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:
'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.
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| 1. |
Scottish Folklore and Folk Life, Donald Mackenzie, (1935).
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.
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.
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| 2. |
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.
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."
"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.
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
Nico
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
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.
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.
The Washer of 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.
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
Source pictures:
Nico