Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/100

 88 Collectanea.

though hurt follows her appearance, it is not her doing. A lad who saw one and went down to her was dipped by her in the river, she abusing him for going too near her. An onlooker who sees the Washer Woman first has nothing to fear, but if she sees him first she will get the better of him. Some men who worked on the Highland Railway, and " were as respectable as other folk " and came from the Reay country, were descendants of a Bean Nighidh. A boy going to school with his two sisters, who saw one while he himself did not, shortly afterwards took ill and died, the girls apparently being none the worse. A woman had become so accustomed to the sight of a Bean Nighidh who frequented the neighbourhood in which she lived, Lochcarron, that, when asked by her husband who the little woman he saw was, answered him '■'■cha'n 'eil atin ach a hhea?i-?ngheachaifi" (it is only the Washer Woman). On this occasion the Bean Nighidh had not perceived them at first, but, when she did, she left the stream and went under a little bush growing on the bank and in an agitated manner began breaking off the points of the branches and throwing them away. The reciter of this story did not think of her as associated with death, and in fact considered her appear- ance of little or no significance. From Coll we are told of a man crossing a stream after dark seeing what he supposed to be a woman washing. Considering her appearance as untimely, he thought to "try her with stones;" the result was that, after a few of these missives, she disappeared, and he concluded that she was a Washer Woman. The person to whom this happened was the uncle of the reciter's brother-in-law, and the story was told in all good faith.

Some maintained that the Washer Woman did not foretell death and was different from the Caointeachan, giving the former credit for being sympathetic, a sympathy apparently shown by her pre- paring the shroud, and some say that any request made to her she must grant if the inquirer can get between her and the water where she is washing. Like other fairy gifts, however, wealth acquired in this way was said at least in one case to be of little benefit to the receiver.

The identity of tiie Caointeachan and the Washer Woman appears very clearly in the belief we find in Islay that the Caoin-