A group of no more than five always thrives. Martin gives no explanation, and says only that this was what he was told by the natives. He mentions the effect in the same stretch of text as the islands' tenure, where the steward of the lesser southern islands receives a measure of barley from each family, called an 'omen'.
The tale is a counting superstition rather than a ghost story, and can be read as a way of explaining losses on poor grazing. Mingulay was abandoned in 1912.
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