It proved fatal to the practiser, who was called MacCallum. After he had done the round carefully, that very night he and his family were surprised and all his houses, corn and cattle were consumed by fire. Martin adds that the custom was by then abolished, and that there had not been above this one instance of it in forty years.
The tale reads as a warning story told against the old custom by those who wanted it gone, and the account is second-hand. Martin also describes another form of the dessil in which fire was carried round women before they were churched after childbirth and round unbaptised children, which he says was done to protect them from evil spirits.
Comments