Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 13, 1902.djvu/72

60 way a first wife will see the person of her successor beside the husband.

Some of the people in the islands have such a horror of the dead that there is sometimes a difficulty in getting a corpse prepared for burial. It is said that those who have once handled a dead body are never afraid again. There are so many superstitions connected with death that one cannot wonder that the entire subject should, even more than elsewhere, have painful associations of mystery and fear.

When one comes into the presence of a corpse, it is wise to lay one's hand upon it; otherwise one may have to see it again.

After a death, the sea-grass of which the bed is made is burned, and the ascending smoke is a sign to the neighbours that they should pray for the deceased. This bed is not made up in a case, but the grass is simply placed in the bottom of the box-bed to the depth of a foot, and a sheet spread over it. This is quite comfortable, and is easily renewed, or even cleaned by being left out in the rain.

In the south end of Uist, the corpse is not laid out on a bed, but on a board or planks, generally in the kitchen. The wall alongside is draped with a white sheet. Sacred pictures, and holy water, and rosary-beads are left beside the body.

A bowl of water is sometimes placed in a bed from which a corpse has been removed, the reason given being that the corpse may be thirsty. A plate with salt upon it is always placed upon the breast of a corpse.

The bands which tie the toes of a corpse when stretched, out for burial, and the bands on the face and hands, are all unloosed when the body is put into the coffin, so that it may not be detained on its way to Judgment on the Last Day. There is a curious euphemistic phrase in Gaelic, "after the tying of the toes," e.g., "many a thing will be known after the tying of the toes." The common form of execration is