SECOND-STOUT, a power believed to be possessed by some persons in the highlands and islands of Scotland, of foreseeing future events, especially of a disastrous kind, by means of a spectral exhibition of the persons whom these events respect, accompanied with such emblems as denote their fate.
Jamieson says, " Whether this power was communicated to the inhabitants of the highlands and islands of Scotland by the northern nations, who so long bad possession of the latter, I shall not pretend to determine; but traces of the same wonderful faculty may be found among the Scandinavian,. Isl. ranisIvi denotes one who is endowed with the power of seeing spirits : gin tali visa punter naturam pries ditus est, ut spiritus et diernones videat, opaca etiam visu penetret.' Verel. Ind. The designation is formed from ramm-ur, viribus pollens, and gyp, videns; g. e. powerful in vision." Dr. Johnson, in his journey to the Western Islands of Scotland,
carefully examined the questions of the second-sight ; but neither ho nor Dr. Beattie could find sufficient evidence of its reality.
In Sir John Sinclair's ' Statistical Account of Scotland,' vol. iii., 8vo., Edinb., 1792, the minister of Applecross, in the county of Ross, speaking of his parishioners, says, " with them the belief of the second eight is general." In Mae Culloch's ' Western Islands of Scotland,' 8vo., Lend., 1S19, vol. ii, the author says, " To have circumnavigated the Western Isles without even mentioning the second-sight would be unpardonable. No inhabitant of St. Kilda pretended to have been forewarned of our arrival. In fact it has undergone the fate of witchcraft; ceasing to be believed, it has ceased to exist." In the Erse the second-sight is called Taiech.