Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 21, 1910.djvu/118

90 When a glass breaks of itself, it signifies sudden death.

If two persons unintentionally begin to say the same thing at once, they will die together.

A robin coming into a house foretells death.

A cock crowing at the door brings hasty news.

Moths round a candle tell of a visit from a stranger.

Never let your tears drop on a corpse, or harm will befall you.

If a child be born with a caul, he or she will possess "second sight," and will never be drowned.

When I was a child we had a Highland gardener named Hugh Gillies, who told us many stories of fairies and kelpies, amongst which the tale that pleased us most was the following account how his mother, whom we remembered, was carried off by the fairies and kept by them for two months:—

When Hugh and his brothers and sisters were very young, their father and mother did not live very happily together, and another man, whom I will call Donald, often came to see their mother when their father was not at home, so that after a time people began to talk and someone told the father, who swore to punish his wife if he ever saw her speaking to Donald again. Soon after this the autumn market was held at the little village of Ford at the foot of Loch Awe. To this market Mrs. Gillies went, and the gossips saw her in earnest talk with Donald late in the afternoon. That night Mrs. Gillies did not return home, and her husband, believing that she had fled with Donald, walked from his home in Kilmartin Glen the twelve miles up Loch Awe side to Donald's home, but, though he searched the house and neighbourhood thoroughly, no trace of his wife could be found. He had the place and Donald carefully watched, but neither he nor the neighbours obtained the slightest clue to the whereabouts of the missing woman. Yet every night, after the household had gone to bed, she used to come and "red up" (tidy) the house, lay the fire ready for kindling the next morning, and brush and comb the children's hair. Hugh distinctly remembered being roused out of sleep night after night by his mother lifting him on to her lap while she "did his hair."

For nearly two months this state of affairs continued, and then,