Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 8, 1897.djvu/239

Rh People believed that the light was the taibhse of the lads' death."

A native of Coll informs us: "It is said in the island of Coll, that often before a death takes place, a light is seen moving along from the house of the person who is to die in the direction of the burying-ground. This is accepted as an intimation that a death is near."

These lights are certainly not always evolved as post factum creations of the fancy.

A. F. says that he himself saw what they call a ghost light. He was standing in the village and saw on the shore, a distance of half a mile off, a strange light dancing. It was there for a short time and then disappeared. Last year (1894) he saw the same kind of light over at B., a distance of less than a quarter of a mile off. The views as to Will of the Wisp of this reciter are worth noting. "It is all nonsense for them to say it is Willie Wisp that's running about. It's nothing of the sort, for that light is just a manadh. It comes when there is to be a change, and it runs about the fields of the people who are soon to remove from their place. But sometimes it comes a good while before the change takes place. I saw it myself one night when I and three others were coming up from Port Charlotte, and crossing the bridge at Mr. C's. I saw him (it) dancing about on the waves, just at the shore; sometimes he would be big, sometimes he would be small, but there he was. I did not say anything to the others at the time. It was before and  came to the place. It was for them it was. It is always a sure sign that some change is to take place in a district when what the old people called Willie Wisp comes." This narrator has no doubt whatever as to the reality of manadhs, but is sceptical as to the stories about Willie Wisp as an imp with a lantern.

These warning lights are not supposed to appear only on the sea or on sea lochs. The testimony of a native of Skye is that "there are several fresh-water lochs in