Superstitions of the Highlands & Islands of Scotland: Collected Entirely from Oral SourcesCampbell, John Gregorson
History
Superstitions of the Highlands & Islands of Scotland: Collected Entirely from Oral Sources
Campbell, John Gregorson
Folklore -- Scotland
In olden times the tillage in Tiree was in common, the crop was raised
here and there throughout the farm, and the herding was in consequence
very difficult to do. In Baugh, or some farm in the west of the island
(tradition is not uniform as to the locality), the cows were left in
the pastures at night, and were kept from the crops by some invisible
herdsman. No one ever saw him, or knew whence he came, nor, when he
went away, whither he went. A _taibhseir_ or seer (_i.e._ one who had
the second-sight or sight of seeing ghosts) remained up to see how the
cattle were kept. He saw a man without clothes after them, and taking
pity upon him made him a pair of trews (_triubhas_[58]) and a pair of
shoes. When the ghostly herdsman put the trews on, he said (and his
name then, for the first time, became known):
“Trews upon Gunna,
Because Gunna does the herding,
But may Gunna never enjoy his trews,
If he tends cattle any more.”[59]
When he said this he went away and was never more heard of.
Beings of this class seem to have had a great objection to presents of
clothes. A pair of shoes made the Glaistig at Unimore leave; a cap,
coat, and breeches the Phynnodderee in the Isle of Man (Keightley,
_Fairy Myth_, p. 203); in the Black Forest of Germany, a new coat drove
away a nix, one of the little water-people, with green teeth, that came
and worked with the people all day (_ibid._, p. 261); and Brownie, as
already mentioned, in several places.
THE OLD MAN OF THE BARN.
In the Highlands of Perthshire, previous to the ‘45, each farm or
village had its own _bodachan sabhaill_, ‘the little old man of the
barn,’ who helped to thresh the corn, made up the straw into bundles,
and saw that everything was kept in order. These Brownies had the
appearance of old men and were very wise. They worked always at night,
and were never mischievous, but highly useful.
The _Glaisein_ (lit. grey-headed man) of the Isle of Man bears a strong
resemblance to them. He was very strong, frequented farms, threshed
corn, and went to the sheep-folds (Campbell’s _West Highland Tales_,
Introd. liii.).
These house-spirits have many relations, the Nis of Scandinavia, Kobold
of Germany, Niägruisar of the Faroe Islands, and it is said the English
Hobgoblin. The Hinzelman that haunted Hudemuhlen Castle in Lüneberg had
‘curled yellow hair,’ also a characteristic of the Glaistig; and the
difference between one household tutelary being and another is only
such as might be expected from differences of country and society.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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