Wednesday 12 June 2019

Gaelic Folklore (10): Scottish Banshees

10.
Scottish Banshees

Banshee. An Irish death spirit, more correctly written Bean si, who wails only for members of the old families. When several keen together, it foretells the death of someone very great or holy. The Banshee has long streaming hair and a grey cloak over a green dress. Her eyes are fiery red with continual weeping. In the Scottish Highlands the Banshee is called the Bean-Nighe etc. and she washes the grave-clothes of those about to die.


What follows are descriptions and tales from old sources:
aoineag, caoineachag, caoinheag, caointeag, caoineachag, caointeachag, caoidheag: Weeper, mourner; from 'caoin,' weep, and 'caoidh,' mourn. These names are applied to the naiad who foretells the death of and weeps for those slain in combat. Unlike 'nigheag,' 'caoineag' cannot be approached nor questioned. She is seldom seen, but often heard in the hill, in the glen, and in the corrie, by the lake, by the stream, and by the waterfall. Her mourning and weeping cause much trepidation to night-farers, and much anxiety to parents whose sons are in the wars. When a mournful cry is heard, and the remark is made, 'Co tha sid?'--Who is that? the answer invariably is, 'Co ach caoineachag'--Who but 'caoineachag.' 
'Co ach caoineachag bheag a bhroin'. Who but little 'caoineachag' of the sorrow. The sorrowing of caoineachag was much feared before a foray, an expedition, or an impending battle. It is said that she was heard during several successive nights before the Massacre of Glencoe#. This roused the suspicions of the people, and notwithstanding the assurance of the peace and friendship of the soldiery, many of the people left the glen and thus escaped the fate of those who remained. Fragments of the dirges sung by caoineachag before the massacre are current in that valley of the dark shadow of death:

'Tha caoineachag bheag a bhroin,
A dortadh deoir a sula,
A gul ’s a caoidh cor Clann Domhuill,
Fath mo leoin! nach d’ eisd an cumha.'

'Tha caoidh us caoineadh am beinn a cheo,
Tha gul is glaodhaich am beinn a cheo,
Tha bur is baoghal, tha murt is maoghal,
Tha full ga taomadh am beinn a cheo.'

Little 'caoineachag' of the sorrow
Is pouring the tears of her eyes,
Weeping and wailing the fate of Clandonald.
Alas my grief! that ye did not heed her cries.

There is gloom and grief in the mount of mist,
There is weeping and calling in the mount of mist,
There is death and danger, there is maul and murder,
There is blood spilling in the mount of mist.

(# Massacre of Glencoe: Mort Ghlinne Comhann took place in Glen Coe in the Highlands of Scotland on 13 February 1692, following the Jacobite uprising of 1689-92. An estimated 30 members and associates of Clan MacDonald of Glencoe were killed by government forces billeted with them, on the grounds they had not been prompt in pledging allegiance to the new monarchs, William III of England and II of Scotland and Mary II.)

 Carmina Gadelica (Vol. 2) by Alexander Carmichael, 1900.

nother fuath was the banshee (bean shìth), also called the bean nighe (washing-woman), nigheag bheag a bhròin (little washer of sorrow) or nigheag an àth (little washer of the ford). She sang a mournful dirge as she washed the "death clothes" of someone doomed to meet with a sudden end by violence. When a human being seized hold of her after stealthy approach, she revealed who was about to die and also had to grant three wishes. The banshee, like the baobhan slth, sometimes appeared as a raven or hoodie crow. The spirit known as the caoineag or caoidheag (caoin, "weep"; caoidh, (lamentation ), the one who weeps and mourns, foretells death like the banshee, or "washer", but is rarely seen and cannot be approached or questioned or forced to grant wishes. She is heard wailing in the darkness at a cascade or stream, or in a glen or on a mountainside. If a foray or battle is about to take place, sorrow is in store for those who listen to her wailing and mourning.

1.
There was a widespread belief that some of the supernatural washing-women were the ghosts of women "dreeing their weird": "Women dying in childbed were looked upon as dying prematurely, and it was believed that, unless all the clothes left by them were washed, they should have to wash them themselves till the natural period of their death."  A similar belief obtained regarding some of the glaistigs: "Many people use banshee and glaistig as convertible terms and the confusion thence arising extends largely to books. The true glaistig is a woman of human race who has been put under enchantments and to whom a fairy nature has been given. She wears a green dress." 

Scottish Folklore and Folk Life, Donald Mackenzie, (1935).

he Caointeach, A Banshee Story.
The Caointeach was a Banshee. She followed the Clan MacKay and other clans in the Rhinns of Islay. When a death was going to happen in one of these clans, she would go to the sick man's house with a green shawl about her shoulders, and give his family warning by raising a sad wail outside the door. As soon as the sick man's friends heard her voice, they lost all hope of his getting better. They had heard the Caointeach lamenting, and that was proof enough to them that his end was at hand. The Caointeach has ceased to give warning to the people of the Rhinns. She was last heard at a house in that district many years ago. A sick man was then on his death-bed, and his friends attending him. It was winter, and the night was wet and cold, with rain and wind. She stood at the windward door of the house; and there she raised a low, melancholy wail. The family heard her mourning; and one of them so pitied her that he went out at the leeward door, and left her an old plaid on a seat at the side of the door. He then returned within, and cried to her: "Come to the sheltered side, poor woman; and cover yourself with a piece of my plaid."
In an instant the lamenting ceased; and from that time to this the Caointeach has not been seen or heard in the Rhinns.

Folk Tales and Fairy Lore in Gaelic and English, by James MacDougall, 1910.

he Keener" in the Scottish Highlands and Islands.
The Banshee has an ascertained place in the English language,  and, while the word literally means woman fairy, Joyce  defines it as a female spirit attending upon certain families heard keening round the house when some member is about to die. At funerals the wake or watching of the body, laithi na canti (the days of lamentation), have from the oldest times on record even to the present day been accompanied by what Spenser calls dispairful outcrys. This was the cai or caoi.

The exact equivalent of the Banshee in the West Highlands is the Caonteach, Cointeach, Caointeach, or its diminutive Caointeachan from caoin (weep, lament). One reciter in telling of lamentation heard before the death of an old man in Argyleshire said that at first it was supposed to be the Caointeachan, but after the man's death his daughter passed the window weeping, and it was agreed it was not the Caointeachan, which is supposed to be attached to particular families, but only a manadh, i.e. a warning which may happen to anyone.

The Caonteach is spoken of throughout Argyleshire, Gigha, Islay, Jura, Tyree, the Long Island, and Skye. Families to which it is said to be attached in these districts are Macmillans, Mathisons, Kellys, Mackays, MacAffers, Duffies, Macfarlanes, Shaws, Maclergans, and Curries — in Gaelic MicVorran, MicMhurraidh, MicMhurrich. MicVorran, since Gaelic has no v., might be represented as Micmhourn. The name Currie itself might conceivably have been considered as connected with cura (care, guardianship), and the Caonteach looked upon as their curatrix (guardian). It seems possible that a fanciful connection with the English "mourn" to lament, maybe a cause of the connection of the MacVorrans and the Caonteach.

The appearance taken by the Caonteach varies considerably. It is generally described as small, a little woman, a very small woman in short gown and petticoat with a high crowned white cap, and also, like other fairies, in a green petticoat with a high crowned mutch. Another reciter described it as like a real little child; the woman who saw it, going up to it and putting her hand on its head, asked "what makes you weep", and found the child's head awfully soft. It is described, however, as something even more diminutive; it is a little white thing. One of the Curries had it in his hand, and it was white and soft as wool. This is a frequent description of it. Another said it resembles a small tuft of wool, and is soft to feel, having neither flesh, blood, or bones. It was hard to understand how it could be so differently described, as it is said to have been an ordinary woman, and taken up into his machine by a man driving.  When we are told, however, that it is the soul of the person who is to die, we understand why it should be light and white, and as a further deduction appear as what is white and light, namely, a tuft of wool.

In the burying-ground in Glen Macaoidh in the Rhinns of Islay there is the appearance as of the impression of a human foot, and less clearly of a human hand, on a stone said to be haunted by a
Caonteach, who, however, only comes at certain times of the year for a few weeks, especially in harvest.

That the  keener should walk round the house accords with all precedent, as, for instance, in the deasal, the right-handed lucky turns made at funerals, weddings, boat launchings, and Hogmanay visitations. The keener, however, is not lucky, and this may account for its being specially mentioned as "passing the back door of a house," "passing behind the house," "the back window," "moving slowly about houses" and stack yards, and even "seen on the dunghill." Evidently this points to an inferred connection between the word caoin (kind, soft, lowly), and the name Caointeach. The resemblance to a woman and to a soft material of some sort is peculiarly clear in the statement of an Islay man that his granduncle, coming home from Gartacharra and Conispie, saw the Caonteach beating clothes on a stone; "he lifted her; she felt very light and soft in his hands just like a tuft of wool; she is a kindly creature, and would do harm to nobody." One reciter considered its low wailing cry as evidence of a naturally sympathetic nature.

2.
The form taken by its crying varies according to different accounts. Generally it is described as a mournful wailing, and also as a bitter weeping, the most mournful weeping ever heard. But it is
also described as a fearful noise, three fearful screams, but, strange to say, also like the splashing of water. It is undoubtedly confused with singing in the ears, which, if noticed before a death, is called Caointeachan cluaise (the ear keener). A Gigha informant says that the Caointeachan is a warning of death, but other stories point to her as a sort of foreteller of future events. If the prophecy is that of a drowning accident, there seems nothing but a filling of the usual roll. But we are told that one of the Curries got the information that his circumstances would improve so that he should die the owner of a conveyance, an equivalent no doubt to the respectability conferred by the possession of a gig. Another foretold a woman's second marriage while her husband was still alive. Another prophecy, signifying no doubt death, was when a man was informed that the errand on which he was engaged was not to his advantage, as the core of your heart and your two paps will go;  this was fulfilled by the death of his wife and two children within a few days. A parallel story to the above is the information the Caointeachan gave to the man who took her up beside him in his machine. He had two children ill at the time; one, she said, would die, and the other recover, and, further, his wife would die before himself, all which is said to have come true. The Caointeachan who was asked why she wept only answered "You, Flora Currie, are here;" Flora, who was going to visit a child, found the child dead on her arrival. All of them, however, are not so mild-mannered, one having given a  slap on the cheek to a man which caused paralysis. His offence was putting his hand under a stone frequented by her and taking from it a flint, which he used to light his pipe.

A story is told of one of the Macmillans of Dunmore. A man in the neighbourhood heard the keener, and asked her the cause of the lamenting: she told him one of the family had died at Sligo in Ireland; he asked for some proof, and was told he would find a hole burned in his plaid next morning. Sure enough the hole was there, and the body of the dead man was subsequently brought to Dunmore for burial.

A Tyree man spoke of the Caointeachan as a male, and that to see or hear him was a fortunate thing, for what he said for good or evil would happen without much delay.

In the outer islands more especially we hear of the "Washer Woman" Bean Nigheachain, otherwise Bean Nighidh. Accounts of her are common in Lewis, Harris, Uist, and Coll, and she is credited, when seen, with foretelling some fatality, but is not specially attached to particular families. A reciter in Lewis said she is supposed only to appear in connection with some general fatality. This "water nymph'' resembles a woman somewhat, is of small size, and one of our informants said that her feet were red and webbed like a duck's. Like other superior kinds of fairies she is credited with a green dress, and was said to come about gentlemen's houses at night, and, though seen after dark and by children going to school in the early morning, she evidently shuns daylight. She is invariably seen in the neighbourhood of water, a necessary consequence of her occupation as a Washer Woman, and what she washes is described as clothes of the battle and shrouds (aodach mairbh, ais-leine). There is in a burn in the parish of Kinloch-Spelvie in Mull a flat stone, on which she would be seen posting clothes, i.e. beating them with a beetle, or tramping them. The noise made by her is likened to clapping hands, as of one washing clothes, and also as like the splashing of water.

The result of interviews with the Bean Nighidh varies considerably, as may be supposed when we are told by some that she is of a friendly disposition and that her appearance has no significance in association with death, but by others again that, though hurt follows her appearance, it is not her doing.

A lad who saw one and went down to her was dipped by her in the river, she abusing him for going too near her. An onlooker who sees the Washer Woman first has nothing to fear, but if she sees him first she will get the better of him. Some men who worked on the Highland Railway, and "were as respectable as other folk " and came from the Reay country, were descendants of a Bean Nighidh. A boy going to school with his two sisters, who saw one while he himself did not, shortly afterwards took ill and died, the girls apparently being none the worse. A woman had become so accustomed to the sight of a Bean Nighidh who frequented the neighbourhood in which she lived, Lochcarron, that, when asked by her husband who the little woman he saw was, answered him “cha'n 'eil ann ach a’ bhean-nigheachain" (it is only the Washer Woman). On this occasion the Bean Nighidh had not perceived them at first, but, when she did, she left the stream and went under a little bush growing on the bank and in an agitated manner began breaking off the points of the branches and throwing them away. The reciter of this story did not think of her as associated with death, and in fact considered her appearance of little or no significance. From Coll we are told of a man crossing a stream after dark seeing what he supposed to be a woman washing. Considering her appearance as untimely, he thought to try her with stones; the result was that, after a few of these missives, she disappeared, and he concluded that she was a Washer Woman. The person to whom this happened was the uncle of the reciter's brother-in-law, and the story was told in all good faith.

Some maintained that the Washer Woman did not foretell death and was different from the Caointeachan, giving the former credit for being sympathetic, a sympathy apparently shown by her preparing the shroud, and some say that any request made to her she must grant if the inquirer can get between her and the water where she is washing. Like other fairy gifts, however, wealth acquired in this way was said at least in one case to be of little benefit to the receiver.

The identity of the Caointeachan and the Washer Woman appears very clearly in the belief we find in Islay that the Caointeachan does not like to be disturbed when washing, and, if a person should come too near her at such a time, he might expect to get a switch with the shroud across his legs which would take them off. They seem irritable creatures, for we are told that near the Free Church in Bernera, Harris, two of them were seen fighting.

There is a large flat stone in Gleann-na-gaoithe in Islay with a deep hole scooped out of its surface, and this is called the Caointeachan's tub. A man on his way to Portnahaven crossing the Glen put his foot on the so-called tub, and immediately his head was twisted round until his face was almost at his back. As this uncomfortable condition continued for some time, he was advised to go and sit on the tub till the Caonteach came to him, and then boldly to refuse to move until she put his head right. She made her appearance in due course, and in answer to his request she promised to cure him on condition that he would never put his foot on her tub again. This he was glad to undertake, and she fulfilled her part of the bargain.

This same fairy myth appears in Ross-shire and Sutherlandshire, the name applied being the Vow. The most notorious locality at which she is said to appear is the river Carron. The Vow is not here spoken of as audibly plaintive, but she is said to show malevolence, which takes the form of causing death by drowning to those crossing the waters she frequents; she loses her importance, therefore, where fords have been replaced by bridges. They speak of her also as a kelpie who warns those to be drowned.
Kelpies are of either sex. The Highland each-uisge (waterhorse) and tarbh-uisge (water bull) are other forms of the kelpie; compare Icelandic kalfr; O.H.G. chalba, a calf, also the calf of the leg; Lhuyd, colpach, a colt, bullock, or heifer.   Local information tells us nothing of outcry in case of the Vow. The localities frequented by her are fords, and her occupation is that of beetling clothes on a fiat stone, like the Washer Woman. A Gaelic speaker described her appearance, as seen when he was fishing in the Carron, as cruban at a place on the river where was a ford. Cruban (sitting squat) is Gaelic for a crab, and is applied to a  claw, hoof, or paw, and, as already mentioned, the Bean Nighidh is credited with peculiar feet and could crouch under a low bush.

The Vow is evidently a Teutonic name for an equivalent to the Banshee, Caonteach, and Bean Nighidh.

In the district of Carradale in Kintyre is a point called Sroin na h-Eannachair; as our reciter said, " the haunt of a supernatural being which makes a fearful noise before the death of any of the Clan Macmillan." Eannachar is evidently the local name for the Caonteach of the Macmillans, and a translation of the name shows the union of innocence and a connection with a pass and water such as we find in the case of the Washer Woman and of the Vow. Eanach, eannech and eannach all mean innocent, free from sin, spotless, pure, as we should expect from the descriptions we have of the Caonteach. Eanach is a marsh, a lake, common in place names, e.g. Annaghbeg, Annaghbane, etc., and is connected with can (a bird, fowl of any sort), bearing out the description of the Caonteach having red feet webbed like a duck. Eanach (a marsh) is the haunt of wild fowl. Eanach is also given as a pass, a road, recalling the preference of the Vow for fords.

We advance the thesis that all these stories have some common origin in nature, and we suggest that the weird calling at night of wild animals such as wolves and owls, when they vary a little from the more usually recognised sounds, are the probable cause from which these traditions have been built up ; the appearance ascribed is not merely from something seen, but also the result of after consideration of the names applied or applicable. In support of this the Banshee seems to be a modern expression for what appears in old Irish romance as the Bodb, the goddess of battle, naturally connected with families of importance to whom she may be supposed to have rendered service. She is the bodhbh or grey crow, the so called royston, scald crow, as being noisy, blustering, and as the goddess of battle presided over sudden death.

Hilpert in his Dictionary gives wauwau as provincial for a bugbear, old bogie, an onomatopoeia for the barking of a dog, which at once shows the connection of the Vow with noise. May not bodb, bodhbh be a Gaelic nominative formed from bhodhbh (vov), the b taking the place of what was considered its asperated form? In Moray to howl is expressed as wow, the same being the case in the north of England, and is applied to the mewing of a cat and the wail of an infant. The Latin ululare is to cry as a wolf, and connected with this is ulfw the Suio-Gothic for a wolf, while ululae are screech owls, in Gaelic coinnil. The connection of owls with women in Gaelic is shown in the name cailleach oidhche (the night woman). Coinnil are evidently so called from cóinim (to complain, bewail), a word we find in the Manx caayney, caoiney (to bewail, to sing), the Welsh cwyno (to mourn or lament), the Cornish cwyna, and the Breton keina, keini, the Latin cano (I sing) and canis (a dog). Primitive singing must have been a mere exaggeration of the rise and fall of the voice when speaking, rhythm being achieved by accompanying the outcry with clapping of hands. The Latin cano has possibly influenced the Gaelic canim, I sing. What we wish to make clear to our readers is that the lamenting of the keener after a death is the survival of an early form of what we now know as singing. The Bodb, the Banshee, the Caonteach, and the Vow are probably identical in origin, commemorating grief as expressed by the voice, and the Washer Woman tradition commemorates the clapping of the hands common both at keening and at clothes washing. The information I have used in writing this paper has been gathered from living reciters, and I would gratefully acknowledge much local information given by Miss E. M. Kerr, 137 Craiglea Drive, Edinburgh, formerly of Port Charlotte, Islay.

 The Folk-Lore Journal Vol. XXV 1914, R. C. Maclagan.

ean Nighe, or Washing Woman.
At times the Fairy woman (Bean shìth) is seen in lonely places, beside a pool or stream, washing the
linen of those soon to die, and folding and beating it with her hands on a stone in the middle of the water. She is then known as the Bean-nighe, or washing woman; and her being seen is a sure sign that death is near.

In Mull and Tiree she is said to have praeternaturally long breasts, which are in the way as she stoops at her washing. She throws them over her shoulders, and they hang down her back. Whoever sees her must not turn away, but steal up behind and endeavour to approach her unawares. When he is near enough he is to catch one of her breasts, and, putting it to his mouth, call herself to witness that she is his first nursing or foster-mother (muime cìche). She answers that he has need of that being the case, and will then communicate whatever knowledge he desires. If she says the shirt she is washing is that of an enemy he allows the washing to go on, and that man's death follows; if it be that of her captor or any of his friends, she is put a stop to.

In Skye the Bean-nighe is said to be squat in figure (tiughiosal), or not unlike a 'small pitiful child’ (paisde beag brònach). If a person caught her she told all that would befall him in after life. She answered all his questions, but he must answer hers. Men did not like to tell what she said. Women dying in childbed were looked upon as dying prematurely, and it was believed that unless all the clothes left by them were washed they would have to wash them themselves till the natural period of their death. It was women 'dreeing this weird ' who were the washing women. If the person hearing them at work beating their clothes (slacartaich) caught them before being observed, he could not be heard by them; but if they saw him first, he lost the power of his limbs (Iùgh).

In the highlands of Perthshire the washing woman is represented as small and round, and dressed in pretty green. She spreads by moonlight the linen winding sheets of those soon to die, and is caught by getting between her and the stream. She can also be caught and mastered and made to communicate her information at the point of the sword. Oscar, son of the poet Ossian, met her on his way to the Cairbre's feast, at which the dispute arose which led to his death. She was encountered by Hugh of the Little Head on the evening before his last battle, and left him as her parting gift (fàgail), that he should become the frightful apparition, he did after death, the most celebrated in the West Highlands.

Song.
The song of the Fairy woman foreboded great calamity, and men did not like to hear it. Scott calls it:
"The fatal Banshi's boding scream," but it was not a scream, only a wailing murmur {torman mulaid) of unearthly sweetness and melancholy.

lona Banshi.
A man in lona, thinking daylight was come, rose and went to a rock to fish. After catching some fish,
he observed he had been misled by the clearness of the moonlight, and set off home. On the way, as the night was so fine, he sat down to rest himself on a hillock. He fell asleep, and was awakened by the pulling of the fishing rod, which he had in his hand. He found the rod was being pulled in one direction and the fish in another. He secured both, and was making off, when he heard sounds behind him as of a woman weeping. On his turning round to her, she said, " Ask news, and you will get news." 
He answered, "I put God between us."
When he said this, she caught him and thrashed him soundly. Every night after he was compelled to meet her, and on her repeating the same words and his giving the same answer, was similarly drubbed. To escape from her persecutions he went to the Lowlands. When engaged there cutting drains, he saw a raven on the bank above him. This proved to be his tormentor, and he was compelled to meet her again at night, and, as usual, she thrashed him. He resolved to go to America. On the eve of his departure, his Fairy mistress met him and said, " You are going away to escape from me. If you see a hooded crow when you land, I am that crow."
On landing in America he saw a crow sitting on a tree, and knew it to be his old enemy. In the end the
Fairy dame killed him.

Tiree Banshi.
At the time of the American War of Independence, a native of Tiree, similarly afflicted and wishing to
escape from his Fairy love, enlisted and was drafted off to the States. On landing he thanked God he was now where the hag could not reach him. Soon after, however, she met him.
"You have given thanks," she said, " for getting rid of me, but it is as easy for me to make my appearance here as in your own country." 
She then told him what fortunes were to befall him, that he would survive the war and return home, and that she would not then trouble him anymore. " You will marry there and settle. You will have two daughters, one of whom will marry and settle in Croy-Gortan (Cruaidh-ghortain, stone-field), the other will marry and remain in your own house. The one away will ask you to stay with herself, as her sister will not be kind to you. Your death will occur when you are crossing the Leige" (a winter stream falling into Loch Vasipol).
All this in due course happened.  

About four generations ago, a native of Cornaig in Tiree was out shooting on the Reef plain, and returning home in the evening, at the streamlet, which falls into Balefetrish Bay, near Kennovay, was met by a Fairy dame. He did not at first observe anything in her appearance different from other women, but, on her putting over her head and kissing him, he saw she had but one nostril. On reaching home he was unable to articulate one word. By the advice of an old man he composed, in his mind, a love song to the Fairy. On doing this, his speech came back.

Superstitions of the Scottish Highlands & Islands of Scotland, J. G. Campbell, 1900

lso ancestral in character are those fairy spirits of the banshee type, known in Ireland, the Highlands of Scotland, and Wales, and not altogether unfamiliar to England, as “white ladies.” These forms (banshee in Ireland, banshee, glaistig, and bean-nighe in Scotland, cyhiraeth in Wales) are usually attached to ancient native families, usually of distinction, and thus differ from the brownie class, who are associated with the humbler folk of the soil-farmers and yeomen. They lament the death of their kindred by terrifying outbursts of grief. The name banshee simply means  fairy-woman, but the type is by no means exclusively Celtic, and is known all over Europe. The glaistig (water-sprite), a form of the banshee, was sometimes believed to be the spirit of a deceased woman of the family, under fairy enchantment. But the banshee may be the later representative of a Celtic goddess of death. The banshee is notoriously an ancestral form, haunting families of distinction. In Scotland, however, she assumes more than one form, the glaistig, the cointeach, or keener, and the bean-nighe, or washer, which latter appearance she also takes in Ireland. Most great families in the Highlands of Scotland “possessed a tutelary spirit of the kind,” remarks Sir Walter Scott. Sometimes the cointeach is alluded to as “ a little white thing, soft as wool,” and without flesh, blood, or bones -clearly a popular rendering of a very ancient idea of the rather amorphous appearance and condition in which the soul was supposed to exist in its separate state. The cointeach howled outside the doors of those about to die. In the Highlands of Aberdeenshire, two hills were pointed out where travellers were wont to propitiate the banshee with cakes of barleymeal, and if such an offering were neglected, death was sure to ensue. This reveals very clearly the incidence of a belief in that species of offering usually devoted to ancestral spirits.


British Fairy Origins, by Lewis Spence, 1946


The Washer of the Death-Shrouds.
n Perthshire the washing-woman is described as a creature, small and rotund, and clad in flimsy raiment of emerald hue. The person seeing her, it was held, must not hurry away, but should try to steal up behind her, and surprise her by asking for whom she was washing the death-shrouds.
In Skye, however, she has been likened to a squat creature resembling a small, pitiful child. If caught when "dreeing her weird," she related to her captor what fate awaited him. She responded to all his questionings, if assured that her captor would answer truthfully all questions she, in turn, put to him. Tf the person approaching- a washing-woman were able to get his hands on her before she either saw or heard him, and she meanwhile engaged with the shrouds, he was able to detain her, and demand of her an answer to his interrogations. If, on the other hand, he was observed or heard by her in his approach, she was able to deprive him of the use of his limbs. There is a tradition in the Alvie district of Inverness-shire that one of the lochans set in the surrounding hills was the haunt of such a washing-woman. Visible only to those under the shadow of death was this phantom washer of the shrouds. It was held that she represented the disembodied spirit of a mother, who had died in childbirth, and whose garments had not all been washed at the time of her burial.  Since death at childbirth was regarded as premature and unpropitious, the phantom washing-woman of Alvie continued to rinse in this lochan the shirts of all those who were fated to die or be killed in battle between the date of the mother's death and the date on which she would have died in the natural course of events. One of the most popular of Highland stories connected with the washing of the death-shrouds is told of the Mermaid of Loch Slin. On turning a comer on the path by the side of this loch one Sabbath morning, a Cromarty maiden was startled at finding what seemed to be a tall female who, standing in the water just beyond a cluster of flags and rushes, was "knocking claes" on a stone with a bludgeon. On a bleaching-green near at hand she observed more than thirty smocks and shirts, all horribly besmeared
with blood. Shortly after the appearance of this apparition, the roof of Fearn Abbey collapsed during worship, burying the congregation in its debris, and killing thirty-six. This accounted for the strange washing by the banks of Loch Slin.

Lad of the Wet Foot.
he story is told in the Isle of Benbecula of the way in which a henchman of Mac 'ic Ailein nan Eilean—the Captain of Clan Ranald of the Isles—was forewarned of the death of his valient and beloved chieftain. This henchman was known as the Gille-cas-fluich, the Lad of the Wet Foot, simply because it was his duty to be walking constantly in front of his master, so as to take the dew or the rain off grass and heather that otherwise would be soaking his master's feet.
Now, it was the Lad of the Wet Foot who, having come on the washing-woman, while she was wailing a death-dirge by one of the Benbecula fords, seized hold of her, and refused to let her go until he learned of her for whom she was washing the death-shroud and singing the dirge.
"Let me go," said she. "And give me the freedom of my feet, and that the breeze of reek coming from thy grizzled tawny beard is a near putting a stop to the breath of my throat. Much more would my nose prefer, and much rather would my heart desire, the air of the fragrant incense of the mist of the mountains."
"I will not allow thee away," replied the Lad of the Wet Foot, " till thou promise me my three choice desires ."
"Let me hear them, ill man! " said the bean-nighe.
"That thou wilt tell to me for whom thou art washing the shroud and crooning the dirge, that thou wilt give me my choice spouse, and that thou wilt keep abundant seaweed in the creek of our townland as long as the carle of Sgeirrois shall continue his moaning."
Then answered the bean-nighe: "I am washing the shroud and crooning the dirge for Great Clan  Ranald of the Isles; and he shall never again in his living life of the world go thither nor come hither across the clachan of Dun Borve."
Instantly the Lad of the Wet Foot grasped the deathshroud, and flung it into the loch. And he hastened home to the stronghold of Dun Borve, home to the bedside of Clan Ranald himself. And he related to his master all that the washing-woman had told him at the stepping-stones by the ford, in the dead of night. Clan Ranald immediately directed that a cow be killed, and that without delay a new coracle be made with the hide, so that he might be taking a long, long sail—no one knew whither. In no time the coracle was brought to him. And Clan Ranald of the Isles speedily forsook Dun Borve, carrying the coracle; and he could be seen in the act of paddling himself away and away, out ov'er the loch. And
never again, either on moorland or on machar, or by the shore of sea or loch, was the Captain of Clan Ranald seen in human form in Benbecula.


 The Peat-Fire Flame: Folktales and Traditions of the Highlands and Islands by Alasdair Alpin MacGregor,  1937





Source pictures:

Nico