Witchcraft & Second Sight in the Highlands & Islands of Scotland

Witchcraft and Second Sight in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland is John Gregorson Campbell's collection of Highland beliefs. Its sections carry headings such as Witches and Milk and Horses and Dogs. Witches are described with charms, incantations, red, black and blue threads, magic caps and a magic staff, and with nights of the year when they were unusually busy, among them the last night of every quarter and Beltane night.

The pages on second sight say that horses and dogs were thought to see spectres better than the best seers, and that their fear was put down to the taïsh, or shades of the living. In one account a boat became worthless, and its owner summoned the seer before the Sheriff and got him fined. Another section gives moon lore: a man in Islay claimed to tell from the moon's quarter whether a cow's offspring would be a bull-calf or a cow-calf, and the harvest moon was known as Gealach an abachaidh, the ripening moon.