Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 14, 1903.djvu/416

 374 Old- World Survivals in Ross-shire.

was due to a spell of this nature. He was in an official capacity of some description, and in some way came to loggerheads with an old woman over a question of rates or rents, or something of that kind. Tall, stalwart, and to all appearance physically perfect (I knew him well), he sickened and died of consumption. Another case that was told to me was concerning a voung woman who set her affections upon a certain young man. But on this occasion Barkis was not willing, and he would have none of her. To revenge herself for his shocking want of taste, she resolved that if she was not fated to get him, then neither would any possible rival. In this dog-in-the-manger frame of mind she made a corp creagh for the luckless youth. But it so happened that one day a neighbour (who is the mother of my informant), went into the girl's father's barn to look for some eggs, and hidden among some hay she found, not eggs, but the corp. There is reason to believe that during the land agitation and strife which have of recent years occupied the Highlands, the rite was practised in con- nection with some of the land leaguers who had made them- selves obnoxious to their fellows.

One day not long ago, I sat at the loch-side watching two men whom I shall call Rory Campbell and Ian Mac- donald. They were engaged in tarring a herring-boat, and to improve the shining hour I asked if it was true about the burial of a suicide in sight of the sea driving away the herrings. Rory, otherwise known as the Polish (not for furniture, dear reader, but a guardian of the peace), was scornful and sceptical. For having, as his nickname indicates, been in Glasgow for nearly a year in that capacity, he is quite above beliefs of this kind. Ian, however, was inclined to think that there was something in it. " Ach, 'deed," he said, " there have been no herrings at all since that year Catriona Vohr put herself aside and was buried in front of the church." Rory snorted and jeered ; the tarring opera- tion was suspended, and the two fell a squabbling. Said