Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 10, 1899.djvu/305

 The Powers of Evil in the Outer Hebrides. 265

There are, however, methods, other than religious, for dodging the Powers of Evil. I remember being perplexed in my earlier wanderings in the Hebrides by hearing green things constantly spoken of as " blue," until it suddenly dawned upon me that green must not be mentioned, lest it should call up the fairies.

" It is not right " to call dogs by name at night, for that will inform the fuath or wandering spirit, and then he can call the dogs as well as you and make them follow himself.

The Rev. A. Macdonald told me that one day one of his parishioners was telling him that a certain spot on the island was bad for cattle, and remembering that the priest had a sheep there at the moment, used the phrase, " It's telling it to the stones I am, and not to you, father ; " intending to divert the evil from the sheep.

The fire of a kiln is spoken of as aingeal, not by the more obvious name of teine. The fire in a kiln, it is said, is a dangerous thing and should not be talked of except by a euphemism. One man said he always blessed the kiln before leaving it, but should feel even then no security if he called the fire " teine." There is a proverb : " 111 will come if mentioned." In the same way drowning is spoken of as "spoiling" or "destroying" [milleadh not bathadli). Even in a sermon it would be thought bad taste to speak of the Devil. He is "the great fellow," "the black one," "the nameless," "the brindled one," "the evil one." A priest told us he once gave an evening hymn to an old man, in which the word diathol (devil) occurred. The man after- wards said he had changed it, as he could not go to bed with such a word on his lips.

So, too, hell is called " the bad place," sometimes, even, " the good place," just as elsewhere — not, I think, in Gaelic- speaking districts — goblins and fairies are the " good folk."

If a cow or a horse die it is not right to say " it died," but " it was lost " ; and in asking a question it is right to preface it with " It is not asking that I am," not only, I