Witchcraft & Second Sight in the Highlands & Islands of Scotland. John Gregorson Campbell

it caught sight of her, gave chase, and compelled her to resume her proper shape. When he left the farm, she was not seen there for some days. He went in search of her, and accused her to her face of having been the party that troubled the farm. She got into a rage, and said she would punish him for raising such a story about her. He answered that the proprietor of the island had offered a reward for the discovery of the guilty person, and if all the women in Coll were gathered on one hillock his speckled dog (cu breac) would pick her out as the offender. To this she made no reply. He asked her to go to Arileod dairy that night, so that people would not have it to say it was for him the evil had arisen. She said this was Wednesday night, and it was out of her power to do anything, but the following night she would go, and he would hear of it. On Thursday night she loosened the cows in Arileod byre, let in the calves, and did much mischief.

WITCHES AS HARES.

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      In addition to the above tales, in which this transformation has been mentioned, the following may be given as further illustrations of the superstition.

      A young man, in the island of Lismore, was out shooting. When near Balnagown Loch, he started a hare, and fired at it. The animal gave an unearthly scream, and it then for the first time occurred to the young man that there were no hares in Lismore. He threw away his gun in terror, and fled home. Next day he came back for the gun, and heard that a reputed witch of the neighbourhood was laid up with a broken leg. Ever after the figure of this woman encountered him and gave him severe thrashings. This preyed on his mind, and he never came to any good. He proved brooding, idle, and useless.

      A Manxman, who was in Tiree a few years ago, told the following story. A party of sportsmen, engaged in coursing, were at a loss for a hare. An old woman told her grandson to go to them, tell them they would get a hare at a certain spot, and get half-a-crown for himself. The boy went, got his half-crown, and guided the sportsmen to the spot his grandmother had indicated. When the hare started he cried, “Run, granny, run!” The hare made straight for the old woman’s house, the dogs lost sight of it at the back of the house, and the old woman was found sitting at the fireside.

      In Wigtonshire a hare ran up the chimney, and a suspected witch near hand was found with burnt feet.

WITCHES AS CATS.

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      The association of witches with cats is of great antiquity. In the legends of Greece and Rome, we are told of a woman, who had been changed into a cat, being chosen as priestess by Hecate, the goddess of sorcery and magic power, and of Hecate herself, when the gods were forced to hide themselves in animals, taking refuge in the shape of a cat. The association probably arose not so much from cats being the frequent, almost invariable, companions of the poor old women accused of witchcraft, as from the savage character of the animal itself. Its noiseless and stealthy motions, its persevering watchfulness, its extraordinary agility and tenacity of life, its diabolical caterwauling, prowling habits, deceitful spring, and the luminous appearance of its eyes in the dark, would alone suffice to procure it the name of unearthly; but when infuriated, glaring, bristling, and spitting, it forms a vivid representation of a perfect demon. In the Highlands, it was not, as in the witchcraft of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, looked upon as the familiar or attendant imp of the witch, but merely as an animal, whose form witches frequently assumed.

      There were other superstitions connected with the animal. Were it not the fear of being swallowed by the ground, a cat would run much faster than it does. When people have a cat along with them in a boat, they cannot, or will not, be drowned by witches. By burying a cat alive, people waiting for a favourable wind get a breeze from the direction in which its head is put; and a witch, that is, a young one, who is courted by a sailor, can detain him with contrary winds as long as she likes by shutting up the cat in the cupboard. A cat scraping is a sign that some beast, horse, cow, pig, or dog will be found dead on the farm before long. A cat washing its face portends rain next day, and turning its back to the fire storm and rain. When removing from one house to another (imrich), it is unlucky to take a cat. The animal was disliked by the MacGregors, and the Camerons of Glenevis could not tolerate it at all.

      A shepherd in Kintail, living alone in a bothy, far from other houses, after kindling in the evening a bright cheerful fire, threw himself on a heather bed on the opposite side of the house. About twenty cats entered and sat round the fire, holding up their paws and warming themselves. One went to the window, put a black cap on its head, cried “Hurrah for London!” and vanished. The other cats, one by one, did the same. The cap of the last fell off, and the shepherd caught it, put it on his own head, cried “Hurrah for London!” and followed. He reached London in a twinkling, and with his companions went to drink wine in a cellar. He got drunk and fell asleep. In the morning he was caught, taken before a judge, and sentenced to be hanged. At the gallows he entreated to be allowed to wear the cap he had on in the cellar; it was a present from his mother, and he would like to die with it on. When it came the rope was round his neck. He clapped the cap on his head, and cried “Hurrah for Kintail!” He disappeared with the gallows about his neck, and his friends in Kintail, having by this time missed him, and being assembled in the bothy prior to searching the hills, were much surprised at his strange appearance.

      This is a fair specimen of the popular tale. It forms the foundation of the Ettrick Shepherd’s “Witch of Fife.” In Skye, the adventure was claimed by a man nicknamed ‘Topsy-turvy’ (But-ar-scionn) as having occurred to himself. After coming home, he made the gallows into a weaver’s loom. The hero in Argyllshire made it the stern and keel of a boat, which may be seen in Lorn to this day. In Harris the hero is a tailor: and the tale has been even found in the Monach isles, west of Uist.

      Captain Burt (1730) tells a story of a similar kind which he had heard from a minister. A laird, whose wine was disappearing mysteriously, suspecting witches one night, when he thought the plunderers were at work, entered the cellar, closed the door, and laid about him with a broadsword. When light was brought, the cats, whose eyes he had seen glaring at him in the dark, disappeared, and only some blood was found on the floor. An old woman in the neighbourhood, suspected of being a witch, was found, on her house being entered, in bed, with her leg cut off and lying below the bed. The same story is told of the witches of Thurso (Inbher-Eòrsa).

      A tailor, named Macilduinn, was left in a house alone on Hallowe’en night, while the rest of the household went to a neighbour’s house to hold the festivities of the evening. As he sat on a bed, working at his trade, a great many cats came in, and attacking a bag of flesh at the end of the bed soon tore it up and devoured it. They then gathered round the tailor. One said, “The back of my paw to Macilduinn!” Another said, “The front of my paw to Macilduinn!”[12] These threats were repeated by all the rest, while they held out their horrid claws, some derisively, some menacingly, to the poor tailor. Frightened from his wits, he blew out the light, sprung to the door, and took to his heels. The cats gave chase, and by the time he reached a neighbours house his back was scratched into shreds and thongs (na iallun) by the claws of the infernal cats.

      Cameron of Doïni, or Glenevis, was out hunting, and killed a wild-cat. The animal, when expiring, asked him to tell, when he went home, that ‘the King of the Cats’ (Righ nan Cat) was dead, or according to others ‘the Key of Battle’ (an Iuchair Chath), or ‘the streaked Brindled one’ (a Bhruchail Bhreac). As he told his story, the little black kitten in the ash-hole (an toll na luath) bristled up and swelled, till it was as large as a dog. Cameron said, “You are swelling, cat.” The cat answered, “My feathers and my swellings are growing bigger with the heat,”[13] and, springing at the chieftain’s throat, killed him. The scions of this family (Teaghlach Dhomhainnidh no Ghlinn-Ibheis) till quite recent times, would not tolerate a cat in the house, from the memory of this tradition.

      The same story is told in the following manner, without any locality being assigned for the incident. A