SPELLS (Geasan no Geasaibh).
A person under spells is believed to become powerless over his own volition, is alive and awake, but moves and acts as if asleep. He is like St. John’s father, not able or not allowed to speak. He is compelled to go to certain places at certain hours or seasons, is sent wandering or is driven from his kindred and changed to other shapes.
In nursery and winter evening tales (sgialachdun ’us ur-sgeulun) the machinery of spells is largelymade use of. In the former class of tales they are usually imposed on king’s children by an old woman dwelling near the palace, called “Trouble-the-house” (Eachrais ùrlair, lit. confusion of the floor). Her house is the favourite place for the king’s children to meet their lovers. She has a divining rod (slacan druidheachd), by a blow from which she can convert people into rocks, seals, swans, wolves, etc., and this shape they must keep till they are freed by the same rod. Nothing else can deliver them from the spell.
The story usually runs that the king is married a second time. His daughter by the first marriage is very handsome, and has a smooth comb (cìr mhìn) which makes her hair, when combed by it, shed gold and precious gems. The daughters by the second marriage are ugly and ill-natured. When they comb their hair there is a shower of fleas and frogs. Their mother bribes Trouble-the-house to lay spells on the daughter of the first marriage. Unless the princess enters the house the old woman is powerless to do this. One day the beautiful princess passes near the house, and is kindly and civilly asked to enter. “Come you in,” says the designing hag, “often did I lick the platters and pick the bones in your father’s house.”87Misled by this artful talk, the princessenters, is struck with the magic rod, and converted into a swan.
It is a popular saying that seals and swans are “king’s children under enchantments” (clann sigh fo gheasaibh). On lonely mountain meres, where the presence of man is seldom seen, swans have been observed putting off their coverings (cochull) and assuming their proper shape of beautiful princesses in their endeavours to free themselves from the spells. This, however, is impossible till the magician, who imposed them, takes them away, and the princesses are obliged to resume their coverings again.
The expressive countenance and great intelligence of the seal, the readiness with which it can be domesticated, and the attachment which, as a pet, it shows to man, have not unnaturally led to stories of its being a form assumed by, or assigned to, some higher intelligence from choice or by compulsion. In Caithness, seals are deemed to be the fallen angels, and the Celtic belief that they are “king’s children under spells” is paralleled in the Shetland tales of the Norway Finns. These are persons, a native of these northern islands writes (in a private letter), who come across from Norway to Shetland in the shape of large seals. A Shetlander on his way to the fishing, early in the morning, came across a large seal lying asleep on a rock. Creeping quietlyup he managed to stab it with his knife. The animal was only slightly wounded and floundered into the water, taking the knife along with it. Sometime afterwards the fisherman went, with others, to Norway to buy wood. In the first house he entered he saw his own big knife stuck up under a beam. He gave himself up for lost, but the Norwegian took down the knife and gave it back to him, telling him never again to disturb a poor sea-animal taking its rest.
There is a sept in North Uist known as “the MacCodrums of the seals” (Clann ’ic Codrum nan ròm), from being said to be descendants of these enchanted seals. The progenitor of the family, being down about the shore, saw the seals putting off their coverings and washing themselves. He fled home with one of the skins and hid it above the lintel of the door, ‘arabocan’ as it is called in that part of the country. The owner of the covering followed him. He clad her with human garments, married her, and had a family by her. She managed ultimately to regain possession of her lost covering and disappeared.
West of Uist there is a rock calledConnsmun, to which the neighbouring islanders are in the habit of going yearly to kill seals. On one of these expeditions a young man, named Egan, son of Egan, killed a large seal in the usual manner by aknock on the head, and put a withe through its paw to secure it, while he himself went to attend to other matters. When he came back, however, the seal was gone. Sometime after he was driven away in a storm, and landed in a district he did not recognize. He made his way to one of the houses, and was very hospitably entertained. His host, who had been surveying him intently, when the meal was over asked his name. He told, and his host said, “Egan, son of Egan, though I have given you meat, and cheese, and eggs, upon your two hands be it, Egan, son of Egan, you put the withe through my fist.”88