Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/99

 Collectanea. 87

A story is told of one of the Macmillans of Dunmore. A man in the neighbourhood heard the " keener," and asked her the cause of the lamenting : she told him one of the family had died at Sligo in Ireland ; he asked for some proof, and was told he would find a hole burned in his plaid next morning. Sure enough the hole was there, and the body of the dead man was subse- quently brought to Dunmore for burial.

A Tyree man spoke of the Caointeachan as a male, and that to see or hear him was a fortunate thing, for what he said for good or evil would happen without much delay.

In the outer islands more especially we hear of the " Washer Woman " Bean Nigheachain, otlierwise Bean Nighidh. Accounts of her are common in Lewis, Harris, Uist, and Coll, and she is credited, when seen, with foretelling some fatality, but is not specially attached to particular families. A reciter in Lewis said she is supposed only to appear in connection with some general fatality.

This " water nymph '' " resembles a woman somewhat," is of small size, and one of our informants said that her feet were red and webbed like a duck's. Like other " superior kinds of fairies " she is credited with a green dress, and was said to come about gentlemen's houses at night, and, though seen " after dark and by children going to school in the early morning," she evidently shuns daylight. She is invariably seen in the neighbourhood of water, a necessary consequence of her occupation as a Washer Woman, and what she washes is described as "clothes of the battle" and shrouds {aodach matrbh, ais-leine). There is in a burn in the parish of Kinloch-Spelvie in Mull a flat stone, on which she would be seen " posting clothes," i.e. beating them with a beetle, or tramping them. The noise made by her is likened to "clapping hands, as of one washing clothes," and also as "like the splashing of water."^

The result of interviews with the Bean Nighidh varies con- siderably, as may be supposed when we are told by some that she is of a friendly disposition and that her appearance has no sig- nificance in association with death, but by others again that,

'Cf. vol. xxi., pp. iSo, 189 (Co. Clare); and, for \h& lavandicres de unit, P. Sebillot, Le Folk-lore de France, Tome iii.