The Highland monthly - National Library of Scotland

Gaelic Incantations. 1 1 7
The charms and incantations which follow may be
divided into five classes :
tion ; Second—Those
—
First—Those aiming at divina-
which, by means of xolition, seek-
Third— Protective charms and
Fourth—Those intended for the cure of men and
to attain certain ends ;
amulets ;
the lower animals from certain diseases ; and, Fifth—
Blessings and miscellaneous charms.
I will commence with the subject of divination. Under
the general title of Divination, I will take first the
FRITH.
So far as I am aware, the Frith is quite unknown
on the mainland. Macalpine appears to be the only
Gaelic Lexicographer who gives us a definition of it in
the sense here used. He describes it as " an incantation to
find whether people at a great distance or at sea be in life."
It is, in short, a species of horoscope, \\'herein the position
of the objects which meet our eyes take the place in the
Frtth which the position of the heavenly bodies took in the
horoscope of the ancient astrologers.
The Frith is religious in its character, and is attributed
to the Virgin Mary. It is called in Uist, Frith a rinn
Moire dha Mac— " the Frith that Mary made for her Son."
According to Holy Writ, Joseph and the Virgin Mary went
with the child Jesus, when he was twelve years old, to the
Feast of the Passover in Jerusalem. When they fulfilled
the days of the feast, they returned, but the child Jesus
tarried behind them in Jerusalem, and they knew it not.
The account of their three days' anxious search for him is
narrated in the Bible, and our Highland poetess, Siteas r.a
Ceapaich, beautifully describes the whole situation in Laoidh
na Maiohdinn :—
Thug iad cliu do Dhia 's an Teampull
'S gu Nasaret air dhaibh bhi tilleadh,
Suil ga'n tug iad air an gualainn
Dh' ionndrainn iad bhuap am Messiah.