Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/98

 86 Collectanea.

Islay man that his granduncle, coming home from Gartacharra and Conispie, saw the Caonteach beating clothes on a stone; "he lifted her; she felt very light and soft in his hands just like a tuft of wool ; she is a kindly creature, and would do harm to nobody." One reciter considered its low wailing cry as evidence of a naturally sympathetic nature.

The form taken by its cryingvaries according to different accounts. Generally it is described as a "mournful wailing," and also as a "bitter weeping," the "most mournful weeping ever heard." But it is also described as a "fearful noise," "three fearful screams," but, strange to say, also "like the splashing of water." It is un- doubtedly confused with singing in the ears, which, if noticed before a death, is called Caointeaclian cliiaise (the ear keener). A Gigha informant says that the Caointeachan is a warning of death, but other stories point to her as a sort of foreteller of future events. If the prophecy is that of a drowning accident, there seems nothing but a filling of the usual roll. But we are told that one of the Curries got the information that his circumstances would improve so that he should die the owner of a conveyance, an equivalent no doubt to the respectability conferred by the possession of a gig. Another foretold a woman's second marriage while her husband was still alive. Another prophecy, signifying no doubt death, was when a man was informed that the errand on which he was engaged was not to his advantage, as "the core of your heart and your two paps will go ; " this was fulfilled by the death of his wife and two children within a few days. A parallel story to the above is the information the Caointeachan gave to the man who took her up beside him in his machine. He had two children ill at the time ; one, she said, would die, and the other recover, and, further, his wife would die before himself, all which is said to have come true. The Caointeachan who was asked why she wept only answered "you. Flora Currie, are here;" Flora, who was going to visit a child, found the child dead on her arrival. All of them, however, are not so mild-mannered, one having given a • slap on the clieek to a man which caused paralysis. His offence was putting his hand under a stone fre- quented by her and taking from it a flint, which he used to light his pipe.