me over much, in
my tired and wind-beaten condition, to see the Doctor and the Auchinleck
laird, walking arm in arm along the road. I should have put it down to a
kind of inverted _taisch_, certainly to nothing stronger.

It may surprise many southerners to know that the belief in _taisch_ is
not by any means extinct. I have met educated Skyemen who firmly
believed in the mysterious visual gifts of the seventh son of a seventh
son. In old days, the Highlanders were wont to attribute the gift to
none but those of an austere and devout cast, who, living a solitary
life in the eye of nature, were thought to be specially prepared for
receiving supernatural impressions. I am afraid the vast majority of
_taisch_ tales are dreadful nonsense. Mr. MacCulloch, in his recent work
on Skye, has usefully summarized the various types of second-sight as
expounded by the very credulous Macleod of Hamera: (1) The seer is aware
of a phantom winding-sheet enwrapping the doomed person; (2) he may see
the corpse of some one still in life; (3) he may behold a drowning or
accidental death; (4) he may hear noises as of a coffin being hammered;
(5) he may see a living person dwindle to the size of a child, and anon
expand to normal bulk. As Johnson remarks, many of the seers declared
themselves poignantly afflicted by what they saw. Aubrey tells of a
clairvoyant who asked the presbytery to pray that the gift (or curse)
might be taken away. Instant prayer removed the obsession.

The extraordinary futility and droll language of the sentences uttered
by some of the seers are very mirth-provoking. Here are one or two
prophecies of the Brahan Seer:--

"The heir of the Mackenzies will take
A white rook out of the wood,
And will take a wife from a music-house
With his people against him.
And the heir will be great
In deeds, and as an orator,
When the Pope in Rome
Will be cast off his throne,
Over opposite Creagh-a'-chon
Will dwell a little lean tailor," etc.

The following is excellent: "_When the big-thumbed sheriff-officer and
the blind man of the twenty-four fingers shall be together in Barra,
Macneill may be making ready for the flitting._" It is said that the
same seer prophesied thus of the Strathpeffer wells: "The day will come
when this disagreeable spring, with thick-crusted surface and unpleasant
smell, shall be put under lock and key, so great will be the crowd of
people pressing to drink the w