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

THE PEAT-FIRE FLAME
seen was when joy or calamity, such as a marriage or a
death, was about to visit the family tenanting the farmhouse
to which she was attached. On these occasions she
emitted a piercing cry of premonition. Only when such a
farm-dwelling became deserted finally, or was permitted to
fall into ruin, did the Glaistig ever quit the site.
Speaking generally, the Glaistig's occupations and
activities were not very different from those of her
counterpart, the Brownie. She, also, usually worked at
night, redding up the kitchen and generally putting things in
order, after the household had retired. When the morning
revealed that she had been excessively industrious the
previous night, it was regarded as an infallible presage of
the coming of strangers.
The Glaistig was strongly addicted to plying spinningwheels,
and to working with artisans' tools whenever they
were left about carelessly. Thus it was that old women
with religious leanings used to remove the band from the
spinning-wheel on Saturday evenings, lest this creature
should meddle with the wheel on the Sundays. Workmen
disturbed during the night by the Glaistig's industry always
had cause to rue her existence, since in the morning they
always found their chisels and other instruments so blunted
as to be quite useless.
The Glaistig of Inverawe House.
The old mansion of Inverawe House, situated near Loch
Etive and familiar to those conversant with Dick Lauder's
strange ghost tale, had its Glaistig. She was known as the
Maiden of Inverawe. If we accept the testimony of the
Rev. J- Gregorson Campbell,^ she was heard at her domestic
duties as recently as the close of the nineteenth century.
This Glaistig is said to have been a former mistress of the
house, who quarrelled with the family, and who thereafter
afflicted both it and its successors at Inverawe House by
spilling water-stoups left about overnight, and by deranging
the furniture and dislocating the furnishings.
1
J. G. Campbell's Superstitions of the Highlands and Islands of
Scotland.
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