Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 6 1888.djvu/246

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THE FOLK-LORE OF SUTHERLANDSHIRE.

A Local Rhyme.

There is a caillaich in Skibo,
There is two in Ardalie,
There is three in' Kirkton.
And four in Culmailie.
Chorus—And they long live,
They long live;
They long live, the Carlins!


CHAPTER VII.

SECOND SIGHT.


i.—The Road.

A carpenter assures us that when he was a boy, in Assynt, he was one day herding sheep on the limestone cliffs of Stronchrubie (which commands the head of Loch Assynt), when he beheld a four-wheeled carriage (a thing he had never seen in his life), with a pair of horses, and harness that shone in the sun, coming down at a quick pace a spur of one of the most rugged hills in Sutherland (Glashbhein). He thought no more of the apparition, though it was sufficiently wonderful, considering that on that side of the loch there was not a yard of road. He left Assynt, nor did he return there till a very few years ago, when the road that now runs from Assynt to GlenDhu was made.

One day, lying again above the tarn, he saw an open carriage and pair of horses come quickly along the new road, at the very spot where his prophetical vehicle had, thirty years before, crossed the steep incline, from Glashbhein to the lake.—(Graham.)


ii.— The Funeral Procession.

On an autumn evening, one of our tenants was standing at his own door, when he saw a funeral coming along the road. So common are such warnings in this country that he paid it comparatively little