Note 85 — Chapter XI · IMPRECATIONS, SPELLS, AND THE BLACK ART.

Perhaps this means burial with the face downwards. The mother of an illegitimate child, which died in infancy, and the paternity of which was denied, declared if she had known that would be the case, she would have buried the child with its face downward. This was said to be in Tiree, but all the writer’s inquiries failed to find any one who had ever heard of such a thing being done. It is a saying “a down mouth to women if they are not to be found everywhere” (Beul sìos air na mnathan, mar faighear ’s gach àit iad).