traditions and customs of the people, though in doing so we digress, perhaps,
from the main lines of the present volume. While less impressive than the mere
mystical practices, they proceeded from the same source,—an imagination
haunted by the formidable presence of Nature, by the forms of lofty mountains,
by the mysteries of pine-clad ravines, and the murmurs of storm-swept lochs and
falling waters. For it has been truly said that the Scotch people have been made
what they are by Scotland; that the Land has moulded and fashioned the People;
and that in their literature, their religion, their manners, their history, the
influence is seen of the physical characteristics of the country.
On the birth of a child—to begin at the beginning—we read that both mother and
offspring were “sained,” a lighted fir-candle being carried three times round the
bed, and a Bible, with a bannock or bread and cheese being placed under the
pillow, while a kind of blessing was indistinctly uttered. Sometimes a fir-candle
was set on the bed to keep off fairies. If the new-born showed any symptoms of
fractiousness, it was supposed to be a changeling; and to test the truth of the
supposition, the child was placed suddenly before a peat-fire, when, if really a
changeling, it made its escape by the “lum,” throwing back words of scorn as it
disappeared. Great was the eagerness to get the babe baptised, lest it should be
stolen by the fairies. If it died unchristened, it wandered in woods and solitary
places, bewailing its miserable fate. In Ramsay’s “Gentle Shepherd,” Bauldy,
describing Manse the witch, says of her:—
“At midnight hours o’er the kirkyard she raves,
And howks unchristened weans out of their graves.”It was considered “unlucky” to mention the name of an “unchristened wean;”
and even at baptism the name was commonly written on a slip of paper, which
was handed to the officiating minister. What care was taken that the consecrated
water should not enter the child’s eyes! For if such a mishap occurred, his future
life, wherever he went and whatever he did, would be constantly marred by the
presence of wraiths and phantoms. If the babe remained quiet at the font, it was
supposed to be destined to a brief career; and hence, to extort a cry, the woman
who received it from the father would handle it roughly or even pinch it. If a boy
and girl were baptised together, much anxiety was evinced lest the girl should
first receive the rite. And why? In the “Statistical Account of Scotland,” the
minister of an Orcadian parish says: “Within these last seven years the minister
has been twice interrupted in administering baptism to a female child before the
male child, who was baptised immediately after. When the service was over, he
was gravely told he had done very wrong, for, if the female child was first