SOME SCOTTISH SUPERSTITIONS.

Mataura Ensign, Volume 6, Issue 336, 4 March 1884, Page 2

SOME SCOTTISH SUPERSTITIONS.

• [By J. M., Ofcama.] I find that some apology is due for the delay in forwarding ,you this long promised paper. The notes from which it is compiled were made and strung together many years since, during holiday travels through several districts of Scotland, and had been carelessly thrown aside and gat entangled. When I promised you to r&viao tl}.en> for the Ensig-x, I did not expect that they had got into so much confusion, and that- it would require such long and careful study and manipulation from me to get them into ; a suitable form for publication. Without offering, any inor.G lengthened apologj', I will get at once "inmedias res," hoping that the legends and family traditions brought out, and with which very many of your Scottish readers are no doubt faqiiljar, will also prove interesting to yoiyc readers generally. Interesting as it is to trace the history of any nations development as shown 'by the substantial records left in the shape of buildings, churches, castles, towers, sepulchres, etc., or in that of "parchments, coins, embroideries, and sucll like more perisb.ab.le memorials, it is not less so^ to watch the lower walks of mental progress, , the landmarks of which lie in legends, superstitions, and family traditions. When we call to mind a nations successive p,sets, ph4\o,s.p,p,i}ei?s, historians, we see before $ s pic&d men, representing the highest culture of tb,eir time, but we gain from. this, class no idea of the., thoughts, P^ t^e Oppaj; W a §B of the people,' no insight jntP. tlvP common, life, the hopes anrt'few«, the yearnings and Reliefs, that formed fcho spwogs of the existence of millions of human beings who in the aggregate made up the nation. It is the latter kind of life that we nrast study if wo want to throw ourselves into the atanosp,j}'ere o| the past, and understand our forefathers." In" a "work- by a qcotch Episcppal clergyman, the Jiev. John B. Pratt,, this idea is forcibly" brought out and' wcl| rendered. «' These tokens of distant cages," lie says, '" the manners, customs, habits, prejudices, now obsolete, but |with which our own blood relations pf former times were prob,ab,ly ac'tfveljr |amiliaj;, ought to i^ave a profound interest. It is from these rncmoriajs that we have gathered ajj fjjai we can ever hope to ? know of the rudo domestic occupations, the fter-ce warlike dispositions, and the. astonishing manual achievements [oi tlie ancient inhabitants of tho country. In following the downward course of time we have been enabled from the same slender Jmaici:ials,:'to'jnar Ilf'1 lf ' hb>y fcl+e light of }mowlectge gradually bjrolieifton every sue'eee'dJngf jipfiod of our national existence, and liow the arts and sciences with thoir- attendant civilisation, steadily advanced among our ancestors." The superstitions of a country, in mj opinion, fqr,in ono of its most national c^'ar'acterisiids. "Qi t|iis is preeminently true, though ilie fact 'points to a curious anomaly ; for tUo Scotch, undoubtedly one of the most matter-of-fact, businesslike and practical of all nations, are also unquestionably one of the, niQSb ppne to Relief in supernatural appearances, ''^nd /stranger, still is the fact tliati at J the* present' day though they are per^ainly iii ad'van<3e of niosti people in oommeycial entepppise and energy, and notwithstanding their, I might term it, great fund of unerring common sense, yet they still retain more of this tendency to superstition than most people, if I except pieiv neighbors and friends of the North of Ireland. IJerice it is jtaaj; ip is a yery easy matter for a traveller "aihohgst 1 the Scotch and people of 'tlie North' of Ire Ifand at #i& pi^sepit day to gnd ' out what theiV aneegtops many ceniiutiesi ftacjc Relieved in the way of fairy lore and magical power. The rest of the traditions is handed down as part of the national hist>°W> though not actiially believe in a£ phe present piine by the pducated, remains in' fictioA : and'm sdiig 'as f soiAething t6 be ; proud'of, because i* is corinected wi,ib. the proudest memories- of the Scottish, pasp, an^. relates to jbhose heroes" and chieftains who made their "'country great 1 , as we read in the Tales of the 1 Border and poetic works of the immortal Sir Walter Scott. (To be continued,')