewarts of Invernahyle (Inbher-na h-aoile).

A native of the neighbourhood of Oban, on his way home from Loch Awe-side, after crossing the hills and coming in above Kilmore, was joined by three strangers. He spoke to them, but received no answer. At a small public-house on the roadside he asked them in for a refreshment. They then told him they had business to attend to, and that after entering the house he was not on any account to come out or attempt to go home that night. On parting, the strangers turned off the high road by a private road leading to a neighbouring gentleman’s house. The night proved unusually stormy, and the man did not move from the inn till morning. He then heard that the gentleman, towards whose house the three mysterious strangers had gone, had died the previous evening just about the time they would have arrived there. No person in the house or neighbourhood saw anything of them.

It has been already mentioned that the devil, or his emissaries, in the shape of three ravens, waited to catch the soul of Michael Scott as soon as it left the body. A freebooter of former days, who made a house underground for his wife in Loch Con, in Lower Rannoch (Bun Raineach), that he and his men might swear he had no wife above ground, and then married another, was at his death carried away by twelve ravens.

Those who had the courage to perform the awful taghairm,91 called up the devil to grant any worldly wish they might prefer; the disciples of the black art made him their obedient servant. Michael Scott, whose reputation as a magician is as great in the Highlands as in the Lowlands, made him his slave. He could call him up at any time.

In Michael’s time the people of Scotland were much confused as to the day on which Shrovetide was to be kept. One year it was early and another it was late, and they had to send every year to Rome to ascertain the time (dh’ fhaotainn fios na h-Inid). It was determined to send Michael Scott to get “word without a second telling” (fios gun ath-fhios). Michael called up the devil, converted him into a black ambling horse (fÀlaire dhu), and rode away on the journey. The devil was reluctant to go on such an expedition, and was tired by the long distance. He asked Michael what the women in Scotland said when they put their children to sleep or ‘raked’ the fire (smÀladh an teine) for the night. He wanted the other to mention the name of the Deity, when the charm that made himself an unwilling horse would be broken. Michael told him to ride on—“Ride you before you, you worthless wretch (marcaich thusa, bhiasd, romhad), and never mind what the women said.” They went at such a height that there was snow on Michael’s hat when he disturbed the Pope in the early morning. In the hurry the Pope came in with a lady’s slipper on his left foot. “You rode high last night, Michael,” said the Pope. Michael’s reply called attention to the Pope’s left foot. “Conceal my secret and I will conceal yours,”92 said the Pope, and to avoid the chance of being again caught in a similar intrigue he gave Michael “the knowledge of Shrovetide,” viz., that it is always “the first Tuesday of the spring light,” i.e., of the new moon in spring.

In Skye this adventure is ascribed to ‘Parson Sir Andro of Ruig’ in that island. He is said to have started on his terrible journey from the top of the Storr Rock, a scene the wildness of which is singularly appropriate to the legend. The Storr is a hill upwards of 2000 feet high, and on its eastern side, from which the parson must have set out for Rome, is precipitous, as if the hill were half eaten away, and the weird appearance of the scene is much increased by the isolated and lofty pillars from which the hill derives its name,93 standing in front. Not unfrequently banks of mist come rolling up against the face of the cliffs, concealing the lower grounds, and giving a person standing at the top of the precipices one of the most magnificent views it is possible to conceive. He seems to look down into bottomless space, and where the mist in its motions becomes thin and the ground appears dark through it, there is the appearance of a profounder depth, a more awful abyss. The scene gives a wildly poetical character to the legend of the redoubtable parson and his unearthly steed.

A part of the parish of the Ross of Mull is known ecclesiastically as Kilviceuen (Cill-mhic-EÒghain, the burying-place of the son of Hugh). Its ancient church was of unhewn stone, and its last minister, previous to its being united to Kilfinichen, was named Kennedy, a native of Cantyre, an Episcopalian, in the reign of Charles II. Tradition records that he came to his death in the following manner.

His parishioners, about the end of spring, were taking a new millstone from Port Bheathain on Squrraside to the mill, by means of a pole run through its eye. The parson threw off his cassock, and assisted them. The cassock was left where it was thrown off. In the evening his wife sent a servant-maid for it. The maid found, lying on the cassock, a large black dog, which would not allow her to touch the garment. She came home without it, and refused to return. The wife herself and another servant then went, were bitten by the dog, and ultimately twelve persons, including the minister, died of hydrophobia.

So shocking an event could not take place without superstition busying itself about it. On Beltane night shortly before the event, the minister’s servant-man had gone early to bed, while it was yet day. There was “a large blazing fire of green oak” (beÒlach mhÒr dhearg de glas darach) on the floor of the room, and he closed and locked the door before going to bed. Through the night he heard a noise as of some one feeling for the lock and trying to open the door. He remained quiet, thinking the noise was made by young men, who came courting and had mistaken the door. Soon, however, the door opened, and a person whom he did not recognize entered. The stranger, without saying a word, went and stood at the fire. When he turned his back the servant observed that his feet were horse’s feet (spÒgun eich). In a short time the apparition went away, locking the door after it. The man rose and went to an old man in great estimation for his piety, who lived alone at Creag nan Con (the Dog Rock). The old man’s hut was a poor one, its door being made of wicker work and of the form called sgiathalan. No remonstrances could induce him to stay another night in the minister’s house, and it was arranged that he should sleep at the hut, and in the day time go to his work at the manse. He told the sight he had seen, and the good man inferred from the time of night at which the devil had been seen that evil was near the house. It was shortly after this that the dog went mad, and the frightened servant was the only one of the minister’s household that escaped.

On the last night of last century94 a disastrous casualty, in which six persons lost their lives, occurred in the deer forest of GaÏck in Badenoch. The wild tract of mountain land, to which the name is given, was not formally made into a deer forest till 1814, but its loneliness made it a favourite haunt of wild game at all times. There was not a house in the large extent of near thirty square miles beyond a hut for the shelter of hunters. Captain MacPherson of BallychroÄn, an officer in the army, with some friends and gillies were passing the night of the 31st December, 1800, in this hut, when an avalanche, or whirlwind, or some unusual and destructive agency came upon them, and swept before it the building and all its inmates. When people came to look for the missing hunters they found the hut levelled to the ground, and its fragments scattered far and wide. The men’s bodies were scattered over distances of half a mile from the hut; the barrels of their guns were twisted, and over all there was a deep covering of snow, with here and there a man’s hand protruding through it. The whole Highlands rang with the catastrophe, and it is still to be heard of in the Hebrides as well as in the district in which it occurred. Popular superstition constructed upon it a wild tale of diabolical agency.

Captain MacPherson was popularly known as “The Black Officer of BallychroÄn” (Ofhichier du Bailechrodhain). He is accused of being a “dark savage” man (dorcha doirbh), who had forsaken his wife and children, and had rooms below his house, whence the cries of people being tortured were heard by those who passed the neighbourhood at night. About the end of 1800 he was out among the GaÏck hills with a party of hunters, and passed the night in the hut mentioned. Late at night strange noises were heard about the house, and the roof was like to be knocked in about the ears of the inmates. First came an unearthly slashing sound, and then a noise as if the roof were being violently struck with a fishing rod. The dogs cowered in terror about the men’s feet. The captain rose and went out, and one of his attendants overheard him speaking to something, or some one, that answered with the voice of a he-goat. This being reproached him with the fewness of the men he had brought with him, and the Black Officer promised to come next time with a greater number.

Of the party who went on the next hunting expedition not one returned alive. The servant who said he had heard his master speaking to the devil refused positively to be one of the party, neither threats nor promises moved him, and others followed his example. Only one of the previous party, a Macfarlane from Rannoch, a good and pious man it is said, went. It was observed that this day the officer left his watch and keys at home, a thing he had never been known to do before. Macfarlane’s body was not found on the same day with the rest. It was carried further from the hut than the searchers thought of looking, and a person who had found before the body of one lost among the hills, was got to look for his remains. There is a saying that if a person finds a body once he is more apt to find another. When the melancholy procession with the dead bodies was on the way from the forest, even the elements were not at peace, but indicated the agency that had been at work. The day became exceedingly boisterous with wind and rain, so much so, when the Black Officer’s body was foremost, that the party was unable to move on, and the order had to be changed.

Two songs at least were composed on the occasion. One, strong in its praises of Captain MacPherson, will be found in Duanaire, p. 13; the other, among other things, says of him—

A shepherd in Benderloch saw a large bundle of ferns rolling down the hillside, and, in addition to the downward motion given by the incline, it seemed to have a motion of its own. It disappeared down a waterfall. Of course this was Black Donald; what else could it be?

A former tenant of the farm of Holm, in Skye, and his wife had gone to bed, leaving a large pot full of indigo dye on the floor. The pig came in and fell into the pot. The wife got up to see what the noise was, and on looking into the pot saw the green snout of a pig jerking out of the troubled water. She roared out that the devil was in the pot. Her husband shouted in return to put on the lid, and jumping in great excitement out of bed, he threw his weight on the lid to keep it down till the devil was drowned. His wife was remarkable for always commending what her husband did, and kept repeating, “Many a person you will confer a favour on this night, Murdoch” (Is iomadh duine d’an dean thusa feum a nochd, a Mhurchiadh). At last the noise in the pot subsided, and Murdoch nearly called up the party he had sought to drown on finding it was his own pig he had been so zealously destroying.

It is a saying that the only trade that the devil has been unable to learn is that of tailoring. The reason is that when he went to try, every tailor left the room, and having no one to instruct him, he omitted to put a knot on the thread he began to sew with. In consequence the thread always came away with him, and he gave up the trade in despair. It is presumed that he wanted to learn the trade to make clothes for himself, as no one would undertake the making of them.

The awful ceremony to which this name was given was also known among old men as “giving his supper to the devil.” It consisted in roasting cats alive on spits till the arch-fiend himself appeared in bodily shape. He was compelled then to grant whatever wish the persons who had the courage to perform the ceremony preferred, or, if that was the object of the magic rite, to explain and answer whatever question was put to him.

Tradition in the West Highlands makes mention of three instances of its performance, and it is a sort of tribute to the fearless character of the actors that such a rite should be ascribed to them. It was performed by Allan the Cattle-lifter (Ailein nan creach)96 at Dail-a-chait (the Cats’ Field), as it has since been called, in Lochaber, and by Dun Lachlan (Lachunn odhar) in the big barn at Pennygown (sabhal mÒr Peighinn-a-ghobhann), in Mull. The details of these two ceremonies are so exactly the same that there is reason to think they must both be versions of an older legend. Nothing appears to create a suspicion that the one account was borrowed from the other. The third instance of its performance was by some of the “children of Quithen” (Clann ’ic Cuithen), a small sept in Skye, now absorbed, as so many minor septs have been, into the great family of the Macdonalds. The scene was a natural cavity called the “Make-believe Cave” (an Eaglais BhrÉige), on East Side, Skye. There is the appearance of an altar beside this church, and the locality accords well with the alleged rite. The following is the Mull legend.

Lachlan OÄr and a companion, Allan, the son of Hector (Ailein Mac Eachuinn)—some say he had two companions—shut themselves up in the barn at Pennygown, on the Sound of Mull, and putting cats on spits roasted them alive at a blazing fire. By-and-bye other cats came in and joined in the horrible howling of those being roasted, till at last the beams (sparrun an tighe) were crowded with cats, and a concert of caterwauling filled the house. The infernal noise almost daunted Lachlan OÄr, especially when the biggest of the cats said, “When my brother the Ear of Melting comes—” Allan the son of Hector did not allow the sentence to be finished. “Away cat,” he cried, and then added to his companion, in an expression which has become proverbial in the Highlands when telling a person to attend to the work he has in hand, and never mind what discouragements or temptations may come in his way, “Whatever you see or hear, keep the cat turning” (De sam bith a chÌ no chluinneas tu, cum an cat mun cuairt). Dun Lachlan, recovering courage, said, “I will wait for him yet, and his son too.” At last the Ear of Melting came among the other cats on the beams, and said, while all the other cats kept silence, “Dun Lachlan, son of Donald, son of Neil, that is bad treatment of a cat” (Lachuinn uidhir ’ic DhÒ’uill ic NÉill, ’s olc an cÀramh cait sin). Allan to this called out as before, “Whatever you see or hear, keep the cat turning,” and the fearful rite was proceeded with. At last the Ear of Melting sprang to the floor and said, “Whomsoever the Ear of Melting makes water upon will not see the face of the Trinity” (Ge b’e co air a mÙin Cluas a Leoghaidh cha ’n fhaic e gnÙis na Trianaid). “The cross of the sword in your head, wretch; your water is sweat” (Crois a chlaidheamh a’d cheann, a bhiasd; ’s tu mÙn fallais), answered Dun Lachlan, and he struck the cat on the head with the hilt of his two-handed sword. Immediately the devil, under the potent spell, assumed his proper shape, and asked his wild summoners what they wanted with him? One asked Conach ’us clann (“Prosperity and children”), and Dun Lachlan asked “Property and prosperity, and a long life to enjoy it” (Cuid ’us conach, ’us saoghal fada na cheann). The devil rushed out through the door crying, “Prosperity! Prosperity! Prosperity!” (Conach! Conach! Conach!)

The two men obtained their desires, but were obliged (some say) to repeat the taghairm every year to keep the devil to the mark.

When Dun Lachlan was on his deathbed his nephew came to see him, and in the hope of frightening the old fellow into repentance, went through a stream near the house and came in with his shoes full of water. “My sister’s son,” said Lachlan, “why is there water in your shoe?” (a mhic mo pheathar, c’ arson tha bogan a’a bhrÓig?) The nephew then told that the two companions who had been along with Lachlan in the performance of the taghairm, and who were both by this time long dead, had met him near the house, and to escape from them he had several times to cross the running stream: that they told him their position was now in the bad place, and that they were waiting for his uncle, who, if he did not repent, would have to go along with them. The old man, on hearing this melancholy message, said, “If I and my two companions were there, and we had three short swords that would neither bend nor break, there is not a devil in the place but we would make a prisoner of.”97 After this the nephew gave up all hopes of leading him to repentance.

A native of the island of Coll and his wife came to see him. Lachlan asked them what brought them? “To ask,” said the Coll man, “a yoke of horses you yourself got from the devil” (dh’ iarraidh seirreach each fhuair thu fhein o’n douus). Lachlan refused this and sent the man away, but he sent a person to overhear what remarks the man and his wife might make after leaving. The wife said, “What a wild eye the man had?” (Nach b’ fhiadhaich an t-sÙil bh’aig an duin ’ud?) Her husband replied, “Do you suppose it would be an eye of softness and not a soldier’s eye, as should be?” (Saoil am bi suil an t-slauchdain, ach sÙil an t-saighdeir mar bu chÒir?) On this being reported to Lachlan, he called the Coll man back and gave him what he wanted.

Martin, in his Description of the Western Islands, p. 110, quoted by Scott (Lady of the Lake, note 2 T), after describing a mode of Taghairm by taking a man by the feet and arms to a boundary stream and bumping him against the bank till little creatures came from the sea to answer the question of which the solution was sought, says:—“I had an account from the most intelligent and judicious men in the Isle of Skie, that about sixty-two years ago the oracle was thus consulted only once, and that was in the parish of Kilmartin, on the east side, by a wicked and mischievous set of people, who are now extinguished, both root and branch.” The Taghairm here referred to seems to be that above-mentioned as having been performed by the M‘Quithens in the Make-believe or False Cave on East Side, Skye. The race have not borne a good reputation, if any value is to be attached to a rhyme concerning them and other minor septs in Skye:—

Another method of Taghairm, described by Martin, was by wrapping a person in a cow-hide, all but his head, and leaving him all night in a remote and lonely spot. Before morning his “invisible friends” gave him a proper answer to the question in hand, or, as Scott explains it, “whatever was impressed upon him by his exalted imagination, passed for the inspiration of the disembodied spirits who haunt the desolate recesses.” This method of divination cannot have been common; at least the writer has been able to find no trace of it.

As a third mode of Taghairm, Martin briefly describes that above detailed, viz., the roasting of a live cat on a spit till at last a very large cat, attended by a number of lesser cats, comes and answers the question put to him.

Both Martin and Scott fall into the error of supposing that the object of the Taghairm was solely divination, to ascertain the future, the issue of battles, the fate of families, etc. The mode by roasting live cats was too fearful a ceremony to be resorted to except for adequate reasons, and the obtaining of worldly prosperity, which was the object of the Mull Taghairm, is a more likely reason than curiosity or anxiety as to a future event.

The naming of the word Taghairm is not at first sight obvious. There is no doubt about the last syllable being gairm, a call. Ta is probably the same root that appears in so many words, as tannasg, taibhse, etc., denoting spectres, spirits, wraiths, etc., and Taghairm means nothing else than the ‘spirit-call,’ in fact, “the calling of spirits from the vasty deep.”

This was a rhyme or incantation by which the person possessing the knowledge of it could shut the mouths of dogs and open locks. It was reckoned a very useful gift for young men who went a-wooing. Archibald, son of Murdoch, or, as he was also popularly known, Archibald the Light-headed (Gileasbuig Mhurchaidh, G. Eutrom), who was about twenty years ago a well-known character in Skye and its neighbourhood, knew the charm, but when he repeated it he spoke so fast that no one was able to learn it from him, and as to his teaching of it to any one, that was out of the question. Poor Archibald was mad, and when roused was furiously so. He went about the country attending markets and wherever there was a gathering of people, and found everywhere open quarters throughout that hospitable island. Indeed, it was not wise to contradict him. He had a keen and ready wit, as numerous sayings ascribed to him testify, and composed several songs of considerable merit. The fear which dogs had of him, and which made them crouch into corners on seeing him, was commonly ascribed to his having the Glas Ghairm, but no doubt was owing to the latent madness which his eyes betrayed, and of which dogs have an instinctive and quicker perception than men. On their offering the slightest sign of hostility, Archibald would knock out their brains without as much as looking at their masters.

The Glas Ghairm was supposed to be in some way connected with the safety of Israel on the night before the Exodus, “against any of the children of Israel shall not a dog move his tongue, against man or beast” (Ex. xi. 7).