The book Arran; - Cook Clan

FOLK LORE 253
The shades of the dead that traversed these quiet regions in the
lone hours of night were awesome in the extreme, and had evidently
been visible not only to persons but also to animals ; and the follow-
ing instance is related.
A certain man had been on the road with his horse and cart,
when without warning the horse stood still and would proceed no
farther. His ears stood up, while he snorted and was sweating from
evident fear. The reason of this soon became known, for there rose
before the man's vision like as it were a small cloud or mist, which
grew larger and larger till it became a great size, but it was not only
a cloud ; whether in it or of it the cloud had taken an uncanny form
of a wraith.
This man had met this unwelcome thing more than once.
A w^hoUy irresponsible contribution to this section may
here find a place. It is from a satirical poem against
Highlanders, pubhshed in London in 1681, and tells how
' Finmacowel ' chased a herd of deer from Lew^is :
He chased them so furiouslie,
That they were forced to take the sea,
And swam from Cowel into Arran,
In which soil, though it be but barren.
As learned antiquaries say,
Their offspring lives unto this day.*
In the following custom we have the survival of an old
harvest rite, reaching back to the very beginning of agri-
cultural work :
a' CHAILLEACH—THE OLD WOMAN
At the end of harvest, when all the corn was cut except the last 'wee
pickle,' the glad shearers gathered round to cut the ' cailleach,' the
name by which the last few standing stalks were known. Some one,
generally an old man, was chosen to tie the heads of this bunch of
stalks together. Then each was blindfolded, given a sickle, and got
his chance to cut the ' cailleach.' Some one would succeed at last.
' Colville's ' M'higg's Supplication,' cited in Campbell's Popular Tales, iv. p. 76.