Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 8, 1897.djvu/419

 Miscellanea. 383

public talk. The one event was to them a prophecy of the other, and a thing that might have been looked for. The deer, it was said, had been seen running towards the sea, in the direction of the spot where the drowning had occurred, and where no deer had been seen within the memory of then living man. This super- stition had taken such a hold of the popular mind that it shaped itself into one of their most common proverbs: "Tachraidh d' fhiadh fhein riutsa fhathast Lit " (Your own deer will meet you yet). Paraphrased, and as applied to one profane of speech and reckless of conduct, it is meant to convey to the individual addressed that his daring impiety is a sure precursor of a sudden overthrow.

IV.— The Deer of the Island of Lochlacsvat-Carloway, lewis.

The following deer legend is somewhat similar to the preceding one. The circumstances under which the deer was beheld in this legend are as follows :

Two brothers (clannan t-saoir, the carpenter's sons) were out hunting in the neighbourhood of Lochlacsvat. They observed a deer grazing on the island. One of them swam across to the island. On landing, however, no deer was to be seen anywhere on the island. He returned to the mainland. No sooner had he reached the shore than he saw the deer again, just where he had seen it before. He immediately swam back to the island, but could neither find, nor see any traces of, the deer. On his return- ing back he became exhausted and was drowned, A similar story is associated with an island on Lachlangvat, a loch between Lewis and Harris.

To see a deer under such circumstances as described in the above legend was called, in superstitious phraseology, one's " manadh," i.e. an omen of one's death.

V. — An Each Uisge. (The Water-horse.)

The " Each Uisge " at Carishader, Uig, Lewis, and the people who lived in his immediate neighbourhood, were on such friendly terms, that on the footing of that friendship the young " Each Uisge " ventured (" dhol air cheilidh ") to pay a friendly visit to a near neighbour's house. Before he left, however, he and the good man of the house quarrelled. The man gave him a severe maul-