James Grant

Generality of Superstition—The Church and Superstition—St. Mourie—People forbidden to resort to the island Innis Maree—Various Modes of Superstition—Charms—Lucky and Unlucky Times—A Tinker's Curse and a Gipsy's Warning—Sailors' and Fishermen's Delusions—Spitting on one's Loof—Weddings, Funerals, and Baptisms—Spae Wives—May Dew—Holy-days—Kirk-session Records—Fort-William Fisherman—Dipping in Fountains—Lochmanur—Holy Well of Kilvullen—Well of Craiguck—Superstition in the Highlands—Warlock Willox—Superstition in Dundee.

Notwithstanding the progress of religion, science, and education generally so called, superstition prevails in this and other countries to an extent scarcely credible, and certainly not creditable to the leaders of public opinion. In every town and country, in every village and hamlet, yea, in every domestic circle, a belief in the supernatural has a place. Although the time has gone by for the burning of witches, and though the human mind is less disturbed by the thoughts of ghosts and Satan in corporeal shape than in past centuries, nevertheless man has not been able to rise altogether above the notion that there are such mortal creatures as witches and warlocks, and such immortal visible visitants to our sublunary world as spirits and the devil. Not only is there a general belief in the existence of ghosts, but we have people asserting that they possess the faculty of making spirits of the dead answer them at pleasure. Learned men (men in high position) have written lengthy arguments in favour of the spiritual theory.

Signs and omens are observed, faith in miracles have not died out, charms are not considered valueless, curses and evil wishes make a large proportion of our population tremble, dreams are believed in. Indeed nearly all, if not all, the various aspects and phases of superstition of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries are, to a certain extent, believed in in the nineteenth century. We make no mere random statement, but are stating facts falling under our own notice and that of reliable witnesses.

Fear of the supernatural is confirmed by the dread one has of passing a graveyard at night. Among the English, Scotch, and Irish people the tales of their forefathers are remembered. Who has forgotten his nursery tales? Who does not remember the stories of aged friends as they sat round the winter fire? We have somewhere read of our nursery tales under eight heads. First, of a hero waging successful war with monsters; (2nd), of a neglected individual mysteriously raised into position, like "Cinderella;" (3rd), of one thrown into a magic trance, like the "Sleeping Beauty;" or (4th) of a person overpowered by a monster, as in the case of "Little Red Riding Hood." "Blue Beard," says the writer from whom we have just quoted, is a specimen of a group of tales, in which (5th) the hero or heroine is forbidden to do something, but disobeys. "Beauty and the Beast" and "The White Cat" are examples of a large group in which (6th) a brilliant being is transformed, by means of a spell, into the form of a lower animal. A number of stories, such as "Fortunatus and his Companions," turn upon (7th) the possession of magic implements or spells. The concluding group consists (8th) of moral tales. But these eight groups are far too few to supply examples of either ancient or modern superstition. Hahn endeavoured to group the folk-tales of Europe under forty heads, and Baring Gould has followed his example. In every corner of Christendom some form of kelpie, sprite, troll, gnome, imp, or demon has a place in the mind of the people, much the same as in Pagan times.

Those who have turned their attention to archÆology are in a position to corroborate what is here advanced. No doubt, modern superstition, in its various forms, is the result of ancient delusion in regard to religion and moral rectitude. To overlook or neglect the prescribed formula in regard to blessing and cursing, was certain to bring its own punishment. Superstition is believed in by persons accounted neither irreligious nor desperately profane. Church dignitaries, once foremost in the persecution of reputed witches, found it necessary to change their front. Everything bordering on witchcraft, devil worship, or such like, met with ecclesiastical censure. Let the inhabitants of Applecross say why they and their forefathers sacrificed to St. Mourie, their patron saint, at certain seasons; and let the Synod of Glenelg and the Presbytery of Lochcarron say why they considered it necessary to forbid the people resorting to the island Innis Maree on 25th August. And let those reverend bodies say whether certain stones are not consulted as to future events—whether oblations are not left on hills—and whether a species of adoration is not paid to wells.

Why is the mountain ash, or rowan tree, seen growing in almost every garden, when not another tree adorns the landscape or shelters the family dwelling? Why are the caudal appendages of the cottar's cow and calf adorned with red thread? and wherefore are horse-shoes nailed to stable-doors, ships' masts, and buried under thresholds? What parish or district has not its haunted house and "white lady?" In what quarter do not the young fear to pass ruined castles after sundown? And have we not everywhere a confessed belief in lucky and unlucky times and circumstances, and admitted presentiments of evil?

The tinker's curse and the gipsy's warning are prophetically regarded. In the north of Scotland there is a class of lay preachers, or catechists, known as the "Men," who lay claim to prophetic talent; yea, there are among them enthusiasts, who pretend they possess keys equal in efficacy to those of St. Peter. At the seaside, among the sailors and fishermen, strong indications of superstition are observable. Buyers and sellers, especially cattle dealers and hucksters, daily evince their adherence to the credulity of their progenitors, by spitting on the first money received by them in the morning, and preferring to deal first with persons reputed to have good luck. Athletes (particularly boxers and wrestlers) spit into their loofs before commencing a combat, thinking that by so doing they are more likely to prevail.

At wedding-parties, baptisms, and funerals we have seen numerous forms of superstition displayed. First, the bride's dress must consist of certain fabrics, while the flowers with which her person is adorned must not include hated sprigs, repellers of love, or such as attract evil spirits. All know the custom, if not the value, of throwing slippers, rice, etc. after a newly-wedded pair; and the ceremony of breaking a cake over a bride's head as she first enters her husband's house is not forgotten. Who has not eaten the "child's cheese," and been forbidden to depart from the infantile home before drinking the young one's health, on every occasion the nursery was entered before the christening. Maidens dream, as often as they have the chance, on "children's cheese" and brides' cakes, in order to obtain glimpses in their slumbers of future love and matrimony.

Tea in abundance has been infused to supply the necessary material for the spae-wife to read her cups. Coins and jewellery, deposited with the fortune-teller to enable him or her to discover the fortune of the owners, have too often failed to be restored to the lawful owners. Servant-girls can tell how often they and their employers have been plundered by fortune-tellers in the guise of beggars and pedlars.

May-dew has not lost its virtue; the carrying of fire round houses, fields, and boats are still supposed to drive away witches and evil spirits; and diseases are supposed to be capable of cure by means of charms.

Superstitious families are less terrified at thunder and lightning than at the ticking of the death-watch (anobium tesselatum), whose noise is supposed to prognosticate an early death in the household. With little less fear are the crowing of cocks, the lowing of cattle, and the howling of dogs at night listened to. The passing of a sharp-edged or pointed instrument from one lover to another is continued to be looked upon with anything but favour, as such articles, even pins, divide affection. If an angler step over his fishing-rod, he will have indifferent piscatory sport. It is a good sign for swallows to build their nests at one's windows; but if a person destroy a swallow's nest, or kill any of those birds of passage, he should prepare for misfortunes. Unusually dark-coloured magpies flying about a house, betokens grief to the inmates. When the palm of one's hand itches, money may be looked for; when the sole of the foot itches, prepare for a long journey.

Of particular festive and holy-days we have more than once taken notice, and pointed out how they were observed. Well, we have Christmas, Hallow-e'en, Good Friday, observed with something resembling the fashion of olden times. The evergreens, kail-stocks, pan-cakes, and buns have the same significations as they had in generations past. To break a Good Friday bun between two persons, is accepted as a pledge of friendship. Many superstitious persons keep a Good Friday bun throughout the year, to secure good fortune, prevent fires, and keep disease away.

At a recent meeting of the British ArchÆological Association, Mr. H. Syer Cuming, F.S.A., said it was only a few years since he saw a woman drink a little grated cross-bun in water, to cure a sore throat, and that, at the time he was speaking, twenty stale cross-buns, strung on a cord, were suspended as a festoon above the door of an apartment at Brixton Hill, to scare away evil spirits. Fortunately, those who adopt such precautions do so now without fear of punishment. No doubt the Church of Rome interdicts her adherents from eating flesh on Fridays and other prescribed times, but the laws are changed since the seventeenth century. An extract from the kirk-session records of Dunfermline for 1640-89 will show the ecclesiastical law of that period:—

"21 December 1641.—That day John Smart, flesher, being convict for selling a carkeis of beefe, and hav^g pott on a rost at hes fire y^e last fasting day, is ordainit to pay 8 mks., qhlk. he payit. And William Anderson in knockes for bring^g a hamelading of y^e s^d carkeis of beefe y^e fast day, is ordainit to pay 30s., q^r of he payit 24s."

Of the magical properties of May dew little is now known, compared with the knowledge of former times. Our grandmothers firmly believed that three applications of it at the beginning of May preserved the complexion in brilliant bloom for a year; consequently they were up and out long before sunrise, to wash their faces in the charmed moisture. There is still much value in the recipe, which is, however, applicable to all the dewy-morning months. It was not only on the brightness of the cheek that May dew was believed to have a marvellous effect, but many physical ailments were amenable to its virtues. It is related that the people about Launceston say that a child weak in the back may be cured by being drawn through the wet grass thrice on the mornings of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd of May. Swellings in the neck are similarly cured; but the dew in such cases should, if the patient is a man, be sought on the grave of the last young woman buried, and if a woman, on that of the last young man interred.

These May-day practices are not confined to England. The medicinal and cosmetic properties of spring rain and May dew appear to have been at one time universally credited. In fact, water, in whatever shape—dew, rain, river—when associated with spring, was invested with a sort of divine enchantment in the popular mind. The heavy dew which brightened and refreshed the young and tender green of all growing things was holy and hallowing. Running water shared in the same veneration.

In some parts of Russia, at the present day, the girls go into the water up to the girdle on May-day, or, if the streams be still frozen, they dance about a hole broken in the ice, and sing a welcome to the "beautiful spring." The sick are carried down to the banks of a river and sprinkled with water, which has received a healing power from the new season. Cattle are driven afield at early dawn through the May dew, and the young people roll about in it where it lies thickest.

Not many years ago a fisherman near Fort William purchased a set of nets, to enable him to prosecute the herring fishing. He toiled all night without catching any fish. Dispirited, he returned home in the morning to his anxious wife, who was expecting to receive a heavy haul. On learning her husband had been so unfortunate while their neighbours had been successful, she suspected the nets were bewitched, and therefore procured consecrated water wherewith to sprinkle them. The experiment proved successful beyond expectation: every morning the fisherman went to sea he returned with so many fish that his circumstances were considerably improved.

Holy water is kept, in certain localities in the north, for sprinkling on the sea to still the waves in case of a storm. Holy oil, we are assured, is equally efficacious. We have seen a lady turning her chair three times round, to secure luck at cards.

Dipping in a fountain or lake in Scotland for the purpose of healing diseases, is a matter of frequent occurrence. In the beginning of August (old style), between midnight and early morning, may be seen the impotent, the halt, and the lunatic immersing themselves, or being immersed by their friends, in Lochmanur, Sutherlandshire, in the full expectation that benefit to mind and body will be secured by the operation. One who has witnessed the strange scenes within the last ten years, i.e. since 1870, gives the following graphic account of the superstitious actions he beheld:—

Another writer says he has seen even more than fifty dipping in this loch in one night. A third eye-witness never saw more than two or three of a night venturing into the loch; but many more, he adds, were present to see and be seen. And there are persons who have declared they derived benefit from bathing in it. The late Rev. D. Mackenzie, minister at Farr, who often denounces from the pulpit the superstitious practice of dipping in the loch, says, in his description of it in the New Statistical Account of Scotland: "Numbers from Sutherland, Caithness, Ross-shire, and even from Inverness and Orkney, come to this far-famed loch."

The holy well of Kilvullen, on the Irish coast, is as good as Lochmanur. Every year, in the month of August, there are high festivals held there. The water has a wonderful repute for healing qualities. It has worked miraculous cures ever since the great saint of Kilvullen flourished in the parish. The inhabitants have vague though reverential notions of the date of St. Kilvullen's existence. That he was of foreign extraction would appear to be proven, some way or other, through a boulder lying on the beach, on which, it is stated, the blessed Kilvullen travelled here direct from Rome, with a commission from the Pope to convert the Irish. To wriggle under a cavity in this stone and come out on the other side, is an infallible remedy for lumbago.

There is a mountain not far distant from Kilvullen with a gap in it, supposed to have been made by a single bite of the devil. There is scarcely an eminence in Ireland out of which the demon has not devoured a bit. Travellers are shown the devil's bites, the devil's gaps, and the devil's punch-bowls, over nearly every part of the country.

Dr. Arthur Mitchell, while lecturing on Scottish superstition, said: "The adoration of wells continues in certain aspects to the present day, from John-o'-Groat's to the Mull of Galloway. I visited a well at Craiguck, in the parish of Avoch, Ross-shire, some years ago, and found numerous offerings fastened to a tree beside it; and of at least a dozen wells in Scotland the same thing is more or less true. An anxious loving mother would bring a sick child to such a well at early morning on the 1st May, bathe the child, then cause the little one to drop an offering into the well—usually a pebble, but sometimes a small coin. Then a bit of the child's dress was attached to a bush or tree growing on the side of the well. These visits were paid in a spirit of earnestness and faith, and were kept more or less secret. Some of the wells have names of Christian saints attached to them; but I never knew of a case in which the saint was in any way recognised or prayed to. There is reason to believe these wells were the objects of adoration before the country was christianised, and that such adoration was a survival of the earlier practice to which Seneca and Pliny referred."

However much the custom of seeking health by bathing or dipping in lakes, or drinking from certain springs, may be deplored, it is tolerable compared with the superstitious belief that prevails, of epilepsy being cured by the affected person drinking water out of a suicide's skull, or by tasting or touching the blood of a murderer.

A gentleman, writing lately from Fort William, says:—"It is a mistake to suppose that superstition is entirely extinct in the Highlands, or that it is confined to old women alone. It was only the other day a certain spinster in Lochaber, who has reached the shady side of sixty, owned a cow. Up to last week the cow was a model one in every sense of the term, but last week it showed sure signs of the effect of the 'evil eye.' The symptoms were chiefly deficiency in quantity and quality of milk. A consistory of old women was soon called, and, among a host of other queer contrivances, they had recourse to one—commendable chiefly for its simplicity, and also for its complete success. It was no other than smearing the brute all over with soot and salt! As this was done for the purpose of spoiling the beauty of the beast, it may be better guessed than described how completely it answered the purpose."

Another gentleman, writing from Grantown, assures us that "One night in 1878, two men, one of whom was blind, entered the village of Grantown and inquired as to the nearest route to Tomintoul. They came from a parish north of Inverness, and the object of their long journey was to visit a representative of the family of the warlock Willox, with a view to overturn some bad luck which had beset the course in life of the younger of the two. The attempt to dissuade them from proceeding further on their foolish errand was fruitless. Their faces had been set on the journey, and they were sternly resolved to accomplish it at all hazards. They pressed on their way, the blind man leaning on the arm of his companion, though night was on the point of falling. The matter pressed heavily on the younger, and it was in vain he tried to conceal his thoughts, being either 'crazed with care or crossed in hopeless love.'"

We have not learned how the travellers succeeded, but this we know, that members of the Willox family have been supposed for generations to profess knowledge of the occult science. Those of the nineteenth century, to whom the hidden secrets of their fathers have been imparted, eke out a livelihood by cultivating a small patch of land in a mountainous district, and vending nostrums for the cure of diseases in man and beast, and selling charms to counteract witchcraft. Persons have been known to travel more than a hundred miles to consult a Willox. That a wide-spread belief exists of this family's mystical powers, is manifest from the number of people seeking their advice. Further, the warlocks of untainted Willox blood not only direct attention to the healing art and the means of outwitting witches, but they aid in discovering lost and stolen property.

In 1871 a little boy in Dundee was afflicted with a sore upon his right leg. Medical skill proved of no avail, and the parents began to fear the boy would be rendered helpless for life. One day, however, an old Irish woman saw the boy, and, on ascertaining the nature of his disease, declared that she could by means of the "gold-touch" heal the sore. She asked for and obtained the marriage ring of the invalid's mother. With the ring the strange woman rubbed three times round the sore. She performed the same operation next day, and on the next again. On the fourth day no mark of a sore could be discovered. No doubt remained on the parents' and neighbours' minds that the operator was a white witch, possessed of valuable charms.