The _swarths_, or doubles, were believed to go through all the actions and occupy the places which the originals would afterwards perform or occupy. This was particularly the case with regard to funerals. They went for the glasses to be used on the occasion, for the coffin, and even for the wood to make it, and marched in melancholy procession to the churchyard. When the funeral procession was seen, the seer was unable to say, except by inference, whose funeral it was. For anything he could directly tell, it might be, as it sometimes was, his own. He could only tell the dress, position in the procession, and appearance of those performing the sad duty. It is dangerous to walk in the middle of the road at night, in case of meeting one of these processions, and being thrown down or forced to become one of the coffin-bearers to the graveyard. Persons in the latter predicament have experienced great difficulty in keeping on the road, the whole weight of the coffin seeming to be laid upon them, and pushing them off the path. If the seer goes among the swarths he will likely be knocked down, but in some districts, as Moidart, he is said to have one of the staves or bearers (_lunn_) of the coffin thrust into his hand, and to be compelled to take his part in the procession till relieved in due time. In Durness, in Sutherlandshire, the cry of “Relief!” there used at every change of coffin-bearers, has been heard at night by persons whose houses were near the high-road called out by the phantasms in their ghostly procession. Persons have been caught hold of by those reputed to have the second sight, and pulled to a side to allow a spectral funeral to pass; and it was universally believed that when the seer saw a procession of the kind, or, indeed, any of his supernatural visions, he could make others see the same sight by putting his foot on theirs and a hand on their shoulder. He should, therefore, never walk in the middle of the road at night. Taïshers never did so. At any moment the traveller may fall in with a spectral funeral, and be thrown down or seized with the oppression of an unearthly weight. The visions of the seer did not always relate to melancholy events, impending death, funerals, and misfortunes. At times he had visions of pleasant events, and saw his future wife, before he ever thought of her (at least so he said), sitting by the fireside in the seat she was afterwards to occupy. He could tell whether an absent friend was on his way home, and whether he was to have anything in his hands when coming. He could not tell what the thing was to be, but merely the general appearance of the absent man when returning, and whether he was to come full or empty handed.