Before the death of a duine wassal (_duin uasal_, a gentleman), a light or meteor called _Dreag_ or rather _Driug_, was seen in the sky proceeding from the house to the grave in the direction in which the funeral procession was to go. It was only for ‘big men,’ people of station and affluence, that these lights appeared, and an irreverent tailor once expressed a wish that the whole sky were full of them. HUGH OF THE LITTLE HEAD (_Eoghan a chinn bhig_). This was the best known and most dreadful spectre in the West Highlands, the phantom of a headless horseman, which made its appearance whenever any of the Maclaines of Lochbuy, in Mull, were near their dissolution. The spectral horseman is mounted on a small black steed, having a white spot on its forehead, and the marks of the hoofs of which are not like those of other horses, but round indentations as if it had wooden legs. Whenever any of the sept which he follows are on their death-bed Hugh is heard riding past the house, and sometimes even shows himself at the door. He does not sit straight on his horse’s back, but somewhat to one side, and the appearance of the almost headless body is that of a water-stoup tied on the horse’s back. The history of the man who is thus doomed to attend at the death of any of his clan is curious. Tradition is not always uniform on the subject, but the following statement reconciles most of the accounts and substantially agrees with them all. Hugh was the only son of Hector the Stubborn (_Eachunn Reuganach_), first chief of Lochbuy, in the fourteenth century, and brother of Lachlan the Wily (_Lachunn Lùbanach_), first chief of Dowart. He got the name of “Hugh of the Little Head” in his lifetime, and from the actions ascribed to him fully bears his own testimony to the truth of the adage, “A big head on a wise man and a hen’s head on a fool” (_Ceann mōr air duine glic ’s ceann circ avi amadan_). Sayings of his, which tradition has preserved, illustrate the curious shrewdness sometimes found in connection with limited intellect. Thus, when his mother was being carried for burial, he thought the pall-bearers were carrying the body too high, and he told them not to raise her so high, “in case she should seek to make a habit of it” (_mu ’m bi i ’g iarraidh a chleachdaidh_), and the phrase has since continued, “to seek to make a habit of anything, like Hugh of the Little Head’s mother.” He was married to a daughter of the house of Macdougall of Lorn; and she proved but a very indifferent wife. Tradition ascribes to her several nicknames, all of them extremely opprobrious, “The Black-bottomed Heron” (_Chorra thòn du_), “Stingy, the Bad Black Heron” (_Gortag, an droch chorra dhu_), “The Macdougall Heron” (_Curra Dhùghaill_), and _Dubhag tòn ri teallaich_. He was a fearless soldier, and altogether a very likely person to have been made a wandering spectre of after his death.