Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/96

 COLLECTANEA.

"The Keener" in the Scottish Highlands and Islands.

The " Banshee " has an ascertained place in the English language, and, while the word literally means 'woman fairy,' Joyce ^ defines it as a female spirit attending upon certain families heard "keen- ing " round the house when some member is about to die. At funerals the wake or watching of the body, laithi tia canti (the days of lamentation), have from the oldest times on record even to the present day been accompanied by what Spenser calls "dis- pairful outcrys." This was the cai or caoi.

The exact equivalent of the Banshee in the West Highlands is the Caonteach, Cointeach, Caointeach, or its diminutive Caoin- teachan from caoin (weep, lament). One reciter in telling of lamentation heard before the death of an old man in Argyleshire said that at first it was supposed to be the Caointeachan, but after the man's death his daughter passed the window weeping, and it was agreed it was not the Caointeachan, which is supposed to be attached to particular families, but only a manadh, i.e. a warning which may happen to anyone.

The Caonteach is spoken of throughout Argyleshire, Gigha, Islay, Jura, Tyree, the Long Island, and Skye. Families to which it is said to be attached in these districts are Macmillans, Mathisons, Kellys, Mackays, MacAffers, Duffies, Macfarlanes, Shaws, jSIaclergans, and Curries — in Gaelic MicVorran, Mic- Mhurraidh, MicMhurrich. MicVorran, since Gaelic has no v., might be represented as Micmhourn.-

^P. \V. Joyce, A Social History of Ancient Ireland, vol. i, p. 264. 2 The name Currie itself might conceivably have been considered as con- nected with ciira (care, guardianship), and the Caonteach looked upon as their