Curses & omens

The Shoulder-Blade Reading in Glencoe, 1692

Glencoe village (houses of the massacre not located)

13 February 1692

Campbell's chapter on shoulder-blade reading, a form of divination, says that on the night of the massacre a party of the doomed clansmen were poring over the shoulder-blade of an animal slain for the hospitable entertainment of the soldiers. One of them said, There is a shedding of blood in the glen. Another said there was only the stream at the end of the house between them and it.

The whole party rushed to the door and were among the few who escaped the butchery of that night. Campbell gives no source for the story. Wikipedia records that one of the soldiers said they had no knowledge of the plan until the morning of 13 February, so the divination story belongs to the legend, not the documented events.

Evidence
Long-standing local tradition
Access
Access unrecorded
Location
56.683, -5.101 (Sited to the village)

Sources: John Gregorson Campbell, Superstitions of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland (1900), Project Gutenberg [public-domain]; Wikipedia, Massacre of Glencoe [other]

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