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
The worthless one (_am fear nach fhiach_).
The one whom I will not mention (_am fear nach abair mi_).
Yon one (_am fear ud_).
The one big one (_an aon fhear mòr_).
The one from the abyss (_an t-aibhisteir_) from _aibheis_, an abyss, a
depth.
The mean mischievous one (_an Rosad_).
The big sorrow (_an dòlas mòr_).
The son of cursing (_Mac-mollachd_).
The big grizzled one (_an Riabhach mòr_).
The bad one (_an donas_).
The bad spirit (_ain-spiorad_, _droch-spiorad_).
Black Donald (_Dòmhnull Du_).
In the North Highlands he is also known as _Bidein_, _Dithean_,
_Bradaidh_. It is said that _Connan_ was a name given to him, and that
_aisling connain_, a libidinous dream, means literally ‘a devil’s
dream.’ The name must have been very local. There is a fable about
Connan and his twelve sons pulling a plant in the peat moss, in which
the name denoted the wren, and there was a St. Connan, whose memory
is preserved in _Cill-Chonnain_, a burying-ground in Rannoch, and
_Feill-Connain_, the autumn market at Dalmally in Glenorchy.
The occasions on which the devil has appeared in a bodily shape, have
been at meetings of witches; at card-playing, which is the reading of
his books; when he comes to claim his prey; and when summoned by masons
or magicians. He is apt to appear to persons ready to abandon their
integrity, and to haunt premises which are soon to be the scene of
signal calamities. He sometimes comes in unaccountable shapes and in
lonely places for no conceivable purpose but to frighten people.
The following tales will illustrate the character of his appearances
and the notions popularly entertained regarding him.
CARD-PLAYING.
A party of young people were playing cards; a stranger joined them and
took a hand. A card fell below the table, and the youth, who stooped to
lift it, observed the stranger to have a horse’s hoof. The devil, on
being thus detected, went up the chimney in smoke.
This story is universal over the Highlands. Cards are notoriously known
as the devil’s books. When boys play them, the fiend has been known
to come down the chimney feet foremost, the horse’s or pig’s foot
appearing first. When going away, he disappears in smoke, and neighs
horribly in the chimney.
RED BOOK OF APPIN.
This celebrated book contained charms for the cure of cattle, and was
so powerful that its owner had to place an iron hoop about his head
every time he opened it. All accounts agree that it was got from the
devil, but they differ as to how this was done. Very likely the book
was a treatise on the treatment and diseases of cattle, and the origin
of the stories of its magic virtue lay in the fact that the Stewarts,
who owned it, had a magnificent fold of Highland cattle.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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