Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 14, 1903.djvu/415

Rh schoolmistress absent from home. I asked her mother why this was so, and was told that for some weeks past her daughter had suffered agonies with a bad whitlow in her hand. She had heard of a chance conveyance that was going into the Lochaber district; had asked the School Board for a few days' absence, and had gone off to Lochaber to pay a visit to the Healer.

About three months ago I was asked to come and see a child suffering from hip-joint disease. On arriving at the cottage I found there a boy of twelve or so, whom I did not remember having seen before. I was told that he was the seventh son of a seventh son, whom the child's parents had heard lived in Arisaig. Though extremely poor, these people had actually gone to the expense of bringing this boy all that way in order that he should exercise his supposed powers of healing on their child. Did space permit I could quote many more instances that I have come across, showing that so far the schoolmaster's influence is not yet felt to any appreciable extent as regards this sort of thing.

A rather gruesome relic of a barbarous age which I have heard of as happening within the last few years, is that ugly one known as the Corp Creagh. As its name indicates, this is a body of clay rudely shaped into the image of the person whose hurt is desired. After a tolerably correct representation is obtained, it is stuck all over with pins and thorns, and placed in a running stream. As the image is worn away by the action of the water the victim also wastes away with some mortal disease. The more pins are stuck in from time to time the more excruciating agony the unfortunate victim suffers. Should, however, any wayfarer by accident discover the Corp in the stream the spell is broken, and the victim duly recovers. A case of Corp Creagh has been known to occur in Uist within the last five years; and in a parish adjoining ours, it was whispered that the death of a certain young man