The peat-fire flame : folk-tales and traditions of the Highlands & Islands

THE SPIRIT-MULTITUDE
stained as with crimson blood. The red crotal obtained
from lichened rocks, following upon a spell of hard frost,
is called Fuil nan Sluagh, Blood of the Hosts. And it is
said that, when the Nimble Men (Aurora Borealis) are
giving battle in the air, the blood of their victims falls to the
ground ; and this ' elf's blood ' congeals and forms the
stones referred to in the Western Isles as blood-stones.
Although to-day belief in the Sluagh is on the wane,
Carmichael noted that, since it is from the west that the
Spirit-Multitude is believed to come, it was customary to
close the doors and windows on the west side of a house
in which an islander lay dying, lest any strange contingent
entered, and brought ill-fortune to its departing inmate.
In some parts of the mainland, where the tradition of the
Sluagh is totally unknown, it was the practice to open as
widely as possible the door and windows of a dwelling in
which a person was on the point of death, so that at the
moment of expiry the escape of his disembodied spirit
might be facilitated.
The persistence with which belief in the Spirit-Multitude
prevailed in Argyll is demonstrated by the fact that, when
a burial was taking place at Glen Creran, in Appin, as
recently as last century, immediately the corpse had been
lowered and the earth closed over it, the funeral party used
to smash the bier against a certain tree in the buryingground,
so as to render it useless in the event of the Sluagh'
endeavouring to lure the dead away with it.
To those unacquainted with the intricacies of the Gaelic
language, it may be of passing interest to mention that the
word, slogan, is derived from the Gaelic words, sluagh,
denoting a host or multitude, and gairm, a cry or calling.
Hence the true meaning of slogan—the cry of the host,
the battle-cry.
The Spirit-Multitude in Benbecula.
One still hears in Benbecula queer tales of the manner in
which human beings have been carried off — ' spirited away '
—by the Spirit-Host. Carmichael, aforementioned, was
told of a native of that Island who had been borne aloft so
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