Part 27

AN ACCURATE ACCOUNT OF SECOND- SIGHTED MEN IN SCOTLAND.

**In Two Letters from a learned friend of mine in Scotland.

**To Mr. JOHN AUBREY, Fellow of the Royal Society.

SIR,

FOR your satisfaction I drew up some queries about the second-sighted men, and having sent them to the northern parts of this kingdom, some while ago, I received answers to them from two different hands, whereof I am now to give you an account, viz.

Query 1.

If some few credible, well attested instances of such a knowledge as is commonly called the second-sight, can be given ?

Answer.

Many instances of such knowledge can be given, by the confession of such who are skilled in that faculty: for instances I refer you to the fourth query.

Query 2.

If it consists in the discovery of present or past events only ? or if it extend to such as are to come ?

Answer.

The second-sight relates only to things future, which will shortly come to pass. Past events I learn nothing of it.

Query 3.

If the objects of this knowledge be sad and dismal events only; such as deaths and murders ? or, joyful and prosperous also ?

Answer.

Sad and dismal events, are the objects of this knowledge: as sudden deaths, dismal accidents. That they are prosperous, or joyful, I cannot learn. Only one instance I have from a person worthy of credit, and thereby judge of the joyfulness, or prosperity of it, and it is this. Near forty years ago, Maclean and his Lady, sister to my Lord Seaforth, were walking about their own house, and in their return both came into the nurse's chamber, where their young child was on the breast: at their coming into the room, the nurse falls a weeping; they asked the cause, dreading the child was sick, or that she was scarce of milk: the nurse replied, the child was well, and she had abundance of milk; yet she still wept; and being pressed to tell what ailed her; she at last said Maclean would die, and the Lady would shortly be married to another man. Being enquired how she knew that event, she told them plainly, that as they both came into the room, she saw a man with a scarlet cloak and a white hat betwixt them, giving the Lady a kiss over the shoulder; and this was the cause of weeping. All which came to pass after Maclean's death; the tutor of Lovet married the Lady in the same habit the woman saw him. Now by this instance, judge if it be prosperous to one, it is as dismal to another.

Query 4.

If these events which second-sighted men discover, or foretel, be visibly represented to them, and acted, as it were before their eyes ?

Answer.

Affirmatively, they see those things visibly; but none sees but themselves; for instance, if a man's fatal end be hanging, they will see a gibbet, or a rope about his neck: if beheaded, they will see the man without a head; if drowned, they will see water up to his throat; if unexpected death, they will see a winding sheet about his head: all which are represented to their view. One instance I had from a gentleman here, of a Highland gentleman of the Macdonalds, who having a brother that came to visit him, saw him coming in, wanting a head; yet told not his brother he saw any such thing; but within twenty-four hours thereafter, his brother was taken, (being a murderer) and his head cut off, and sent to Edinburgh. Many such instances might be given,

Query 5.

If the second-sight be a thing that is troublesome and uneasy to those that have it, and such as they would gladly be rid of?

Answer.

It is commonly talked by all I spoke with, that it is troublesome; and they would gladly be freed from it, but cannot: only I heard lately of a man very much troubled in his soul therewith, and by serious begging of God deliverance from it, at length lost the faculty of the second- sight.

Query 6.

If any person, or persons, truly godly, who may justly be presumed to be such, have been known to have had this gift or faculty ?

Answer.