Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 10, 1899.djvu/300

 26o The Powers of Evil in the Outer Hebrides.

Nothing strikes one as more strange in these Islands than the curious mixture of religion and superstition ; and one realises, as in perhaps few other places, what life must have been in early days when Christianity was first superinduced upon Paganism. Here there has been, moreover, the curious complication of a Christianity rooted in the hearts of a people, who were then left without teachers, without books, without, practically, any written language, for nearly three centuries. The realisation of the forces of nature and the powers of evil was strong in a land wholly without trees, without the convenience of wood for any purposes of shelter or manufacture ; where the soil is so shallow and ungrateful that few things will even take root ; where, so wind-swept is the land, that even when rooted they have but a pre- carious hold upon the soil ; where man and beast alike have to make a struggle for life, of which we happily know little.

Thus it came about that one of the most obvious uses of their religion was to play it off, if one may say so, against the Powers of Darkness.

The spinning-wheel is blessed when it is put away for the night ; the cow before she is milked ; the horses when put to any new work ; the cattle when they are shut up in the byre ; the fire when the peats are covered up at bed-time ; the door is sio;ned with the cross when closed for the nio-ht : and the joiner's tools when he leaves them in his workshop, otherwise he is likely to be disturbed by hearing them used by unseen hands. For the same reason the women take the band off the spinning-wheel, for when a death is about to occur tools and wheel are likely to be put to use.

The boats are always blessed at the beginning of the fishing season, and holy water is carried in them. When one leaves the shore, " Let us go in the name of God," says the skipper ; " In the name of God let us go," replies the next in command.

The sea is much more blessed than the land. A man will not be afraid to stay all night in a boat a few yards