Note 38 — II.—BIRTH, MARRIAGE AND DEATH.

The following extract from the same journal merits reproduction:—“In many parts of the Highlands it is believed to this day that the last person buried has to perform the duty of sentinel over the churchyard, and that to him the guardianship of the spirits of those buried before is in some degree committed. This post he must occupy until a tenant of the tomb releases him. It is not esteemed an enviable position, but one to be escaped if possible; consequently, if two neighbors die on the same day, the surviving relations make great efforts to be first in closing the grave over their friend. I remember an old nurse, who was mourning the death of a sweet girl she had reared, exclaiming with joy, when she heard, on the day after her funeral, of the death of a parishioner; ‘I thank God my dear darling will have to watch the graves no longer!’ A ludicrous but striking illustration of this strange notion occurred some years ago in the parish of A——. An old man and an old woman, dwelling in the same township, but not on terms of friendship—for the lady, Kate Ruadh, was more noted for antipathies than attachments—were both at the point of death. The good man’s friends began to clip his nails, an office always performed just as a person is dying. He, knowing that his amiable neighbor was, like himself, on the verge of the grave, roused himself to a last effort and exclaimed ‘Stop, stop; you know not what use I may have for all my nails in compelling Kate Ruadh to keep Faire Chlaidth in place of doing it myself.’ ” In the statistical account of Scotland, xiv., 210, Parishes of Kilfinichen and Kilviceuen, County of Argyle, we read: “The inhabitants are by no means superstitious, yet they still retain some opinions handed down by their ancestors, perhaps from the time of the Druids. It is believed by them that the spirit of the last person buried watches round the churchyard till another one is buried, to whom he delivers his charge.” In the same work, xxi., 114, it is said: “In one division of the country, where it is believed that the ghost of the person last buried kept the gate of the churchyard till relieved by the next victim of death, a singular scene occurred when two burials were to take place on the same day. Both parties staggered forward as fast as possible, to consign their respective friend in the first place to the dust. If they met at the gate, the dead was thrown down until the living decided by blows whose ghost should be condemned to porter it.” It was the duty of the last person interred to stand sentry at the graveyard gate from sunset until the crowing of the cock every night until regularly relieved. This, sometimes, in thinly-inhabited parts of the country, happened to be a tedious and severe duty; and the duration of the “Faire Chlaidth” gave the deceased’s surviving friends much uneasiness. ↑