Page:Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland - Volume 10.djvu/842

712 use in the days of the Norse occupation, and so having then been named, and that use continuing uninterruptedly, and without the influence of strangers who might have imported their own nomenclature with them, the ancient terms have come down to our days with scarcely any alteration. For it may be observed that of all Scotch immigrants into the islands during the present period of Scotch and English occupation, hardly any devote themselves to fishing or to maritime pursuits. These employments have always been in the hands of the native population, and the words and phrases peculiar to the sea and fishing were thus especially protected from foreign alterations.

But another cause has contributed to this end. Fishermen of all countries are peculiarly superstitious—given to standing on the ancient ways—averse to innovations. Those of the northern isles are no exception to the rule. From of old they put faith in omens, charms, visions, ancient rites and customs, almost all of which are heathen in origin—survivals of the pagan period. These things forbidden by the church, and denounced by the priest of the Christian faith as arts of devils and evil spirits, were nevertheless at no time abandoned by the people nominally Christianised. They were merely practised in secret, and treated with all reserve. The doctrine of the church on the subject was never openly denied—on the contrary, would have been apparently acquiesced in—but the same man or woman who would not have risked the safety of his soul by the omission of a sacrament, would the next day have participated in a pagan ceremony wholly contradictory of the Christian creed. At this day (nine hundred years since that creed was adopted in the north) rites and ceremonies pagan in character are still practised. Still the Beltane fires are kindled, and the “children passed through the fire to Moloch;” still people are charmed for fairy and troll influences; still magic spells are wrought on men and women; still cattle are bewitched by envious neighbours, and have to be re-charmed into health; and it is a curious and suggestive fact, that while the Roman Catholic faith has passed away utterly from memory or tradition, leaving not the faintest traces behind it in the islands, save the hardly distinguishable ruins of its numerous chapels, that the heathenism which it supplanted, and which it vainly boasted to have overcome, now survives it, and in many corners of the land still flourishes a living thing, after a thousand