Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 10, 1899.djvu/308

 268 The Powers of Evil in the Outer Hebrides.

There is a saying that " Luckless is the mother of a silly child, if Beltane come on a Thursday."

Friday is a good day for planting or for sowing seed, for engaging one's self either in matrimony or any other bar- gain. It is not right to buy on a Friday, nor to be buried, nor to cut one's nails or hair, nor to kill sheep. On Good Friday no metal must be put into the ground, such as the spade or plough ; but seaweed may be spread on the surface, or the wooden rake used. It is not right to sharpen a knife on Friday. A knife so treated is cursed, and will probably be used before long to skin one's own cattle, which will have fallen to the Powers of Evil, or fallen dead before the Evil Eye. A person born on a Friday is said to be delicate and dilatory.

Saturday is good for changing one's residence if going from south to north, but it is not right to spin on Saturday night. A woman who once did so had her spinning fingers, i.e. the forefinger and middle finger, joined together ; nor is it right to spin with a corpse in the township.

There is much luck in spots and sites. " 'Tis I that sat on a bad hillock," is a very common saying of anyone who has had deaths either in house or byre, and means that the site of the house is not well chosen.

The sortes numismaticas are resorted to in choosing the site of a house. If heads turn up twice in three times, the spot is lucky. They talk about " heads " and " harps," as if used to the Irish coinage.

A silver coin is buried under the corner-stone for luck.

Another important matter is that of direction. Every- thing should be done dessil, i.e. sunwards. When a child is chokmg they say, " Dessil," possibly part of some old invocation.

It is not right to come to a house " tuaitheal," i.e. north- ward. Probably the word is here used as the reverse of " dessil " or sunward. Witches come that way.