Introduction

I introduced a series of writing exploring the role of the oft neglected dead in Scottish folk magic. If you haven’t read it I suggest you have a wee read. It sets the tone of the rest of the series. Due to the amount of lore and other related bits of information this article is quite dense. A fuller exploration of the subject of funerary customs, death and folklore requires more writing than I feel I’m capable of in a web format. (and maybe more than you’d like to read- It needs chapters). To keep the flow a little easier I haven’t referenced academically but written the odd note here and there which you’ll find when you click on  > [footnote] These are the footnotes. I’ve hopefully  managed to find a way you can read them as you go along and cut your brain load [/footnote]. I also  have highlighted relevant reading as I’ve gone along and happy to discuss sources if you’re interested.

Nowhere, even in modern times, do religious ritual and custom retain a stronger hold on the majority of mankind than at the crisis of death and burial.

Migration, exploration and invasion. Cultural interplay has provided Scotland a rich diversity and depth of folklore. Before the influence of the kirk and the dead’s exile to formalised graveyards the Picts, Celts, Norse, Roman, Viking, Anglo, Saxon and others left deep-rooted beliefs. These philosophies shaped a unique form of folklore relating to the dead born from this melting pot.

The Liminal Dead and the Daoine Maithe.

Return of the dead, its corruption and putrification is a common unifying anxiety. Disease, evil, madness, revenge, curses, blighted crops and destroyed livelihoods are associated with them in many societies both modern and historic. On the reverse, the dead are associated with tutelary spirits, genii loci and deity. For example, a Gaelic exemplar of ancestor turned deity is the tale of Donn. The first of the Milesians to die in Ireland and become Lord of the Dead. His Red Riders and a boat ferrying the dead to his house ,Teach Duinn, at Samhuinn, an appropriate entourage. Other ancestors became genii locorum. Their tales, long forgotten, can be found buried in the Scottish landscape. Hidden in names of towns, rivers, munros and glens.

The way we conceive of the dead today is not the same way as our ancestors. The dead were moving, roving things that could eat, fight and fuck. Thinking changed. The living dead were reduced to appearances in dreams, phantasms and at times demons by an active Kirk. In Scotland, the repository for this lore became the Sidhe, the daoine maithe (good folk).  The burial mounds of our ancestors  Sidhe mounds. Fairy faith a repository for all things that couldn’t be taken into Christianity’s increasing ideological expansion [footnote] I feel Purgatory and saint worship was a definite attempt at adopting some of the earlier beliefs of ancestor veneration the church needed to compete with. [/footnote]

Our ancestors divided the dead into different distinctions. We will focus on two of these – the restless and the peaceful dead. The intervention of people through folk rites and/or fate moved the departed between these categories. For example, those who hadn’t received the right funerary rights, who were murdered or through acts of suicide would become the restless dead.

Open lock, end strife. Come death, and pass life –  Scottish folk charm to urge death.

L. Stomma explored the restless dead who trouble the living. He noted they died at liminal times. Such as still-borns, women in labour etc. The astute among you will know Scottish folk-lore focuses primarily on liminality. It was at these liminal times folk were most worried about the interference of t...