Waffs, Swarths and Fye-tokens

The appearance of a living person, to himself or to others, was widely taken as a token of death. In Northumberland it was called the waff, in Cumberland the swarth, in Scotland the wraith, and in some parts of Scotland the fye, and it was thought to appear just before the death of the person whose shape it took. Dr Jamieson noted that the hour counted: seen early in the morning it promised long life, seen in the evening it meant death was near. Hone tells of a Scotswoman in her ninety-ninth year who, told she could not live long, demanded indignantly what fye-token anyone could see about her.