Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 8, 1897.djvu/276

 252 Ghost Lights of the West Highlands.

How intimately these beliefs are mixed up with the every- day life of many Highlanders is shown by such an occurrence as this : " A crofter died not long ago in Bernera. He left his effects to be divided among the family. Over the division they quarrelled a good deal, and the spirit of the departed began to haunt the house. One night his daughter and another girl were on their way home from a prayer- meeting when a dreag appeared. Neither of them had seen one before. C. McL. concluded that it was her father's ghost, and fainted. The other girl, who remained beside her, watched the movements of the dreag. It went slowly along in the direction of the burying ground, from a house in which shortly thereafter a young woman died."

It does not seem at all necessary that the dreag should appear in the neighbourhood of the doomed one. Thus, from Mull :

"When the death of the proprietor of B. took place his heir was abroad, and did not arrive in this country till some time after the death of the previous laird. During the interval a female relative lived in the house with the servants. One night one of the servants came in in great distress, saying that she had seen a dreag, and was quite sure that the new laird had died on the passage home. At

the same time Miss dreamed that a large river was

running past B. house, and that the new laird was on the opposite side of the river. She told her dream to the servant, who remarked she was quice sure it meant the death of the laird on his way home. Well, not the laird himself, but a son of his died, and it was subsequently ascertained that the death had taken place just about the date of the dream and the appearance of the dreag^

" There are places which have got their name from the belief that mysterious lights have appeared in their neigh- bourhood. Thus, Creag a?i T-Soluis, a rock above Cairn, near Port Charlotte, has its name from a belief that super- natural lights used to be seen about it. For the same