FOLKLORE OF THE

SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS

For Berenice

Women at the quern and waulking Pennant, T., 1772, XXXIV, 286

FOLKLORE OF THE

SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS

ANNE ROSS

First published in 2000 by Tempus Publishing

Reprinted in 2007

Reprinted in 2011 by

The History Press

The Mill, Brimscombe Port

Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QG

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

This ebook edition first published in 2013

All rights reserved

© Anne Ross, 2000, 2011, 2013

The right of Anne Ross to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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EPUB ISBN 978 0 7509 5245 3

Original typesetting by The History Press

Contents

List of illustrations

Acknowledgements

Preface

1Introduction

2Clan lore

3Seers and Second Sight

4Witchcraft, black and white

5Supernatural beings, omens and social customs

6Life and death

7The seasons and the archaism of calendar festivals

8Epilogue

Bibliography

1   Distribution map of Gaelic speakers in the Highlands and Islands, 1991. The western, northern and central mainland is defined on the east by the old county boundaries of Nairn, Moray, Banff and Aberdeenshire with Inverness-shire, then through Atholl and Breadalbane to Loch Long. After G. Price 1998, map 16

List of illustrations

Frontispiece Women at the quern and waulking

1Distribution map of Gaelic speakers, Highlands and Islands

2Map of peoples of Caledonia, Pictland, Dalriada

3Map of the peoples of Scotland, first century AD

4Map of the colonisation of Dalriada

5Pictish figures — fish, snake, birds

6Alexander Carmichael

7Pictish figures — deer, horse

8Highland army officer

9Map of the distribution of the Highland clans

10Leather front of targe

11Dirk, claymore

12Piper

13Shinty player

14Pictish figures — bulls

15Pictish figures — sow, boar

16Clach-na-buidseach

17Callanish — stones and chambered cairn

18Callanish — oblique view of whole monument

19Horse

20Crow

21Hare

22Cat

23Frog

24Raven

25Eagle

26Direach ghlinn eiti

27Smith god

28Bronze cauldron

29Iona

30Fortingall Church gatepost stones

31Map of the distribution of NEMET- in Scotland

32Ballachulish figure

33Harp

34Lewis chessmen

35Coins of CUNOBELINUS

2   The names of the peoples of part of Caledonia, first century AD. Pictland succeeded Caledonia; Dalriada colonised by Scotti from Ulster, third century AD onwards. Caledonii was a group name applied collectively to all the peoples later known as Picti, and was also the name of a single people. F.T. Wainwright, 1955, 1980

Acknowledgements

It is not possible to express adequately here my deep affection for the people of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland and the delight that their unique heritage of folklore and folksong never fails to bring to me. I would wish to record my sincere gratitude to the numerous Gaels who, at home in the Highlands, or in exile elsewhere, have given up hours of their precious time in conversation about the old traditions and superstitions, and have patiently and generously recited tales and legends, poetry and song which reached them through many generations of their ancestry. Their hospitality is unrivalled and their company without equal. It is not possible to name them all, and to select a few would imply that others, equally deserving of thanks, have been forgotten. I would however like to pay tribute to the people of North Uist, and especially the Ferguson family, from whom I learnt so much. They introduced me to the charmed life of the Island and its people in a way which would otherwise have been quite impossible. I must also acknowledge with humility and gratitude the work of all the great collectors of the past who battled heroically to salvage as much of the still-rich tradition as they could, without the aids with which present-day field-workers are equipped.

Today, the dedicated work of the School of Scottish Studies, a teaching department in the University of Edinburgh carries on the valiant work of recording and preserving as much of the rapidly-dying tradition as it can. Many friends have helped me in a variety of ways, and to them I likewise extend my grateful thanks. To the late Bob Bissett, shepherd of upper Glen Lyon, whose death I have recently learnt of with much sorrow, and the people of Glen Lyon and Fortingall for their invaluable assistance and for the further insight they gave to me I offer my gratitude. I wish the recently founded Killin Heritage Society and the Fortingall Group of Researchers all success. I thank my family for their help and support — Richard Feachem for his fine drawings and maps and Berenice for her invaluable assistance in preparing this edition for the press. I thank David Clarke for generously allowing me to use his fine photograph of Glen Lyon, on the front cover of the book. Lastly, I must express my appreciation to Peter Kemmis Betty and to all the staff of Tempus for their unfailing patience, understanding and good humour.

Anne Ross

3   Map of the peoples of Scotland, first century AD

Preface

There are many factors which, down the ages, have contributed to the evolution of the oral tradition of Gaelic Scotland. Moreover, we are now working with the remnants of what was, even a century ago, an invaluable source, not only of folklore — which had for centuries been handed down orally from generation to generation — but of many other aspects of an archaic way of life which continued well into the twentieth century. Even today, living traces of it are still to be found, kept alive by those Highlanders who continue to treasure their own unique past. This preface, then, consists of a fleeting view of some of the early historical peoples of Scotland who undoubtedly must have had some influence on the later Gaelic tradition.

The importance of Irish Gaelic, from which the bedrock of Scottish Gaelic must ultimately have sprung, is incontestable. The Irish (or Goidelic) language (later known as Gaelic) was in all probability introduced to the West of Scotland from Ireland in the third-sixth centuries AD, the time of the settlements of the sons of the Irish king Erc in Dalriada (4). Gaelic may well have been spoken in some areas of the Scottish Highlands prior to this historical event. We certainly know that it was not unfamiliar at a later period to the Picts of the more easterly Highlands as their commemorative standing stones or boundary markers inscribed in both Pictish and Goidelic Ogams would suggest (5). These stones, of course, are dated to a later period than that of the colonisation of Dalriada, but both Picts and Gaels — or Scots, as they were known at an early period — may already have been familiar with some form of Ogam script.

4   Map of the colonisation of Dalriada in the seventh century AD, after J.W.M. Bannerman 1983, 55

5   Pictish figures engraved on stone — fish, snake, birds

Any culture which comes into permanent contact with another is inevitably affected by that contiguity. So it was with Irish and Scottish Gaelic, Norse and the enigma of the Picts — a society whose origins and language still are not fully understood by scholars. Nevertheless, the Picts undoubtedly exerted some influence upon the Gaelic communities and vice versa. For the purposes of this book, however, it is the Gaelic language which was spoken and is yet the Gaelic culture with which we are concerned and of which intrepid collectors have left us such a rich and rare heritage.

1 Introduction

Two boys, whose birth beyond all question springs

From great and glorious, tho’ forgotten kings,

Shepherds of Scottish lineage, born and bred

On the same bleak and barren mountain’s head,

Jocky with mickle art, could on the bagpipes play,

E’en from the rising to the setting day;

Sawney as long without remorse could bawl

HOME’s madrigals and ditties from FINGAL.

In these lines from his Prophecy of Famine, the strongly anti-Scottish priest-poet, Charles Churchill (1731-64), writing from his living under the shadow of another Celtic stronghold, South Cadbury in Somerset, revealed a subtle knowledge and grudging appreciation of an ancient tradition, the rich heritage of Gaelic Scotland. In his day Highland folklore, story and superstition were still very much in evidence. And in the somewhat scathing lines above, Churchill has noted subtleties of that archaic culture which are still discernible, albeit in aetiolated form, down to the present day. The Celtic pride in ancestry and belief in the ultimate nobility of their forefathers (forgotten though these regal forebears may now be except to those who immortalise them in the recitation of their sloinneadh, ‘naming of ancestors’); pride in their Scottish nationality; the cultivation of the ancient arts of their country in physical discomfort and humble circumstances; the tireless playing of the bagpipes, their musical variety of pattern as ingenious and as amazingly varied as the designs their forebears wrought with infinite skill upon the metal, wood, pottery and stone of the past; the ancient chanted tales of the Fingalian heroes, still to be heard vestigially in the glens and islands of the West; all these fundamental aspects of the tradition were observed, if not approved, by the great English writer.

As in ancient pagan times, when the classical writers were commenting on the customs and habits of their Celtic neighbours in Europe and Britain, and the splendid repertoire of Irish and Welsh legend and myth was receiving written form by the early Christian scribes, the life of the Scottish Highlander was, up to comparatively recent times, not only rich in lore and legend, music and song, but completely hedged round by tabu — things to be done, things to be avoided. Everyday life would seem to have been circumscribed by powers, good and evil, that were believed to be everywhere present, to be placated by ritual or exploited by magical processes. The Otherworld forces, and the fairies, spectres and monsters of moorland, hill and water were as real, substantial, and infinitely more menacing than were one’s own human fellows. Every place had its name and its legend — how it got its name; what famous hero or infamous criminal, savage, supernatural animal, or shaggy, semi-human sprite was associated with it, were stories known at one time to all. This Celtic obsession with immediate locality, the love and knowledge of not only the homeland, but every detail of the familiar landscape, is an absolutely fundamental characteristic of the Celts. This undoubtedly stems from their ancient and passionate love of nature and their deep feeling for the world of birds and animals — which were frequently accredited with the powers of human speech and understanding — and manifests itself early in their recorded history. Ancient tales about the gods and goddesses and heroes long dead and gone are still told with simple sincerity and total dedication by those in whom the tradition still lives; those who, like the ancient Celtic god Ogmios, hold the ears of their listeners enchained by the eloquence and fluency of their native tongue. Each community would have its own seanachaidh, ‘tale-teller’ par excellence. The Highlanders have always loved stories and a whole group from a township would gather together in the tigh-cheilidh, ‘house of entertainment’, to pass the long, dark and often wild winter nights listening enraptured to tales, many of incredible length, some of almost unbelievable antiquity, which formed part of the rich store of oral tradition, which itself is commented upon in the writings of Julius Caesar.

These stories were handed on by word of mouth, from generation to generation, the archaic nuclei gathering to themselves new elements from a wealth of external sources. Some sprang from international folklore and folktale motifs, and were blended skilfully with the old, indigenous elements. Over and above the story-tellers — who tended on the whole to be men in the West of Scotland — were those who could chant the ancient ballads, many of which contain legends common to Ireland and Scotland, and can still be recorded today, although the rich heritage of such material is fast losing ground. There were also the experts on the proverbial sayings, of which hundreds must have circulated at one time in the remote Celtic world; and those with powers, good and evil — people who were believed to be able to practise witchcraft and woe, and others who were known as ‘white’ witches, the charmers and healers who could undo the spells of malice and replace them with healing and protection. Then there were the singers of songs, much loved by the whole community. At one time, communal labour, or individual chores, were accompanied and made less burdensome by traditional songs, and the repertoire of these is one of the richest features of the Gaelic folk tradition. There were rowing songs, reaping songs, milking songs, churning songs; songs to soothe the tired infant, songs to lighten the heavy task of querning the grain (see frontispiece).

But the richest and most important group of songs in the entire tradition are those known as òrain luadhaidh or ‘waulking’ songs, sung to facilitate the heavy labour of ‘waulking’ or shrinking by hand the tweed to make the sturdy Highland cloth proof against rough country and wet, inclement weather. Many of these are still extant, for the communal occupation of waulking did not die out until the twentieth century when the electric looms and factory facilities rendered redundant the old, heavy, but happy work of the strong, competent hands of the Hebridean women. In the waulking songs are preserved some of the most ancient historical and mythological material — ballads, fairy songs, clan lore, songs of love and stories of heroism; fights against monsters, human and supernatural; and witty local anecdotes, some with a naughty dig against the men, or a particular local character. In these songs alone lurks a wealth of information on the traditional life of the Highlands and its ancient tales and customs.

The waulking songs themselves are of profound interest and are unparalleled elsewhere in the west of Europe. The whole process of the communal shrinking of the handwoven cloth, thus preparing it for the tailor’s shears, is fascinating. It was, and remained, an occupation reserved for the womenfolk and the men were firmly excluded from the activity. Originally the women sat on the ground and pounded the cloth on a wooden trestle with their feet (see frontispiece); later the hands alone were used for this purpose, the women sitting, or standing on either side of a table. The astonishing impact of this unfamiliar ritual on a stranger to the west is well expressed by Martin Martin, in his description of North Uist. He relates how a party of people from an English ship landed on the island and one of them came upon a house in which were 10 women, behaving, in the opinion of the Englishman, in an extremely strange manner. Their arms and legs were bare and they were sitting, five on either side of a board which was placed between them; on this was a length of cloth which they were thickening with their hands and feet, and singing the whole time. ‘The Englishman presently concluded it to be a little Bedlam, which they did not expect to find in so remote a corner.’ The episode was recounted to the owner of the island, a Mr John MacLean, who said he had never seen any mad people in the islands. This did not convince, so the leader of the party and the proprietor went to the house where the women were working. Mr MacLean then told the stranger that this was merely the common way of thickening the cloth in those parts; the Englishman had to accept the information but remained astonished at the scene he had witnessed.

The wool from which the tweed was woven was first dyed to the desired colour in a dye made from vegetable matter of various kinds. When it was ready, the loom was set, and, as with most important everyday activities, there were lucky and unlucky days for this — another archaic Celtic belief. One of these, in the Island of South Uist, was St Columba’s Day — 9 June— perhaps the most beloved of the saints in the Catholic Highlands:

Thursday the day of kindly Columba,

The day to gather the sheep in the fold,

To set the loom, and put cows with the calves.

When the cloth is woven it is soaked in a vat of hot, stale urine, which has been collected for the purpose for some time. The ends of the length of cloth are then sewn together to make a complete circle which is next placed on a trestle table, or even the door of the byre if nothing better is available, and about a dozen women sit at the table, an even number on either side, and pass the heavy cloth to each other, sunwise, kneading it vigorously in four decisive rhythmic movements. As they work they sing, the leader telling the story of the song and the others chanting the refrain. It is a fascinating scene to witness, the heaviness of the labour (to which I can personally attest) lightened by the enjoyment of the singing, and the whole vast repertoire of songs enshrining and preserving some of the most rare and ancient aspects of the folk tradition. Songs originally used for other communal activities, which have become redundant, often found their way into the stock of waulking songs; thus, over and above its importance for the anthropologist and the musicologist, the practice of waulking the cloth to the accompaniment of song is one of first interest and value to the folklorist.

The Highlands and Islands of the west contain both Protestant and Catholic communities. In the Outer Hebrides North Uist and the Islands to the north are Protestant, part of Benbecula and all the southern Isles Catholic. Like the early Celtic Church in Ireland, the Catholic priests had a greater tolerance for the old customs which were at one time feared and disliked by the Protestant ministers as being representative of pagan decadence. As a result, the extant traditions in the Catholic areas differ from those of the Protestant regions, being, in many ways, more archaic and rich; but the Protestant areas retained much of their lore and made their own valuable contribution to the preservation of tale, custom and belief which is so astonishingly rich and varied in the Scottish Highlands.

Calendar festivals have always been closely observed by the Celts and in these, much that is purely pagan has survived, blended often almost inextricably with Christian feasts. Festivities connected, for example, with the ancient pan-Celtic god Lugus (Lugh), which we know to have taken place on 1 August in Gaul at the time of Caesar’s wars there, survived vestigially all over the Celtic world down to the present century and have been the subject of a fascinating study by Máire MacNeill. The feast, which took place on or near 1 August and was known as Lughnasa, ‘the feast in honour of Lugh’s birth’, was not a harvest thanksgiving, but a feast of propitiation — a blessing of the harvest to be reaped. The festivities customarily took place on a hill or eminence; there was often a ‘patten’ — a procession — round a holy well, led by the priest; games, markets, races and communal activity of every kind ensued. At the various calendar festivals in the Protestant areas the Trinity was invoked; in the Catholic regions pagan deities metamorphosed into local saints were added to the Trinity and the more common orthodox saints; and in the southern Outer Hebrides St Michael was sometimes invoked as the god Michael. Hallowe’en, the ancient feast of Samhain, the night before 1 November, continued to be regarded as the most awesome period of the year, a time when the powers of the Otherworld became visible — and often dangerous — to mankind, and when human sacrifice and propitiation were essential according to the belief of the pagan Celts, to make benign and satisfy the dark forces of the unknown.

Many of the ancient beliefs and superstitions can still be glimpsed in the treasure-house of the surviving oral tradition, their power gone, their continuity due entirely to the force of the strong folk memory and the longevity of the traditions from which they originally sprang. Stories of the rebellion of 1745 and the evictions of the following decades are related as if they had happened yesterday. Belief in the power of Second Sight is more or less universally present; and the association of prehistoric monuments with past battles fought by gigantic foes is equally widespread. There are still people living in the Gaelic West who claim to have had direct experience of the fairies, and others who assert that they did exist until comparatively recently but, like the great shoals of herring that seasonally frequented the seas round the Hebrides, have now, for some mysterious reason, gone.

It is due to the devoted, tireless and often hazardous work of the great collectors of Gaelic folklore that we have a repertoire of recorded tradition of considerable size and variety, one which provides a yardstick against which to measure the by now infinitely more fragmented body of lore still current in the West today. The persecution of the Gaelic language and all that it stood for began long ago. As early as 1567 John Carswell, Bishop of the Isles, wrote: ‘Great is the blindness and darkness of sin and ignorance and of understanding among composers and writers and supporters of the Gaelic in that they prefer and practise the framing of vain, hurtful, lying, earthly stories about the Tuatha Dé Danann and about the sons of Milesius and about the heroes and Fionn MacCumhail and his giants and about many others whom I shall not number or tell of here in detail, in order to maintain and advance these, with a view to obtaining for themselves passing worldly gain, rather than to write and to compose and to support the faithful words of God and the perfect way of truth.’ In this castigation of the oral tradition, Bishop Carswell gives us valuable information, not only about the vigour with which it was practised, but the nature of its contents. The Tuatha Dé Danann were the pagan gods of ancient Ireland, known to us through the stories of their deeds, recorded by the scribes of the early Christian Church. They were clearly still popular with the people in the sixteenth century; and even today fragmentary stories of their heroic and magical deeds can still be found in remote corners of Gaelic Scotland. The stories of the sons of Mil likewise belong to the early Irish Book of Invasions, that great corpus of semi-historical, semi-mythological material accounting for the coming of the different races — some of them deities — to Ireland. Hero tales, about characters ancient and modern, were, and perhaps still are, the most popular of all the long stories. Amongst these rank the stories telling of the fabulous deeds of the semi-supernatural Irish hero, Fionn MacCumhail and his giants, as Carswell calls them, the characters who played the leading rôle in MacPherson’s Ossian (Fionn’s son by a woman in the form of a hind). This led to the great Ossianic controversy in the eighteenth century and the subsequent focusing of attention of the whole of literary Europe on the Gaelic West. All these subjects are treated in greater detail in the relevant sections of the book.

In spite of persecution by the Protestant Church and by the education authorities, the Gaelic language and some of its great heritage of oral tradition has survived. Ancient customs and beliefs were commented on, inadvertently as it were, by travellers to the Highlands such as Edward Lhuyd, the Welsh geologist and Celtic linguist, the first collector of Gaelic folklore and compiler of the first Gaelic dictionary in the late seventeenth century; natives like Martin Martin, protestant minister in the Island of Skye, visited the Outer Hebrides a few years later and recorded much valuable material. Again, strangers such as Dr Johnson, making his famous tour of Scotland with the Lowland lawyer, James Boswell in 1773, stimulated by the writings of such as Martin, whose original Description appeared as early as 1703, have valuable fragments to add to the testimony of the surviving oral tradition and the comments of native writers.

The systematic work of collecting extant popular lore in the Scottish Highlands really began in the nineteenth century with the great work of John Francis Campbell of Islay (Iain Òg Ìle, ‘Young John of Islay’). A gentleman by birth, and living at a time when the Gaelic language was despised as being the speech of peasants and the poor, he learnt to speak the native tongue of his island and dedicated himself to travelling far and wide, laboriously writing down every fragment he could find of the once rich folklore. He worked in every kind of condition and left to posterity a unique corpus of material which would otherwise have soon perished under the strong pressures operating against it. In his edition of the Dewar Manuscripts, the Rev John MacKechnie says of Campbell:

The collecting of folklore was but one of J.F. Campbell’s many activities. He it was who had seen the need of gathering the material and who set up the machinery for doing that; but it was not so much what he actually collected that is important, but rather the example he set before others and the inspiration which fired all who came into contact with him. At a time when Gaelic was neglected and regarded as unworthy of a gentleman’s attention, he pointed out its charm and the inestimable value of much that was enshrined in the Gaelic language. He showed that a gentleman might well be proud of his knowledge of Gaelic.

The nature of the great collector, the first of many eminent scholars in this field, is well illustrated by his own comments on his work:

My wish has been simply to gather some specimens of the wreck so plentifully strewn on the coasts of old Scotland, and to carry it where others may examine it; rather to point out where curious objects worth some attention may be found, rather than to gather a great heap. I have not sought for stranded forests. I have not polished the rough sticks which I found; I have but cut off a very few offending splinters, and I trust that some may be found who will not utterly despise such rubbish, or scorn the magic which peasants attribute to a fairy egg.

John Campbell was primarily interested in the tales told in the Highlands, and these he classified into various types. Another important contemporary collector was Alexander Carmichael (6) who was mainly concerned with the charms and incantations current at the time, although he recorded every piece of Gaelic lore which it was in his power to do. Recently, several boxes of previously unknown material which had been collected by Carmichael were discovered in the library of the University of Edinburgh, and these are in the process of being examined. Other distinguished collectors added to the growing body of oral material; today, the School of Scottish Studies in the University of Edinburgh, and other organisations, are endeavouring to collect, by the much more efficient medium of the tape recorder, the last fragments of the rapidly dying tradition. The Gaelic language is seriously threatened by all the forces that are putting at risk minority cultures all over the world; even so, it is astonishing that so much has survived into the present century of a language and its traditions which spring directly from that spoken by an ancient Celtic people whose culture was archaic long before the English ever set foot in Britain and which the Romans must have found so strange on their exploratory trips to Ireland.

6   Alexander Carmichael, after the second edition of his Carmina Gadelica, Edinburgh and London, 1928, frontispiece and pxxxvi

In order to understand anything of the formative elements that have gone into making Gaelic Scotland a distinctive cultural unit, it is necessary to glance briefly at the early history of the country and the nature of the various peoples who inhabited it. The area covered in the book is huge and varied. It includes districts which were at one time Gaelic-speaking and, at an earlier period, were inhabited by British-or Pictish-speaking peoples; regions which were Gaelic-speaking until comparatively recent times; and territory where the Gaelic language is still in everyday use to some extent or another. It includes areas which have had a totally different historical evolution from each other, where external influences of different types and of differing degrees have operated, and in which the religions have been, and still are, very mixed. We may note that, in similar fashion to the languages of other Celtic countries, there is a firm educational policy to retain the Gaelic speech and to ensure that it continues into the foreseeable future.

In Roman times a people known as the Caledonii occupied land extending from the Valley of the Tay to the Great Glen. Two place-names in Perthshire still bear witness to the presence of these people — the mountain Shiehallion on the Moor of Rannoch, ‘the Fairy Mound of the Caledonians’, about which has accrued much legend, and another hill, Dunkeld, ‘the Fort of the Caledonians’. The original Caledonian confederacy included many other tribes: the Taezali of the far north-east, the Lugi of Sutherland, the Decantae of Easter Ross, the Smertae between the Lugi and the Caereni of north-west Sutherland. These powerful Caledonians constituted a strong threat to the Romans and constantly harassed them and raided into territory which they had occupied further south. Scots from Ireland came in their ships and raided the western coasts; the Picts from northern Scotland also joined in the attacks. The Caledonii spoke a language which was the ancestor of Welsh, that is, British; the Picts used a speech containing an admixture of elements including British. Their language has not, as yet, been satisfactorily deciphered. By the end of the fifth century AD Scotland had become a land, not of 17 or so tribes, but of four kingdoms. The largest of these was that of the Picts, extending from the Forth to the Pentland Firth; they were divided into the northern and the southern Picts until eventually they became amalgamated into one kingdom.

The second people are those who most concern us here — the Scots, for they gave the Gaelic language to Scotland, and the name to the country. They came from Ireland to the west coast of the Highlands bringing with them their own Gaelic form of the Celtic language; Scotland means the lands of the Scotti or Scots. They settled in Dalriada, Argyllshire and the adjacent islands, naming the land after their own territory in Ireland. It is of some importance to note that the Irish settlers were not pagans, as were the three other peoples who occupied Scotland at that time, but Christian, although many pagan traditions still lurked beneath their Christianity, as they have done down to the present day. And, although Dalriada was the smallest of these kingdoms, it was from this Gaelic settlement that the first king of a united Scotland was to come. The third people were the Britons of Strathclyde, and the fourth kingdom was that of the Angles, whose territory reached as far as the Firth of Forth.

7   Pictish figures engraved on stone — deer, horse

These four kingdoms were constantly at war with each other, but the conversion of the three pagan factions to Christianity made ultimate union possible. In AD 843 Kenneth MacAlpin became King of the Picts as well as ruler of the Scots; any threat from Anglian power had been destroyed in 685 at the Battle of Nechtansmere in Angus. Kenneth MacAlpin extended the boundaries of his territory, but he could never finally conquer the Angles and he remained King of Alba, as the united kingdoms were called. It was not until the victory of Malcolm II at the Battle of Carham in 1018 that total victory came to the Scots, and the four peoples became united under Malcolm’s grandson, Duncan I, and Scotland came into being. This did not include Orkney and Shetland, or parts of Northern Scotland and the Hebrides which were at that time under Norse rule — another important cultural factor influencing the subsequent development of Highland history and its traditions.

It is at the boundaries between Gaelic and non-Gaelic areas that some of the most interesting folk material is to be found, for traditions pay no respect to geography, and there must always be some peripheral region where they mingle and blend into each other. Settlements too, of one people into the territory of another group, can bring about the introduction of stories and traditions which rightly belong to a different district or milieu. But, even so, there is a fascinating universality and consistency in the legends and superstitions in the Highland areas of Scotland, in spite of the different influences and ideas that have been gradually introduced down the centuries. The result of all this amalgam of cultural contacts is well-expressed by John Campbell in his introduction to his Popular Tales of the West Highlands:

In the islands where the western wanderers settled down and where they have remained for centuries, old men and women are still found who have hardly stirred from their native islands, who speak only Gaelic, and cannot read or write, and yet their minds are filled with a mass of popular lore, as various as the wreck piled on the shores of Spitzbergen.

8   Highland army officer, eighteenth-century. After F.A. Macdonald 1983, 140

2 Clan lore

In order to fully understand the nature of surviving tradition in Gaelic Scotland, social as well as historical factors must be taken into account. Until the final breakdown of the clan system in the eighteenth century, after the disastrous Battle of Culloden in 1746, Highlanders were organised in tribes or clans (from clann, ‘children’), as were the Celts from time immemorial. After the defeat of Prince Charles Edward Stuart by the Duke of Cumberland and his troops, this ancient system ceased to function officially, although it has survived vestigially until the present day, having acquired a certain glamour with the establishment of Balmoral as a royal residence and the interest of the Royal family in things Highland.

Nearly all the Highland clans (9) traced their origins back to Ireland; genuine clan names appear in the tenth, eleventh and twelfth centuries. Most of the genealogies are traced back to Loarn, son of Erc, one of the three brothers who established the kingdom of Dalriada in Argyllshire in the late fifth century AD. The Lords of the Isles, the MacDonalds, however, trace their ancestry to Colla Uais of Ireland. The Campbells seem to have a purely fictitious origin and the MacLeods and Nicholsons have a strong Norse element in their genealogy. The concept of clan differed from that of tribe in that the central feature of the clan was consanguinity or kinship; that of the tribe, tuath, had a territorial basis. As the word clann means ‘progeny, children’, the members of any clan, from the chief down, were bonded together by blood kinship, the degree of which varied; the chief of the clan and the heads of the various branches or septs were closely related. There were, however, accretions to the clan who could, strictly speaking, claim no blood relationship. The clansmen bore a common name, and this name was derived from a common ancestor who may, in certain instances, have been a pagan deity rather than an historical character. In the later Middle Ages, the feudal system was extended in Scotland and the clans were confined to the more inaccessible districts; and, as we have seen, this archaic system survived until the eighteenth century, when it was terminated as a result of Culloden Moor.

Like the old pagan kings, the chief was believed to be semi-divine, in that he could do no wrong and loyalty to him was absolute. The clan chief was the real owner of the clan territory; the clansmen got their land from him and in return they gave him goods in kind and military service. Archaic records make it clear that the clan as a functioning organisation in Scotland existed as early as the sixth century AD. If a clansman had to obey a feudal superior and his orders were at variance with those of his chief, then the feudal lord, or king, would be ignored; when the clans were sufficiently isolated to make punishment for this too difficult to enforce, then they could escape retribution.

9   Map of the distribution of the highland clans in the sixteenth century, the clans emerging AD 1150-1350. After W.H.S. Sellar 1983

For this reason, the Western Highlands and Islands were, for centuries, ruled by petty sovereigns, and the king’s writ simply did not apply. Inter-clan relations tended to be unstable — leading to inter-tribal strife as in ancient Gaul and Ireland — and this had tragic consequences for Highland history. The story is one of petty jealousies, bitter quarrels, constant raiding of land and plundering of goods, cattle and women, and many atrocities were committed by all parties.

The clan was by no means a democratic organisation; like all Celtic society, it was highly aristocratic. The various offices were hereditary; the chief was the commander of the clan in war; the oldest member of the cadet branch was lieutenant-colonel and he commanded the right wing. The youngest member of the cadet branch commanded the rear. Every head of a distinct family was captain of his own tribe. Every clan had its standard-bearer, likewise an hereditary post. Every chief had his poet or bard, to praise him in life and to lament him in death. The bagpipe was the military instrument for war-music and also much favoured in the chieftains’ residences. The pipers were instructed in special piping-schools; one of the most famous of these was that of the MacCrimmons, pipers to the MacLeods of Dunvegan, with their school at Borreraig nearby. Each clan had a special place of meeting; people were summoned to it in times of emergency by the Fiery Cross. Two men, each carrying a pole with a cross of fire-blackened wood attached to the end, ran through the clan territory shouting the military slogan of the clan; if they tired, others took their place. Everyone would arm at once and go to the traditional meeting-place to take orders from their chief. Every clan had a special war-cry; for example, the Grants shouted ‘Stand fast Craigellachie’, the Camerons, ‘Sons of Dogs come hither and you shall get flesh’, and so on. Every clan had a distinguishing badge; the notion that the clans were recognisable to each other by their gaudy individual tartans is a modern one; they were known by their badges, which were plain and worn in their bonnets. The MacDonalds (10), for example, wore heather, which was also their war-cry (fraoch); the Grants fir (giuthas); the MacIntoshes holly (cuileann). To a certain extent the choice of badge would be determined by what was available in a given locality, but it is likely that the chosen plant would also have a magical and evil-averting significance.

Another custom in the ancient Celtic world was the careful study of omens when the clan was leaving on some foray; it was a good omen, for example, to meet an armed man. If a bare-footed woman crossed the path in front of the soldiers, she would be seized and blood drawn from her forehead in order to avert evil. If a deer, fox, hare or some other game animal was seen and not killed, it was an ill omen. There was also a clan custom known as cuid-oidhche, ‘a night’s share or portion’. This was provided for the chief, when he was going hunting or on a raid, by the tenant who lived near the hill or place he reached by nightfall, and consisted in hospitality for the lord and his men, and food for his dogs and horses for one night.

10  Leather front of a targe (sgiath), probably late seventeenth-century, with the double-headed eagle emblem of the MacDonalds. After S. Maxwell 1983, 10

Martin Martin (c.1660-1719), living in the decades before the clan system became redundant, has some interesting details to add to our knowledge of its functions. He records that every heir or young chieftain was obliged to give a public exhibition of his valour before he was acknowledged and declared leader of his people who, if satisfied, then vowed to follow and obey him. This again is an archaic custom of initiation rite with its origins far back in the Celtic world. Writing in 1703, Martin notes that he had heard no instance of this practice for some 60 years. He says that a heap of stones in the shape of a pyramid was erected. The young chieftain-elect was placed on this and his friends and followers stood in a circle about him, his elevated position signifying his authority over them. One of his oldest friends then handed to him the sword worn by his father and a white rod was given to him at the same time; the giving of the white rod as a symbol of authority is also found in the earliest Irish traditions. Then the chief Druid (as Martin calls him) or orator stood beside the cairn and eulogised the ancestry and noble deeds of the family and its magnificent traditional generosity — a virtue always highly prized by the Celts. Martin also notes that when any chieftain went on a military expedition, blood was drawn from the first animal met with on enemy territory and some of this was then sprinkled on the colours; this was considered to be a good omen. There was always a sentry on top of the houses in Barra, even in Martin’s time, called Gockmin (Cockman). Before the clan engaged in battle the chief bard addressed the army, exhorting it to courage and praising the prowess of its forebears. When the bard had completed his oration the men would give a great shout and rush into the fray. In similar fashion, two ancient Celtic warriors about to engage in single combat would revile their enemy and eulogise their own ancestors. Martin says that this speech was known as Brosnichiy Kah (Brosnachaidh Catha), ‘Incentive to Battle’. He records that every great family in the Isles had a chief Druid who foretold future events and decided all causes. It is against the broken remnants of this once-rigid clan structure that the extant traditions of the Highlands must be viewed, and clan legends form a major tale type. A few stories from this huge repertoire are given as examples, many of which can still be heard today.

One of the most popular, if distasteful, of such tales is the well-known story of the Appin murder. The episode upon which this story is based is known to have taken place after the clan rebellion known as the Rising of 1745-6. Many of the Highland lairds had been deprived of their lands and possessions — and even their lives — and factors had been sent by the crown to administer the estates and to take rent from the tenants. One such factor was Colin Campbell of Glenure, known as ‘the Red Fox of Appin’. In 1748, he was appointed factor to the estate of Ardshiel and other neighbouring territories. James Stewart was the unofficial laird of Ardshiel and at first cooperated with Campbell, but Campbell was accused by his masters of being a Jacobite sympathizer, particularly since his mother was a Cameron. Feeling that he had to take decisive action to dispel these suspicions he rounded on James Stewart and demanded back rents as far as 1745, money which had already been made over to the lairds. This caused tension between the two men, and when, in 1751, James Stewart was compelled to give up his farms, his hatred of Campbell increased and intensified and he made many threats against Campbell, particularly when he had, as became his wont, drunk too much.

When yet more tenants were evicted James Stewart took up their cause and the situation became volatile. On 11 May 1752 Campbell left for Fort William in order to carry out evictions on the Lochiel estate (even though Lochiel was his cousin) and this done, on the 14th he left for Appin in order to carry out further evictions. He never reached Appin. He was killed by two bullets from a gun; these pierced him in the chest and he died half an hour later. One Allan Breck Stewart was famously accused of the murder (see Robert Louis Stevenson’s ‘Kidnapped’ and ‘Catriona’) but fled to France, where he continued to declare his innocence. James Stewart, because of his frequent threats and protestations of hatred for the Red Fox, was hanged for the murder on 8 November, although he was innocent. The real perpetrator of the deed seems to have been one Donald Stewart, who was selected by a number of Jacobite aristocracy as the best shot. He was given a gun which was the best of all the arms they had. When Donald Stewart heard that James Stewart was to be hanged, he wished to give himself up but was persuaded by his fellows not to do so, for that would only lead to both being hanged.

Another account states that Allan Breck, instead of declaring his innocence, had himself confessed to murdering the Red Fox in order to draw attention away from the real perpetrator, but that had made no difference to the case against James Stewart.

One of the most famous clan legends which is based on a real event is that of the Eigg massacre. In 1577, some 350 MacDonalds — men, women and children — were allegedly suffocated in a cave in the island of Eigg by the MacLeods; the brutality of this outrage shocked even the tough Highlanders, accustomed as they were to violence and bloodthirsty death, and the story has remained in the oral tradition of the islanders. Bones were found in the cave as recently as 1800, while contemporary accounts testify to the truth of this incident.

The terrible massacre of the MacDonalds of Glencoe — a narrow glen running down between the mountains from Rannoch Moor to Loch Leven, Argyllshire — initiated by the Campbells on the orders of William III, still fills the reader with horror at the nature of the treachery which gave rise to this order (11). Briefly, these are the events which preceded the infamous occurrence. King William III, who had great difficulty in imposing his law upon certain of the Highland clans, issued a writ pardoning all who submitted to his jurisdiction before 1 January 1692. The MacDonald of Glencoe, who had not yet complied, journeyed to Fort William on 31 December 1691, in order to make his submission. However, one Sir John Dalrymple, later Earl of Stair, who was an enemy of the MacDonalds, prevented information of MacDonald’s submission from reaching the sheriff, and moreover, obtained an order which would lead to the massacre of the Glencoe MacDonalds. The Campbells, who hated the MacDonalds, were employed to commit an act of the most heinous treachery upon the unsuspecting clansmen. The Campbells, together with some 120 men, descended on Glencoe in a friendly fashion and were given generous hospitality and lodging by the open-handed MacDonalds. When the Campbells received word that the passes through which the MacDonalds might escape were secured, they fell upon the MacDonalds in the dead of night, slaughtering the men and leaving the women and children to die of exposure. This barbarous event was abhorrent even to other Highland clans, accustomed as they were to hostility and bloodshed, and led to lasting antipathy between the MacDonalds and the Campbells. Even today, traces of this old enmity survive in Scotland and wherever Scots have colonised.

11  Dirk (biodhe), seventeenth-century; two-handed claymore, sixteenth-century. After S. Maxwell 1983, 9, 11

Another example of treachery on the part of the royalists is evidenced by the fact that the clansmen of Urquhart and Glenmoriston, who had fought against the government (been ‘out’, as the expression went) and surrendered on the promise of protection, were betrayed. The promise was broken; the men were taken and imprisoned within the Gaelic Church, Inverness, and were then sent to London by sea and transported to Barbados and the Carolinas, having been denied trial of any kind.

There are many stories extant about the more famous clan battles, some of which have given rise to proverbial sayings. One of these concerns the Battle of the North Inch of Perth which took place at the end of the fourteenth century. The MacIntoshes were a powerful clan and were known as the Clan Chattan. In the fourteenth century they owned the greater part of Badenoch; their crest was the cat, their motto ‘Touch not the Cat Gloveless’. A feud developed between them and the Clan Kay; the Earls of Crawford and Moray, by commission, attempted to reconcile them, but failed. They then proposed that 30 men from either clan should meet in the North Inch and decide the quarrel by the sword in the presence of the king, Robert III and all the nobles. In 1396, when they met on the appointed day, one of the Clan Chattan was absent. A smith from Perth, known as Henry Gow, or Hal o’ the Wynd, offered to take his place for the sum of seven shillings and sixpence. It was a fierce battle. Twenty-nine of the Clan Kay were killed; the thirtieth man escaped by swimming across the Tay. Nineteen of the Clan Chattan perished. Their victory was due to the phenomenal strength and courage of the Perth smith (always a craftsman held in high esteem in the Celtic regions); as a result a local proverb came into being:‘He did very well for his own hand, as Henry Gow did’. His descendants became known as Sliochd á Ghobhair Chruim, ‘the Progeny of the Stooping Smith’, and they were incorporated into Clan Chattan.

Another important Highland clan was that of the Grants. This consisted of several separate septs whose identity was distinguished, as are the larger of the other clans, by the name of the lands over which they held sway; for example, the Grants of Glenmoriston, the Grants of Freuchie, the Grants of Strathspey — from whom I am directly descended, my maiden name having been Anne Grant. My earliest memories are of my father, Alexander Grant, urging me on with any task which I found distasteful or simply boring, and exhorting me to persist with the rousing words of the clan slogan, ‘Stand Fast Craigellachie!’ (12). Related as they may have been by blood and kinship, that did not necessarily ensure peaceful living. Petty feuds and battles occasioned by jealousy over the superior dwellings and possessions of the stronger of the septs ensured that they were never really at peace for long. One example of this debilitating state of affairs is described in a long and somewhat complex story set in the mid-sixteenth century. As the legend has it, the feud originated when Grant of Ballindalloch tried to deprive young Patrick Grant of Glenmoriston (13) of his right to the Glenmoriston inheritance. John Roy Grant of Carron somewhat altruistically intervened on Patrick’s behalf, and the ensuing quarrel which developed into a bitter battle brought about the death of Ballindalloch. This caused a festering resentment which increased with time. In 1615 a son of Grant of Carron was treacherously attacked by one of the Ballindalloch Grants during a fair held at Elgin. Carron’s brother James, enraged by this barbarous act, retaliated by killing the assailant outright. James Grant was subsequently charged with murder but managed to escape and became an outlaw, inconveniencing both those who dwelt in the wider area of Strathspey, and the House of Ballindalloch in particular. James Grant proved to be an elusive quarry and much bloodshed resulted from attempts to capture him.

12  Piper to the Laird of Grant, 1714. After R. Cannon 1983, 18

13  Shinty player, Grant of Glenmoriston, 1847. After H.D. MacLennan 1983, 267

Grant of Ballindalloch bitterly hated James Grant of Carron and was much inflamed when he heard of John Grant of Carron and some of his followers cutting timber at Abernethy. Grant of Ballindalloch managed to kill John Grant, which outraged James Grant of Carron whose depredations thereafter greatly increased. At length James was captured and succeeded in escaping in 1632, and returned to his savage ways. Grant of Ballindalloch made every effort to recapture him but was unfortunate enough to fall into a cunning trap which had been laid for him by James. Nevertheless, against all probability, he managed to regain his freedom and continued to pursue James. A number of his followers were killed but success eluded him and James was never recaptured. Eventually James obtained a full pardon and died peacefully in his bed in 1639.

A further legend of Grant of Ballindalloch concerns the building of his castle there. He attempted to site his stronghold in a prominent position, high above the River Aven (now Avon), which runs into the River Spey. This was in order to keep a watchful eye on the activities of his bitter enemies, the Grants of Tullochcarron. But though building had begun, the next day there was nothing to be seen on the site. For three nights the same thing happened. Ballindalloch went to the building site, only to find it in the same state as it had been at the beginning of the work. He was much annoyed and when his men gave him an account of the supernatural and fearsome happenings that had occurred during the night, he determined to keep watch himself. This he proceeded to do the following night. For the first few hours all was quiet. Then a fearful wind rose from the distant summit of Ben Rinnes, throwing him and his henchman down from the site, and the building into the River Aven. The men landed in a holly bush from which they could not extricate themselves. Next followed terrifying peals of unearthly laughter and a voice instructed Grant to build his castle on the site of the Cow-haugh, which was situated down between the Aven and the Spey. The shaken laird followed these instructions and no further problems occurred.

Another Grant story, one of many which space does not allow to be included in the present book, concerns the last Grant of Tullochcarron. He was the laird of his property and had no offspring, only a nephew, Lachlan Dhu, on whom he lavished great affection and planned to make the boy his heir. But Lachlan had an evil nature and Tullochcarron, despairing of him, decided to take a wife and, having done so, she bore him a son, Duncan Bane, who was everything Tullochcarron could have hoped for. Lachlan, being a crafty boy, appeared to change his nature and treated the child with loving affection; secretly he was plotting his destruction. Having reached the age of 17, Duncan Bane had fallen in love with Anna Gordon, a girl of great beauty, but lacking in riches. Duncan was careful to tell no one of their love. Meanwhile, Tullochcarron was planning an advantageous marriage for his son. Lachlan declared his love for the beautiful Anna, who told Duncan but swore him to secrecy. Duncan was very angry and began to suspect that Lachlan’s friendliness was insincere. Having decided to kill both Duncan and his father, Tullochcarron, Lachlan went to Tullochcarron’s long-standing enemy, Ballindalloch. He requested Ballindalloch’s support in his treacherous plan to kill Duncan and his father, in return for which he would be Ballindalloch’s vassal and guarantee the friendship of the lands of Tullochcarron in the future. Ballindalloch was non-committal, but he was in fact profoundly shocked and immediately wrote to Tullochcarron in order to warn him of this plot.

Tullochcarron did not entirely believe this warning, coming as it did from his sworn enemy, and thus only took half-hearted precautions. He did not suspect Lachlan’s intense jealousy of Duncan, being ignorant of his desired liaison with Anna Gordon. Duncan and Anna Gordon had given Duncan’s bodyguard the slip so that they could spend some time together. They were saying goodbye to each other on a precipice and as soon as Anna had left, Lachlan leapt out of the bushes and pushed poor Duncan over the precipice onto the rocks of the River Aven, where he immediately died. Anna Gordon went mad. Lachlan told Tullochcarron that there had been a serious accident, but Tullochcarron knew that Lachlan was the guilty party. He had him locked up immediately, and he was tried and hanged on that same evening. Tullochcarron now had no heir, so he bequeathed his lands and title to Ballindalloch, thus ending many years of feuding between the Grants of Tullochcarron and the Grants of Ballindalloch.

Cattle-raiding was one of the favourite pastimes of the Highlanders, and this led to many a clan battle and bitter feud. Certain characters became famed throughout wide areas for their skill in raiding and evading capture. One of these was Auchry Malcolm of Poltalloch. He was known as Big Auchry and was the best swordsman in the entire countryside. The cattle-raiders were all terrified of him. The MacFies of the Island of Colonsay habitually came to lift cattle from Argyll, and Big Auchry was their sworn enemy. The hero used to wear a helmet and a coat of mail, according to tradition. He made a little bothy or hut for himself on the hill above his home at Baile-ghuirgean; he taught his dog not to bark, but to warn him of approaching strangers by scratching his ear. One day the MacFies surprised and killed the dog. Before he died he managed to bark a warning to his master, who advanced upon the MacFies and killed many of them. In the end, however, their superior numbers prevailed and Big Auchry was slain.

Another story is told as to how the Camerons got their clan slogan. Lochiel and the Duke of Athol had a dispute about the ownership of Aird-Raineach; they frequently met and argued about the possession of this piece of land and often came to blows, but no decision. They agreed to meet alone, without their followers, at Aird-Raineach and fight it out between themselves. It was also agreed that each of them would take his own piper. Lochiel met the famous witch Gormla as he set out on his journey; she warned him that Athol meant treachery and advised him what to do. He took his men and kept them hidden until he should make a certain sign; the Duke had likewise hidden his men, and when they emerged, so did Lochiel; the Camerons (Lochiel’s clan) were victorious. From this encounter the slogan and the Cameron pipe tune are said to have originated:

Come hither, Come hither,

You shall get flesh, you shall get flesh.

Come Sons of hounds, you shall get flesh,

You shall get flesh.

One tradition pertaining to the clan system concerns the lands of Arrochar which were the property of Lord Lennox, who lived at Dumbarton. He owned the lands of Kilmarnock, and the territory from the River Clyde to the region of Kilpatrick, and the lands between Loch Lomond, the Clyde and Loch Long known locally as the ‘Isle’ above Leven; his extensive territory came within sight of Loch Fyne and extended as far north as the northern end of Loch Lomond. In the east, it bordered on the lands of the notorious MacGregors, at Inversnaid. The rich lands of Lennox were much plundered by their cattle-raiding neighbours. There were no proper roads, only footpaths, and whenever he could, Lord Lennox travelled by boat. If freebooters passed through the territory with loot from other clan lands tribute used to be extracted from them (staoigcreiche); the laird of Arrochar had a watchman who used to keep guard from the top of Stronafian; his house was called Tigh á bheachdachain, Watchman’s House, and can still be seen at the roadside at the foot of Stronafian. Legends of Norse raids into the lands of Lennox were current until recent times; one tells of a king of Norway who once invaded Scotland. He allegedly sailed up Loch Long with a fleet and landed at a point close to where Arrochar Castle now stands. He and his followers dragged their ships from Loch Long to Loch Lomond. A battle ensued and the men of Arrochar were defeated. The Norwegians then sailed down Lomond to Luss and many people were slaughtered. The day of the battle was remembered locally as the Black Monday of Arrochar.

Another legend pertaining to Arrochar tells how MacFarlane of Arrochar was once grazing a herd of cattle on Ben Vorlich; the herd was stolen. MacFarlane sent Calum Garbh MacEwen and a band of men in search of the thief and the cattle. They went north of Inverness and one night, in a wood, they heard a drunken man singing:

I took booty from Ben Vorlich,

When the people were sleeping;

I gained much wealth for them:

It is a joy to me to mention it.

Some I spent on crowdie

And some on oat-cake;

I would not complain of my foray

Had not my boots become hard.

The Arrochar men seized the thief and recovered their cattle; treachery, if it was clever, was never rejected by the lawless Gaels and the thief was told that if he handed over the beasts, or the money he had got for them, they would not hang him. When he had complied, they did proceed to hang him, not, as they had promised, for the crime he had committed, but in order to make sure that he could never repeat it! Under the clan system, life cannot have differed much from life in the Iron Age in Britain, when tribe warred against tribe, the fittest and cleverest members of a community survived, and when cattle-raiding and stories telling of the skill and adventures of the raiders were the normal, everyday pursuits.

One late clan story, also concerning Arrochar and the rich lands of Lennox which were such a temptation to raiders, tells of an episode that is alleged to have taken place a short time after the adventures of Prince Charles Edward Stuart. A farmer called James Turner lived in Arrochar about two miles from the head of Loch Long. He was rich both in cattle and in money. Some of his relations lived in Sunart. One of these planned to go with a group of men and rob him. It was in the spring of the year and they reached Turner’s house just before daybreak; the people of the house were already up. Men, known as Sturdy Beggars, used at the time to go from house to house begging for alms. One of these had been telling the farmer and his family stories all night long — a common enough phenomenon in the Highlands, and such itinerant men had a great store of tales and traditions. The farmer’s wife had a big pot of water boiling over the fire. A fight broke out between the raiders and the farmer’s people; the Sturdy Beggar was the best fighter of all, but he fell, and the farmer himself was badly wounded. The Sunart men made a hole in the door and put their gun muzzles through, but the farmer’s wife poured boiling water on them thus rendering the firearms useless. A neighbour ran to the minister. He put on his kilt and armed himself with gun and sword. The fiery cross was sent out through Arrochar and the war-cry ‘Loch Sloy’ called. The men of the countryside were immediately armed and the raiders fled. The men were caught and sentenced to slavery on a man of war, but they managed to escape and fled back to Sunart.

There is a huge repertoire of legend about individual clans, and a large number of tales about famous or notorious characters belonging to some clan or other. One of the best-known of these is the wild Rob Roy MacGregor around whom a huge body of folklore has developed. Before the Rising of 1745, Highland gentlemen used to run schools in order to instruct the youth of their own district in swordsmanship. The boys were given bannocks and cheese, and they had to run up a hill to eat these. Charles, the son of Stuart of Ardshiel, was educated in Aberdeen. After a long period of education, the boy could still neither read nor write. Ardshiel was going to thrash the boy, but he prevented him because he confessed that he had not been learning education, but the arts of war, which greatly pleased the father. When Ardshiel was dead, Charles went to Lanark to seek the hand of the daughter of the laird there. As he and his men were crossing the moor a vicious bull was let loose on them. Charles killed the bull with his sword, and he and his companions continued on their journey. The laird of Lanark refused to give his daughter to young Ardshiel, and the men set off for home via Balquhidder and they stopped at an inn there. Rob Roy MacGregor heard that they were there. He went to see them and they began to drink whisky together. When they were somewhat drunk they began to talk of the battle of Sheriffmuir; Rob began to criticise the men of Appin for their part in it. A furious argument developed and the two men agreed to meet and fight at sunrise next day. The sun was shining in Charles’ eyes; he cut Rob’s ear; Rob was then cut in the throat and the fight ended. Rob stated that Charles was the best swordsman he had ever encountered — high praise from the notorious MacGregor. The laird of Lanark was so pleased to hear that Charles had worsted Rob that he gave him the hand of his daughter after all. Rob entertained them. He died shortly after that and he gave orders before his death that the men of Ardshiel were not to be molested.

Another clan battle which belongs to the great body of Gaelic oral lore is the Battle of Clachnaharie in 1454. This fight was between the MacIntoshes and the Munroes. John Munro was returning to the Highlands from Edinburgh with his followers. They rested in a meadow in Strathardle and fell asleep. The owner of the land, resenting their intrusion, had the tails of their horses cut off — a bitter insult. Munro went home, and returned to Strathardle with 350 men and laid waste to it and drove away the cattle. As he was passing Loch Moy in Strathearn he was noticed by MacIntosh of Moy who sent to ask him for the fee that was his due, for it was a custom among the Highlanders that when any spoil of cattle was driven through a gentleman’s land, he should be given a proportion of the spoil. Munro offered what he thought was a fair amount, but it was less than that requested. MacIntosh, annoyed by what he took to be an insult to his emissary, gathered a body of men, pursued the Munroes, and at Clachnaharie near Inverness a fierce battle was fought. Men were slain on either side, including Moy himself. John Munro was lamed and was ever after known as Iain Bacach, ‘Lame John’.

These are but a few examples of one type of tale told widely in the Highlands long after the lawless and wild clan system had ceased, stories much relished by the people whose immediate ancestors were concerned in the exploits and battles that formed the everyday life of the Gaels down the centuries.

I should perhaps say a word more about the battle of Culloden, which was the single most important event in the disintegration of the clan system. Prince Charles Edward Stuart (‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’, known also as The Young Pretender), who, with the passionate support of many of the Highland clans, had for some time sought to acquire the crown of the united England and Scotland, was driven back across the Firth of Forth by the Duke of Cumberland, whom he soon had to face on the field of Culloden near Inverness. The outcome of that battle has given rise to countless tales and legends and it brought about great suffering on the part of the Highlanders and other anti-government supporters. Not only did the Highland army suffer enormous losses and terrible wounds on this fateful field; the revenge exacted upon the defeated by the Duke of Cumberland was excessively brutal and earned for him the hateful title of ‘Butcher’ Cumberland. Long after this shameful and ill-advised encounter brought an end to the freedom of the Scottish Highlanders to settle their own affairs and banned them from carrying weapons or wearing their own traditional ancient clan badges, stories of Culloden Moor continued to circulate widely throughout the Highlands and Islands of Scotland.

Songs were also composed to commemorate the demise of Highland freedom; mournful tunes were created for the piobaireachd and were assured of bringing more than a tear to the eyes of those who listened to them being played. Inevitably a large corpus of folklore and poetry originated from this distressing series of events.

3 Seers and Second Sight

The Highlanders have always been famed for their gift, real or alleged, of the ‘Sight’, and controversy on this subject has been widespread and heated. Martin Martin describes it as a singular faculty of foreseeing events and objects which are invisible to those without this power. The things seen were usually of a doleful or unpleasant nature; the problem was well-known to Charles Churchill, and in his poem, The Ghost, he speaks knowledgeably, if astringently, of this singular gift. He says:

Among the rest, in former years,

Campbell, illustrious name appears,

Great Hero of futurity,

Who blind could everything foresee,

Who dumb could everything foretell,

Who, Fate with equity to sell,

Always dealt out the will of Heaven,

According to what price was given.

Of Scottish race, in Highlands born,

Possess’d with native pride and scorn,

Campbell foretold, just what he would,

And left the stars to make it good;

On whom he had impress’d such awe,

His dictates current pass’d for Law;

Submissive all his Empire own’d;

No Star durst smile, when CAMPBELL frown’d.

Seers were no new phenomenon in Celtic society in Churchill’s day. They were a flourishing and influential element in Julius Caesar’s time, as he and other classical writers on the Celts record. They formed a powerful section of the highly superstitious population in the early Celtic world, and perhaps, like Churchill’s Campbell, charged highly for their services. They were called Vates by the Romans, literally ‘seers’ or ‘prophets’. They had certain religious powers, not perhaps as great as those of the Druids, the erudite Celtic priests and teachers, but ritual certainly formed part of their functions. It took some 20 years to become a Druid, and about 12 years to be a qualified filed (‘seer’). Modern seers have an easier time of it; they use their natural gifts without special training. Most people who have ‘the Sight’ fear it; their neighbours in the townships which stud the Highlands and Islands do not like it either, lest some bad news concerning themselves should be foretold. Some people have the complete gift of Second Sight; others have it in a limited way; for example, they can ‘see’ things that are to happen to some individual in dreams. When such people say they have been ‘dreaming’ about someone, the person concerned would usually prefer not to know the nature of the dream, as it frequently forebodes ill. In the Highlands, the person seeing the vision is known as a taibhsear, the object seen, taibhs, and the act of seeing, taibhsearachd. Second Sight was, and still tends to be, implicitly believed in by the Highlanders and Islanders of Scotland. Martin Martin wrote a special booklet on the phenomenon, and even the sceptical Dr Johnson had belief in it. Boswell tells us of his tour to the Hebrides with Dr Johnson in 1773:

He enquired here (Skye) if there were any remains of the second sight. Mr M’Pherson, Minister of Slate, said, he was resolved not to believe it, because it was founded on no principle.

— Johnson:

There are many things then, which we are sure are true, that you will not believe. What principle is there, why a loadstone attracts iron? why an egg produces a chicken by heat? why a tree grows upwards, when the natural tendency of all things is downwards? Sir, it depends upon the degree of evidence that you have.

Young Mr M’Kinnon mentioned one M’Kenzie, who is still alive, who had often fainted in his presence, and when he recovered, mentioned visions which had been presented to him. He told Mr M’Kinnon that at such a place he should meet a funeral, and that such and such people would be the bearers, naming four; and three weeks afterwards he saw what M’Kenzie had predicted. The naming the very spot in a country where a funeral comes a long way, and the very people as bearers, when there are so many out of whom a choice may be made, seems extraordinary. We should have sent for M’Kenzie, had we not been informed that he could speak no English. Besides, the facts were not related with sufficient accuracy. Mrs M’Kinnon, who is a daughter of old Kingsburgh, told us that her father was one day riding in Sky, and some women who were at work in a field on the side of the road, said to him, they had heard two taiscks (that is, two voices of persons about to die) and what was remarkable, one of them was an English taisck which they never heard before. When he returned, he at that very place met two funerals, and one of them was that of a woman who had come from the main land, and could speak only English. This, she remarked, made a great impression upon her father.

The most famous seer in the last few centuries was the so-called Brahan Seer, Coinneach Odhar Fiosaiche, ‘Sombre Kenneth of the Prophecies’, Kenneth MacKenzie, who lived, according to tradition, in the seventeenth century. He was born at Uig in the Island of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides. The story of how he got the magical stone which enabled him to determine the future is as follows. His mother was at the shieling (hill-grazing) and was keeping her eye on the cattle one night, round about midnight, on a hill overlooking an ancient burial-ground. She suddenly saw that all the graves were opening in it and their occupants emerging from them and going off in all directions. After about an hour they returned and re-entered their tombs, and the graves closed over them again. The woman noticed that one grave alone remained open. With great courage she went to the grave and placed her distaff over it, because it was believed that, being of rowan wood, the spirit could not enter the grave while it was there. Soon she saw a beautiful woman who rushed at her and demanded that she should remove her stick from the grave. The mother refused to do this until the occupant of the grave told her why she came back so much later than the others. The spirit told her why she came back so late; she was a daughter of a king of Norway who had been drowned near the island and her body recovered from the nearby beach. While she was released from the grave she had gone back to Norway to look at her old home. As a result of the woman’s courage, the spirit gave her instructions on where to find a small, round, blue stone which would empower her son to foresee future events. This she must give to the boy.

As soon as he received the stone, Kenneth began to make prophecies, and he soon became famous in the west. He had been born on Seaforth territory and so was closely connected with the MacKenzies of Seaforth. When the family moved to Loch Ussie on the Brahan estate in Ross-shire he went with them. There are various other traditions as to how Kenneth obtained the magic stone of knowledge. Some versions of the legend maintain that the stone was white, others hold that it was blue; in some traditions, it had a hole in the centre and this is in keeping with the widespread belief that magic stones were holed. Some of the Brahan Seer’s prophecies became widely famed in the Highlands and it is maintained that all, except one, have come true to date, and that the last will eventually be fulfilled. It is one of his prophecies, which was made 150 years before the Caledonian Canal was constructed, that ships would sail round the back of Tomnahurich Hill (the Hill of the Yew-trees) at Inverness. This is of course remarkable, and it seemed to be completely impossible at the time. Apparently, when an Inverness man, who was recording Kenneth’s prophecies from oral tradition, heard this one, he thought it so ridiculous that he destroyed his manuscript believing the whole thing to be a fraud.

The Seer also prophesied the clearance of the Highlands to make way for sheep and deer forests, and he foretold the breakdown of the clan system. He said there would be a white house on every hillock, and this is taken to mean the shooting lodges that came to be scattered all over the Highlands, although there was, of course, no thought of them in Kenneth’s day. One of his most remarkable prophecies was, again, about Tomnahurich (also called Tom-na-Sithichean, ‘The Fairies Hill’). He said the day would come when the hill would be under lock and key and the fairies which were alleged to inhabit it would be secured within. He could have had no knowledge that a large cemetery would be built there long after his death. The chained fairies — being some two to three feet in height, according to my own informants — would be the spirits of the dead (as they are often alleged to be); there is a strong link between the fairy ‘host’ and the souls of the departed according to Celtic belief. The hill was not, in fact, turned into a cemetery until after 1859. One prophecy, as yet unfulfilled, was that the Island of Lewis would be laid waste by a violent battle which would continue until the contending parties, after great losses on both sides, reached Tarbert in Harris. After this event, there was to be a great period of peace for Lewis; this kind of prophecy evidently refers to clan warfare, and so seems unlikely to be realised now.

Many of these prophecies can still be heard in the Highlands, where the name of the Brahan Seer is legendary. Kenneth prophesied that a loch above Beauly would burst its banks and the flood would destroy a nearby village, and, although that has not yet come about, people were concerned about it even as recently as the twentieth century. He also made a prophecy about Clach-an-t-Seasaidh (a standing stone), near the Muir of Ord. This stone originally stood upright to a considerable height, and was pointed at the top. Now it lies broken on the ground. According to one version of the legend about its destruction, the Seer said that the day would come when ravens would gorge themselves on the blood of the Clan MacKenzie from the top of the stone after a violent battle which would be fought on the Muir of Ord. He also said that the MacKenzies would be so decimated after this fight that the remainder of the clan would be taken over to Ireland in an open fishing boat. Ireland was believed to have been their place of origin. It is thought that Clach-an-t-Seasaidh refers to the remains of a so-called Druidical Circle still visible near Beauly, at a place called Windhill. Another traditional prophecy concerns an Iron Age fort on Knockfarrel, near Loch Ussie where Kenneth lived, in the Strathpeffer Valley. There is a well there called Fingal’s Well, inside the fort ruins. Local tradition has it that this well was used by the fort-dwellers until one day Fingal (the famous Irish hero, Fionn mac Cumhaill) drove them away, put a large stone (known as Clach an Tiompain) over the well to keep the waters in control and then jumped over the valley; this is one of the numerous tales of Fingal’s famous leaps. Fingal’s son Ossian (Oisín) was allegedly the last survivor of this great confederation of warriors, who were banded together under the overall leadership of Fionn. They are always described as being huge in size, like the pagan Celtic deities amongst whom their origins are clearly to be found. They are usually referred to as giants in the vast oral tradition of both Ireland and Gaelic Scotland where many a long and dreary winter was ameliorated by the heroic tales, told night after night by the sgeulaiche in the different townships and districts.

The people never tired of listening to the exploits of these huge men and their womenfolk, and even St Patrick is alleged to have requested that he should meet Fionn and he would go with the giant on a tour of the ancient places of Ireland. After heavy rain, if a stick is struck against the stone, a hollow sound is produced, indicating a cavity below, and water can be seen. The Seer prophesied that if ever this stone should be moved, Loch Ussie would force its way up through the well and flood the valley below so that ships could sail up Strathpeffer and be fastened to Clach an Tiompain; this would occur when the stone should be moved after having fallen three times. It has fallen twice, and is propped up a few steps from the roadside as one approaches the Strathpeffer wells. Kenneth MacKenzie’s magic stone is locally believed to lie at the bottom of Loch Ussie. He is alleged to have thrown it into a pool, which immediately swelled, and became Loch Ussie. This is a typical story of the origins of some loch or river.

No matter how garbled and conflicting many of the traditions of the seventeenth-century Seer are, there is no doubt his prophetic powers made a deep and lasting impact on the folk mind in the Highlands of Scotland. Kenneth obtained his gift from the possession of a magical stone. People possessed of straightforward Second Sight, however, do not require any ‘aid’ for their vision; it comes upon them at random, and, usually, against their will. They dread their mysterious power, which may suddenly manifest itself at any period of their life — in youth, middle years, or old age. It is believed that these people have the power of seeing a person’s doppelgänger or ‘other self’. If a person sees his own ghost then his death is believed to be imminent. It sometimes happens that a person returning to his township from some journey stands aside to let a funeral procession pass by. He recognises the dead from his relations and goes home to say he is sorry to know that such and such a person has died; sometimes he is made to join the procession and act as a bearer and the supernatural weight of the coffin can throw him down on the ground; he then cannot avoid seeing the real burial.

The writer has met people with this unhappy gift, and witnessed the veracity of what they ‘see’, and their distress at this faculty they would wish to lose. The person in question is not dead at the time of the experience, but the premonition of his death by a seer usually means that death will follow soon after. Sometimes this gift — or curse — would seem to run in families and therefore to be inherited; at others, it can begin suddenly, with no family history of such powers. The appearance of the apparition often indicated what was to befall the person in question. If he had been actually laid in a coffin, or was wearing grave-clothes, that would indicate that his death was imminent; if he was wearing ordinary clothes then he would not die for some time. The appearance and behaviour of the apparition would be repeated in detail when the real event occurred. The seer could become unhappily haunted by an apparition and be forced to meet it regularly; he never dared to divulge whose spectre it was. These spectres of the living and the ability to see them constitute a totally different group of supernatural phenomena from ghosts proper, and isolated unnatural experiences. Apparitions of this kind could, on occasion, be actually physically dangerous and attack the living seer. Examples of this extraordinary gift of the Second Sight are numerous; it seems to be very much a feature of Celtic societies, and belief in the Sight is ancient as the traditions of Fionn and his magic power of seeing things in the early Irish tales indicates.

Some examples of the things witnessed by people with the gift of Second Sight are as follows. Urine was regarded as a powerful substance in combating the supernatural. There is a story on record about a man from the Island of Tiree who had the Sight. It was a custom in the island that anyone coming upon a drowned body should turn it over. The seer, coming upon such a corpse, was overcome with fear and ran away, without first moving it as tradition demanded. The body was in due course buried, but the dead man began to haunt the seer and caused him great terror. At last things became so bad that one night the apparition dogged his steps home and then stood between him and his own door, barring his entrance. He shouted desperately to his wife to come and sprinkle the doorposts with urine. When she had done this, the ghost leapt above the door and the man entered his house and was no longer disturbed by the menacing vision. It was believed widely in the Highlands that the dead had the power to lay heavy burdens on the living, and to physically punish them. It was also thought by those with faith in the Second Sight that one should never wish too ardently for anything. Such wishes could affect a person with the Sight. He could be fatally wounded by means of his ‘double’, or spiritual body. There are many tales told of people seeing such spirits and throwing dirks, or other missiles at them, and hitting them; some person, whose ‘fetch’ they in fact were, would, at that moment, be struck blind. People gifted with the Second Sight were often believed to be capable of telling the appearance of someone’s future bride or groom. They could see the taish (‘appearance’) of the woman, sitting beside her husband to be. Death was, however, unfortunately the most common event foretold by taishers. Seers could also witness events happening at a distance and see if they resulted in evil or good; i.e. someone’s son falls overboard and his father is deeply agitated until he is rescued. He ‘sees’ the whole episode, which is later confirmed. Glasses which were destined to be used at the feast after a funeral were believed to rattle before someone’s death. There are a great number of variants of actual experiences people have had, but they all add up to the basic ability to see the person doomed to die before his death, even that of the seer himself, and to see the fetch or spectre of the living long before his actual death.

People were very superstitious about their boats, and if a seer saw anything untoward near to or in a boat, no one would go near it. This is an understandable superstition amongst a people who depended so much on sea transport and fishing. Sometimes a boat would be sold because ‘something’ had been seen in connection with it; this still pertains to a certain extent in some of the more westerly Islands, where the only contact with some Islands or the mainland can be made by boat, and where fish form an important ingredient in the basic diet. Dogs and horses were widely believed to have powers of ‘seeing’ superior even to those of the most gifted taisher. Both could see ghosts and the ‘fetches’ of people about to die. Horses are believed to have superior powers of ‘seeing’ even to those of dogs. They will refuse to pass a haunted spot, or a place where some violent event such as a murder has, or is about to, take place. The writer has had direct experience of this phenomenon in the islands, where a horse will refuse to go over a particular bridge or pass an area near a burial ground where turves were cut for the graves. It is a widespread belief in the Highlands that dogs in a house will howl if a member of the household is about to die.

Martin Martin was particularly impressed by the tradition of Second Sight in the Gaelic West and recorded many instances of great value and interest. He describes the Sight as the singular faculty of seeing an otherwise invisible object; he notes too that this faculty is not one that was inherited. According to the information he received on his travels in the Western Isles, if a vision is seen early in the morning, the event ‘seen’ would take place within a few hours. If at noon, it would occur that same day. If observed in the evening, it may come about that night. When a shroud was seen about a person in one of these visions, it was taken to be a sure sign of approaching death. The time of death or its proximity was judged by the height of the shroud about the person in question. If it was not seen above the waist, death was not to be expected for about a year or longer. As it could often be actually witnessed ascending upwards towards the head, so death was believed to be approaching within a few days, or even hours. Martin himself witnessed many examples of this, and, sceptical man though he was, he could not but be convinced of the veracity of this strange power. One, which was told to Martin shortly before he wrote on the subject, concerned the death of one known personally to him. The vision was recounted to one or two people only, Martin being one of these. It was told in the greatest of confidence. Martin paid no attention to what he had been told until the person in question died when it had been foretold, and this finally convinced him that there was some truth in the belief. This seer thereafter achieved notoriety, and in Martin’s day lived in the parish of St Mary’s, the most northerly parish in Skye. Martin records how he had heard that if a woman was seen standing at a man’s left hand, it was an omen that she would be his wife, whether they were unmarried or married to others at the time of the vision. If two or three women were seen at the same time standing close to a man’s left hand, the one next to him would be his first wife and the others would follow suit. Martin noted several instances of this actually coming about in his own time. Seers could often see a man who would visit a house in a short time; they could describe the visitor in detail, even if he was a total stranger. If the seer knew the person in question, he could tell his name and describe his character. Martin himself was ‘seen’ in this way by seers before he even set foot in a place, and where he and his appearance were totally unknown. Seers could also see gardens, houses and trees in places which were empty of all three; this usually came to pass in the course of time. It was believed that to see a spark of fire fall upon one’s arm or breast was a sign that a dead child would shortly be seen in the arms of the person concerned. Martin again notes several recent instances of this in his time.

To see a seat empty when someone sitting in it was alive presaged that person’s death in the near future. When one (known as a ‘novice’) who had recently been gifted with the ‘Sight’ saw a vision in the night-time when out of doors, he entered the house and approached the fire, where he fell in a swoon. Martin tells how some seers find themselves in a cloud of people bearing a corpse along with them. After such a vision, the seer comes home faint and sweating and describes what he has seen. If there are any people among this supernatural host known to the seer he will tell their names, and also name the bearers, but the corpse is unknown to the seer in these instances. If several people possessed of the Sight were gathered together, they would not all see the vision at the same time. But it was believed that if a person with the Sight should touch, at the time of seeing the vision, another person also having this dread gift, then he too would see it. This preoccupation with death and all its trappings is very typical of the Celts and goes right back to the ancient widespread cult of the dead and the worship of graves and the ancestors. It is also very much a reflection of the Celtic passion for the tabulation of everything, and listing all things in a fit manner; nothing was left to happen as it would; everything must be explicable and predictable. This again is a very archaic trait in the whole Celtic character. One other method of foretelling death was by means of a cry — a taisg, according to Martin; in the Lowlands, he says, this is called a ‘Wrath’ (wraith?). The seer hears a loud cry out of doors resembling the voice of some particular person whose death it foretells. Martin says he heard of this recently in his own time, in the village of Rigg, Skye. Five women were sitting together in one room and they all heard a loud cry passing by the window. They thought it was the voice of a maid who was in fact one of the group. She reddened at the time, but was not herself aware of this. Next day she developed a fever and died the same week.

According to Martin, future events could manifest themselves by smell. Fish or meat cooking over the fire could be smelt at a time when nothing was cooking; this would occur in a house where such an event was unlikely to come about for several months, the house being unoccupied at the time, but the premonition by smell seemingly always came true. Martin says that children, as well as horses and cows, had the power of Second Sight; a child would cry out when it saw a corpse or vision that could be witnessed by an ordinary adult seer. Martin himself had direct experience of this, being present in a house where a child suddenly cried out for no apparent reason. When he was questioned about this he said he had seen a great white thing lying on a board which was in a corner. No one believed him and thought it was pure imagination until a seer who was present told them that the child was correct; he himself had seen a corpse with a shroud about it, and the board in the corner was to be used as part of the coffin. It was in fact incorporated in the making of a coffin for a person who was in perfect health at the time of the vision. Horses were known to Martin, which had panicked and reared up when they saw sights unseen by ordinary men. At Loch Skeriness in Skye, a horse, fastened by rope on the common grazing, broke his tether and ran frantically up and down for no apparent reason. Two people from the neighbourhood happened to be a little distance from the beast and at the same time they saw a largish gathering of men about a corpse, heading towards the church at Snizort. A few days later, a woman who lived some 13 miles from the church, and belonged to another parish, died. Cows were likewise believed to be able to see such doleful visions; if a cow sees something supernatural while it is being milked it will run away in fright and will not be capable of being pacified for some time after.

Seers are said to be — and this is in fact often the case — melancholy people, given to moroseness on account of their undesirable power. Martin records that the people of the Isles in general, the seers in particular, are most temperate people, eating the simplest of foods and that in very moderate amounts. He confirms that seers, both male and female, were not epileptics or given to hysterical fits or any psychological disorders. He says that he knew of no mad people with this gift, nor did any of them commit suicide. It was, moreover, held that a drunk person could not see a vision. Martin’s insistence on the normality of people with the Sight is interesting testimony to the truth of their gift. Also, seers were not looked upon as visionaries by their friends; they were generally literate, innocent and well-meaning people; they (unlike Churchill’s Campbell) made no money on account of their powers. It was a faculty desired by none, and a great burden to those possessed of it. Martin recounts the tale of a boy whom he knew personally, who frequently saw a coffin at his shoulder and was terrified at this vision. He believed it presaged his own death and this was the meaning given to the uncanny sight by the boy’s friends. The boy was a servant in the village of Knockow, Skye, where a seer who lived there told the people that they were mistaken in so interpreting the boy’s experience. He told the lad to take the first opportunity that occurred for him to act as bearer of a coffin, even for a few moments. A few days later the opportunity presented itself when one of his acquaintances died. After this, the coffin at his shoulder disappeared, but he still continued to see many that concerned the death of others, at a distance from himself. In Martin’s day he was regarded as one of the most accurate seers in the Island of Skye. Another Skye seer, a woman this time, often saw a woman with a shroud up to her waist. She always stood with her back to the seer. Her clothing was identical with that worn by the woman. This vision continued to occur for some time until the woman did something to satisfy her family’s worry about this vision. She put on clothes different from her usual garments and, moreover, she wore them back to front. Next day the vision appeared facing her and she realised to her horror that it was in fact herself, her own doppelgänger. She apparently died shortly after this.

Visions could be seen by several persons, and the foreseen event did not necessarily come about in their lifetime. The Second Sight is not confined to one or two people but is seen by many persons of both sexes in several Isles; such people had never communicated with each other by letter or by word. Martin says that it was a much more common phenomenon some 20 years before he wrote; even so, it is remarkable that certain people are still believed to have the power in parts of the Highlands even down to the present day, while stories of past occurrences are legion.

Martin tells a variety of stories on the basic theme of the vision seen by the seers. One concerns four men who were in Flodigarry, once more in the Island of Skye. They were sitting at supper; one of them suddenly let his knife fall onto the table and looked extremely angry. The others asked him what was wrong, but he gave them no answer until he had finished his meal. He then told his companions that when he let his knife fall he had seen a corpse with a shroud wrapped round it, laid on that very table. A few days later a member of that family died and was, in fact, laid out on the table where they had dined. This tale came to Martin at first-hand. Another story concerns a man called Daniel Stewart, who lived in the parish of St Mary’s in Skye. One day, at noon, he saw five men on horseback riding northwards. He ran to meet them, and when he reached the road he could not see any of them, which astonished him. He told his neighbours of this strange occurrence. Next day he saw the same number of men and horses coming along the road, but he felt less inclined to speak to them. They then spoke to him and he realised that what he had seen the previous day had, in fact, been a vision. This was the only supernatural experience he ever had. The riders turned out to be Sir Donald MacDonald and his men who at the time of the vision were some 40 miles south of the seer. Martin tells of a woman in Stornoway, capital of the Island of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides, who had a maid who was given to seeing visions. When these occurred she would faint. Her mistress was very concerned about her, but she could not prevent her from seeing things. At last, she determined to pour some baptismal water on the girl’s face in the belief that this would stop her from being troubled by these things. She took the maid to church on the Sabbath and sat with her ear to the basin containing the holy water; before the minister had finished the final prayer she put her hand in the basin, and taking as much water as she could she threw it onto the girl’s face. The minister and the congregation were shocked at this seemingly unreasonable behaviour. After the prayer was over, the minister asked the woman why she had acted so strangely. She told the minister of the girl’s visions and said she believed that this would put an end to them. The result justified the act, and the maid was no longer troubled by these supernatural happenings. The minister of the place himself testified to this, as did several members of the congregation who had been present.

Another instance of the Sight concerns a man called John Morison, also from Lewis, a person of high integrity, who told Martin that about a mile from his own house a girl of 12 lived, who was much troubled by the frequent sight of a girl who resembled herself in height, dress, and general appearance. When the girl moved, so did the vision, and everything the girl did was done by her fetch. She was very distressed by this, and her parents were terrified. John Morison was consulted and he enquired into the religious training of the girl; finding her to be untaught in this field, he told her parents that she must be instructed in the Creed, the Ten Commandments and the Lord’s Prayer, and that she should say the Lord’s Prayer daily after her prayers. Mr Morison himself, and her family daily joined in prayers on her behalf. After this, the vision disappeared and she never saw it again. John Morison also told of a man living three miles north of himself, who was likewise much haunted by a spirit which he recognised to be identical with himself. The spirit spoke to him when he was working in the fields, but it never spoke to him in the house, where no one but the haunted man could see it. He was much distressed by this, and confided in one of his neighbours; the neighbour advised him to cast a live coal at the face of the spirit next time it appeared. The man did this on the following day in the presence of his family. However, on the next day, the ghost or fetch appeared to him in the fields again and beat him so severely that he was bed-ridden for 14 days afterwards (beating by a supernatural being is an ancient Celtic belief). Mr Morison, who was minister of the parish, and several friends came to see the man who was by now very distressed, and they joined in prayer that he should be freed from this terrible affliction. But Martin records that he was still being haunted at the time Martin had to leave the island.

Again, he tells of a man at Knockow in the parish of St Mary’s in Skye who was in good health and was quietly sitting in company with his fellow-servants one night, when he was suddenly taken ill, and fell backwards from his seat and began to vomit. Such a thing had never happened to him before and his family were very alarmed. When he recovered from his fit he felt all right. One member of the family had the Sight and told the others that the cause of the man’s sudden and severe attack was a very remarkable one. He named an evil woman who lived in the adjacent village of Bornaskittag, whom he had seen approaching the afflicted person in a violent rage; she threatened him with her hands and her head until she caused him to fall over backwards, unconscious. The reason was, the woman in question was in love with her victim and felt she had been slighted in her affections. Once again Martin states he had this information from first-hand sources. Another person living at St Mary’s told the minister, a Mr MacPherson, and others that he had seen a vision of a corpse coming towards the church, not by the common road but by a rough way which seemed so unlikely that his neighbours thought he was mad. He told them to wait and see; one of his neighbours eventually died and his body was carried over the ground as the man had witnessed because the road was completely blocked by snow. The minister himself told this to Martin. Another Skye man, Daniel Dow (dubh ‘black’) from Bornaskittag was frequently bothered by the appearance of a man who threatened to strike him. He did not recognise the man, but he could describe him in detail. About a year after this he had to go to Kyle-Rae some 30 miles south-east of his home. As soon as he got there he saw the man who had threatened to strike him. Within a few hours a quarrel developed, blows commenced, and one of the men was wounded in the head. The seer’s master recounted this to Martin on his painstaking efforts to find out the truth about the Second Sight in the west.

Another story tells how some people from the Island of Harris were sailing round the Island of Skye, with the intention of reaching the mainland, when they were astonished to see the apparition of two men hanging down by the ropes that secured the mast. They could not understand what this portended. They continued on their journey, but the wind turned against them and they were forced into Broadford, in the south of Skye. There they found Sir Donald MacDonald holding court, and the death sentence being pronounced on two men. The ropes and the mast of that same vessel were then used to hang the criminals. Once again, this remarkable story was given to Martin at first-hand. Several people belonging to a certain family told Martin that they had frequently seen two men standing at a young gentlewoman’s left hand — the girl was in fact the daughter of their master. They could name the men. Sometime later, they could see a third man standing by her, and this one from then on always stood closest to the girl. The seers did not know the man but they could describe him in detail. Some months later, this man did come to the house and his appearance exactly fitted the description of him given by the servants. And shortly afterwards, he married the young woman.

Seers and augurers were then widely believed in in the Highlands, and even today there and in the Western Isles one can hear tales of people with the Sight, foretelling future events, not always of a gloomy nature, and collect stories of fated boats and doomed fishermen and sailors. Alexander Carmichael, the renowned collector of such traditions in the nineteenth century, recorded a very fine divination. An augurer was known as frithir, and the divination was called in Gaelic frith ‘augury’. This enabled the augurer to look into the unseen. The divination was made in order to know where an absent person or lost beast was at any given time, and in what condition. The divination could not be made at any time; it must be performed on the first Monday of the quarter, just before sunrise. The augurer had to fast, and the augury was carried out in the following manner. The seer must go, bare-footed, bare-headed, and with closed eyes, to the doorstep and place a hand on each jamb. He invoked God to show him the unknown. He then opened his eyes and gazed in front of him; he made his divination from the nature and the position of the objects that he then saw. Apart from the Brahan Seer, there were many famous augurers or seers in the Highlands and Islands. One Gaelic legend has it that when Christ was missing, Mary found out that he was in the temple by means of augury. For this reason the following augury was associated with the Virgin and known as Frith Mhoire, ‘Mary’s Augury’:

God over me

God before me, God behind me,

I on thy path, O God,

Thou, O God, in my steps.

The augury made of Mary to her Son

The offering made of Bride through her palm,

Sawest Thou it, King of life?

Said the King of life that He saw.

The augury made by Mary for her own offspring,

When he was for a space amissing,

Knowledge of truth, not knowledge of falsehood,

That I shall truly see all my quest.

Son of beauteous Mary, King of life,

Give Thou me eyes to see all my quest,

With grace that shall never fail, before me,

That shall never quench nor dim.

Seers, as well as those not gifted with this peculiar power, had a strong belief in auspicious and inauspicious days, just as did their forebears in the old Celtic world. Carmichael collected many examples of these.

J.G. Campbell, in his Witchcraft and Second Sight in the Highlands, says that belief in the Second Sight is inherently Celtic, and in it he would see a remnant of ancient Druidic practice, for the powerful Celtic priesthood was able to foretell events by various signs and omens. He himself does not doubt the veracity of the phenomenon, and makes the point that Dà-Shealladh does not really mean ‘Second Sight’, but ‘The Two Sights’. The capacity to see into the world of spirits is reserved specifically for those having this gift. Ghosts of the dead as well as fetches of the living are seen by such people. Most of the events seen refer to the future, even the distant future. The spectres are seen with as much clarity as living beings. He confirms that no one who had this power was envied and that those possessing it regarded it as a heavy burden. He records that it was believed possible to get rid of this dread power. In the island of Coll the people believed that a person afflicted with the Sight could destroy his gift and bind it away from himself (nasg) by giving alms (deirc) and then praying that it would depart. A seer in Arinagour, Coll, had two sons in the army. They were away on foreign service and he could see by means of his visions how they were faring. What was revealed to him caused him so much distress that he gave money to an old woman and prayed that his Second Sight may be taken away from him. Thereafter, he saw nothing more of his sons. He was very worried about them and so, having lost the gift himself, he went to Tiree to consult a celebrated taisher and took the man back to Coll with him. He stood him beside the fire, which at that time was in the middle of the floor of many Highland houses. The best seers always held that visions could be seen most clearly through fire. After a short time, the Tiree seer began to sweat, and the other man knew that this only occurred when the vision was a painful one; he begged the seer to tell him the truth about what he had ‘seen’ and to keep nothing back from him. The taisher said that both the boys had been killed — one by a bullet wound in the head, and the other by a bullet through the heart and neck. Only too soon afterwards the veracity of the seer’s vision was confirmed and the two boys were indeed reported as having been shot dead.

The fate of Mary, Queen of Scots had been ‘seen’ by many Highland seers, as King James notes in his Demonology. MacKenzie of Tarbat, later Earl of Cromartie, who was a renowned statesman in the reign of King Charles II, wrote an account of the faculty of Second Sight, and gave the following example of it. He was riding one day in a field where his tenants were manuring barley and a stranger approached the group and said there was no point in their being so busy about their crop, as he saw English soldiers’ horses tethered there already. This came true because the horses of Cromwell’s army in 1650 ate up that entire field of grain. Another early example of the Sight happened a few years after this, when the Duke of Argyll was playing at bowls with some fellow gentlemen at his castle at Inverary. One of them suddenly turned white and fainted when the Marquis bent down to pick up his bowl. When he came to he cried, ‘Bless me, what do I see? My lord with his head off and his shoulders all bloody.’ And this, of course, likewise came about.

Pennant, in his journey through Scotland in 1769, records much of interest concerning surviving customs and beliefs. He makes the following statement in explanation of this:

The country is perfectly Highland (this when he had reached Struan in Perthshire) . . . it still retains some of its ancient customs and superstitions; they decline daily, but lest their memory should be lost, I shall mention several that are still practised, or but very lately disused in the tract I had passed over. Such a record will have this advantage when the follies are quite extinct, in teaching the unshackled and enlightened mind the difference between the pure ceremonies of religion and the wild and agile flights of superstition.

He comments that the notion of the Second Sight still prevails in a few places. He also mentions divination by means of an object, in this instance the speal or blade-bone of a shoulder of mutton, well scraped. He records that when Lord Loudon was obliged to retreat before the Rebels to the Isle of Skye, a common soldier, on the very moment that the Battle of Culloden was decided, proclaimed the victory at that distance, pretending to have discovered the event by looking through such a bone. He also records, of the Sight:

I heard of one instance of Second Sight, or rather of foresight, which was well attested, and made much noise about the time the prediction was fulfilled. A little after the Battle of Preston Pans, the president, Duncan Forbes, being at his house of Culloden with a nobleman, from whom I had the relation, fell into discourse on the probable consequences of the action: after a long conversation, and after revolving all that might happen, Mr Forbes suddenly turned to a window said ‘All these things may fall out; but depend on it, all these disturbances will be terminated on this spot’.

Which, of course, came about when the final battle of the 1745 Rising was fought on Culloden Moor in 1746. Pennant records an interesting belief current in his time that the first person to have the ‘Sight’, according to tradition, was the much-loved St Columba for he foretold the victory at Nechtansmere of Aidan, King of the Scots, over the Picts and Saxons on the very instant that it came about. He also notes an interesting example of Second Sight told to him when he visited the island of Rum:

It is not wonderful that some superstitions should reign in these sequestered parts. Second Sight is firmly believed at this time. My informant said that Lauchlan Mac-Kerran of Cannay had told a gentleman that he could not rest for the noise he heard of the hammering of nails into his coffin: accordingly the gentleman died within fifteen days.

Of the same island he says:

Molly Mac-Leane (aged forty) has the power of foreseeing events through a well-scraped bone of mutton: some time ago she took up one and pronounced that five graves were soon to be opened, one for a grown person; the other four for children; one of which was to be for her own kin, and so it fell out. These pretenders to Second Sight, like the Pythian priestess, during their inspiration fall into trances, foam at the mouth, grow pale and feign to abstain from food for a month, so over-powered are they by the visions imparted to them during their paroxysms. I must not omit a most convenient species of Second Sight, possessed by a gentleman of a neighbouring isle, who foresees all visitors, so has time to prepare accordingly: but enough of these tales, founded on impudence and nurtured by folly.

Collecting examples of custom and belief is one of the most delicate and difficult aspects of fieldwork possible. Highlanders are willing to sing the old songs, recount the ancient proverbs, chant archaic ballads and tell long hero tales. But the question of actual belief is a very personal one, and although an informant may be prepared to say what happened in the Godless past, he will often be unwilling, either for reasons of religion, or for fear of ridicule, or fear that to speak of a thing may bring it about, to admit that the old and powerful superstitions have any remaining meaning for him or his neighbours. Such things tend not to be talked about when strangers are present, and it is remarkable that travellers through the Highlands were able to record deep-rooted beliefs such as the Sight, the Evil Eye, witchcraft and fairy lore at all. Often, of course, their informants were members of the Protestant clergy who frowned on such practices with their deeply pagan undertones, and spoke of them to strangers with scepticism and disapproval.

In Martin Martin’s day Skye was widely famed for its seers; yet later in the same century Pennant was able to write: ‘Very few superstitions exist here at present: pretenders to second-sight are quite out of repute except among the most ignorant and at present are very shy of making boast of their faculties’. And yet the present writer found the island to be full of first-rate examples of custom and belief of every kind, and had direct experience there of people gifted with the unhappy faculty of ‘seeing’. Pennant does, however, record a fascinating instance of divination which clearly caused him much amazement. He states:

A wild species of magic was practised in the district of Trotternish, that was attended with a horrible solemnity: a family who pretended to oracular knowledge practised these ceremonies. In this country is a vast cateract whose waters, falling from a high rock, jet so far as to form a dry hollow beneath, between them and the precipice. One of these imposters was sewed up in the hide of an ox, and, to add terror to the ceremony, was placed in this concavity; the trembling enquirer was brought to the place, where the shade, and the roaring of the waters, increased the dread of the occasion. The question is put, and the person in the hide delivers his answer. And so ends this species of divination styled Taghairm.

This is a method of divination which goes back to early Irish tradition, where the priest or seer, wrapped in a bull-hide (14), would go into a trance state and would see in a vision the answer to whatever question he had been asked. Pennant makes mention of the Brahan Seer, and testifies to his fame. Writing of Sutherland, he says:

Every country has had its prophets: . . . Wales its Robin Ddu and the Highlands their Kenneth Oaur. Kenneth long since predicted these migrations in these terms: ‘Whenever a Mac-cleane with long hands, a Frazier with a black spot on his face, a Mac-gregor with the same on his knee, and a club-footed Mac-cleod of Rasa, should have existed; whenever there should have been successively three Macdonalds of the name of John, and three Mac-innons of the same Christian name; oppressors would appear in the country, and the people change their own land for a strange one.’ The predictions, say the good wives, have been fulfilled, and not a single breach in the oracular effusions of Kenneth Oaur.

Another instance of Second Sight was observed by Pennant, again writing of Sutherland:

In a country where ignorance and poverty prevale it is less wonderful that a tragical affair should happen . . . about three years ago lived in this neighbourhood, a woman of more than common strength of understanding. She was often consulted on the ordinary occurences of life, and obtained a sort of respect which excited the envy of another female in the same district. The last gave out that her neighbour was a witch; that she herself had a good Genius, and could counteract the evils dreaded from the other; at length she so worked on the weak minds of the simple vulgar, that they determined on destroying her rival, and effected their purpose by instigating a parcel of children to strangle her. The murder was enquired into but the inciters so artfully concealed themselves, that they escaped their reward, and no punishment was inflicted, except what was suited to the tender years of the deluded children.

Fortunately, not many seers and people of exceptional powers received such brutal treatment. In much more recent times, at the end of the nineteenth century, long after Pennant recorded that belief in the Second Sight was almost dead in Skye, a strange episode took place in the house of a gentleman. One evening, round about New Year (a popular season for divination in general), a large number of neighbouring gentry and their families had been invited to a ceilidh (convivial gathering) at this house; the mistress was away at the time in the south, and her sons and daughters acted in the rôle of their mother. After dinner, the young people went to the drawing-room; a quadrille was arranged but before it began, the figure of a lady glided along the side wall of the room and was seen by several. One of the girls recognised it to be the form of her mother, and fainted. The vision put an end to the party, and it was later discovered that at the very time the vision had manifested itself, the lady had died in a southern city.

14  Pictish figures engraved on stone — bulls

15  Pictish figures engraved on stone — sow, boar

Another strange instance of foresight is recorded from Skye and allegedly happened towards the middle of the nineteenth century. The tragic event occurred in the parish of Snizort, where a cottar’s wife was delivered of a fine baby. Soon after her birth the mother was visited by the female neighbours, each bringing a gift of fowls, eggs and so on, according to custom. The child was greatly admired, and every good was wished on it. One woman, however, whispered to her neighbour that she was afraid the fine child’s life would be short and it would be the cause of terrible grief to its mother. This gloomy utterance made the neighbour very angry. The woman, however, said that she had had a dreadful vision of the little child mangled and bleeding. In a few months time when the child was sleeping in his cradle, the mother left him alone while she went to the well to fetch water. She met a neighbour and they talked for a while; when she reached the house the baby was lying on the floor, torn to pieces. During her absence a fierce pig had wandered into the house and devoured the sleeping infant (15).

In spite of Pennant’s comment, there are many other comparatively recent examples of the Sight in Skye. One, which happened in the nineteenth century again, concerns a parish minister. He went to visit a sick brother of his, a Captain MacLeod, who lived near Portree and had been poorly. This man had a large family. When evening came, the minister mounted his horse and set off for home. This was nine miles away, and before he had been very far a severe storm arose. The minister was an elderly man, and he thought he would be wise to spend the night at Scorribreck rather than attempt to continue with his journey. Mrs Nicolson, mistress of the house, welcomed her guest. She was the person who kept the parish mortuary cloth, as her house was close to the burial-ground. She went to the loft to fetch something and those below heard a scream and the noise of something falling on the upper floor. They rushed up the stairs and found Mrs Nicolson in a fainting fit. When she recovered, she told the minister that she had seen a bright light on the mortuary cloth which was spread out on the table, and in the middle of the light she saw the image of his niece’s face, Captain MacLeod’s daughter. Shortly afterwards, the girl took ill and died, and that same cloth was used on her bier.

16  Clach-na-buidseach, Stone of Witchcraft, Strathtay, Perthshire

One final example of this strange Highland power of ‘seeing’ the unseen again comes from Skye. Once more a minister is involved, an interesting fact, as the church did not approve of such alleged supernatural powers. Late in the nineteenth century the parish minister visited the miller’s house and found the miller’s wife in the kitchen, in a very distressed state. Quantities of wood frequently found on the shore on that area of the island had drifted in from wrecked vessels. On the day of the minister’s visit, the kitchen was full of driftwood planks, which were drying off there. The woman was extremely glad to see the minister; she said that a well-known seer, Christy MacLeod, had been sitting on one of the planks, by the fire, when she suddenly fainted. She carried her to a bed and laid her on it. The woman begged the minister to go to the seer and ask her about her vision; this he did reluctantly, and without success. However, he persisted and finally she confided in him. She said she had seen a vision while sitting on the plank of wood. She had glanced across at the plank opposite to her and had seen the mangled, bleeding body of a boy, a MacDonald, who, at that time, was in extremely good health. When the minister returned to the miller’s house, the woman demanded to know what Christy had seen and he told her. Some six weeks later there was a wedding in the parish to which the boy in question was invited. On his way home alone late at night, he lost his way and fell over a cliff some 1,000ft high and was dashed to pieces. The body was not found until some days had passed. Men came to the miller’s house for a plank on which to place the remains, and the one chosen was in fact the very one on which the seer had seen the vision.

Finally, related to the gift of Second Sight, but somewhat different from it, are certain death-omens which appear in the form of blue, quivering lights. They are seen moving along the course which the funeral procession would take; they could also be seen near the bed of one about to die.

4 Witchcraft, black and white

Witchcraft, together with the belief in the power of certain people to bring about a desired situation by magic, is not, of course, confined to the Highlands. But it was, at one time, very prevalent there, and numerous examples of such beliefs are still to be collected from people who claim that they have had direct experience of such things, or who actually know someone with such alleged powers. A distinction is made between black and white witchcraft, and many people imbued with powers have, and do, use them for good rather than evil purposes. Amongst these are the ‘charmers’ or ‘healers’, men and women who are able either to cure specific ills, or to perform cures in general. The writer has had direct experience of both forms of this power, and the following examples have either been collected personally in the field, or, when taken from written sources, can he paralleled from actual fieldwork material. It is a subject that people are often unwilling to speak about, but there is no doubt that belief in powers to work good and evil is still fairly widespread. Pennant, writing in the eighteenth century, says (of Breadalbane): ‘In this part of the country the notion of witchcraft is quite lost; it was observed to cease almost immediately on the repeal of the witch act’. The Scottish and English Witch Acts were repealed by the Witchcraft Act of 1736.

But the ancient belief in the malevolent powers of witches was widespread and deep-rooted in the Gaelic-speaking Highlands; and, as we have noted, equal credit was given to the so-called white witches, or ‘charmers’, people whose alleged supernatural powers were used solely for the good of man and beast. How far these beliefs continue actively into the present day is a matter for speculation; they are subjects which are not readily discussed if any true belief-element is present, but the custom of nailing branches of rowan and horseshoes above house doors, outside or inside the dwelling, suggest that a certain uneasy credulity lingers on in parts of the Highlands. One of the great powers with which witches were accredited was that of the Evil Eye; by merely looking at something they could destroy, corrupt or acquire it. Rowan was held to be a potent talisman against the Evil Eye; and even today, there are extant, charms and incantations to counter the effects of the ‘eye’. One, from the Outer Hebrides states:

I make to thee the charm of Mary,

The most perfect charm that is in the world,

Against small eye, against large eye,

Against the eye of swift voracious women,

Against the eye of swift rapacious women,

Against the eye of swift sluttish women.

The witches of Highland tradition are quite distinct from the fairies. Their association with the Devil and the forces of evil was never in doubt; their dark powers could be tapped by those who knew the correct ritual and formulae. Some witches achieved a wide area of fame; others had an essentially local notoriety. Their existence was, however, universally accepted and feared. There are numerous stories of witches and their activities. One of the most typical and famous of these concerns the ruthless Witch of Laggan, in Badenoch. Laggan was one of the three parishes of Badenoch, the other two being Kingussie and Alvie; the district extended from Corryarrick on the west to Craigellachie near Dufftown on the east — some 45 miles of singularly remote and high country. The Witch of Laggan is alleged to have lived two miles from Kingussie, in the seventeenth century. Tales about her can still be heard in the locality. She was famed for her evil deeds and she and her companion witches were both feared and hated. The weird, inhospitable forest of Gaick lies in Badenoch, inhabited only by deer and other wild beasts and birds of prey, and frequented by hunters. Many stories were told of the strange things that happened in this wild tract of country. According to one version of the story of the Witch of Laggan, a local hunter went there one stormy day in search of deer; he was a man of great reputation in the countryside for his hatred of witches and his ruthless persecution of those who practised the Black Art.

On this particular occasion, the storm became extremely violent and he had to make for shelter in his little hut or bothy. He kindled a fire and sat down beside it with his two dogs to wait for the wind to abate. As he sat there, a miserable-looking cat entered the hut — another version has it that it was a hen rather than a cat that came in. The two dogs bristled with terror, their hair stood on end, and then they leapt savagely on the cat. It cried out for mercy, in Gaelic, begging the hunter to call off his dogs and saying that it had need of his protection because it was a poor, wretched witch who had renounced her ungodly habits and, as a result, had been viciously attacked by her companion witches. She had fled to the renowned hunter for protection, knowing his hatred of witchcraft. The man believed her. He called off his frenzied dogs and told the cat to come near the fire and warm itself. Before she would do so, however, she took a long hair and told him to tie the dogs to the beam of the little house with it, or else they would molest her. The hunter pretended to do as she asked, but he only tied the hair round the beam, leaving the dogs free. The cat then approached the fire, sat down, and began to swell. The hunter remarked to it, ‘You are getting very large’. ‘Oh, yes’, said the cat, ‘my fur gets fluffy as it dries in the heat.’ But the cat went on steadily increasing in size until it was as big as a big dog and then, in the blink of an eye, there stood a woman. And to the amazed hunter’s utter horror he recognised her as a close neighbour of his, a woman of excellent reputation, known locally as the ‘Good Wife of Laggan’. ‘Hunter of the Hills’, said she, ‘your hour has come; you have been the devoted enemy of my persecuted sisterhood for too long. The chief opponent of our order is now dead — this morning I saw him drowned. And now, Hunter of the Hills, it is your turn.’

She then flew at his throat in a fury of hatred; but the dogs, which she supposed to be tied by the magical hair, leapt on her breast and throat. She screamed out to the hair, ‘Fasten, fasten’, and it tightened its hold on the beam so violently that it snapped the wood into two pieces; but the two dogs remained free. She then tried to escape, but the dogs fastened onto her and tore off one of her breasts and badly mutilated her. At last, with terrible shrieks the witch took on the form of a raven and flew in the direction of her home. The poor dogs were mortally wounded and died at their heartbroken master’s feet; he buried them with as much grief as he would his children and then made his way back home. His wife was out, but soon after his return she came in; she was very agitated and distressed and told him the Good Wife of Laggan had suddenly taken ill that day while out getting peats, and that she was near to death. ‘Dear, dear’, said her husband, ‘I must come and see her then.’ When he reached her house he found all the neighbours gathered round her. Striding over to the bed he stripped the clothes from her, revealing her terrible wounds and cried, ‘See the object of your grief. This morning she assisted in the drowning of Iain Garbh (Rugged John) of Raasay’ — an island between Skye and the Mainland — ‘and today she tried to make me share his fate. But Providence has overtaken the servant of Satan and she is now about to die and suffer due punishment in the world to come.’ It could not be denied from the state of the ‘Good Wife’s’ injuries that the hunter was telling the truth; she offered no defence of herself. Instead, she told those gathered round her how she had become involved in witchcraft and confessed to her many crimes, including helping to drown the Raasay man that day. She then died a violent and painful death.

Pennant, writing in the eighteenth century about Banffshire, says that ‘some superstitions still lurk even in this cultivated country. The farmers carefully preserve their cattle against witchcraft by placing boughs of the mountain ash (rowan) and honeysuckle in their cow houses on 2 May. They hope to preserve the milk of their cows and their wives from miscarriage by tying red threads about them’; the supposed witch was bled in order to make her confess to her evil practices. One of the great powers of witches was allegedly that of depriving people’s cows of their milk by magic means. This was a widespread belief, and the spell could be performed in a number of different ways. The witch could put the Evil Eye on a beast; and cattle, rather than sheep, were believed to be more vulnerable in this respect. Pennant once more records some interesting information on this aspect of witchcraft:

If any good housewife perceives the effect of the malicious on any of her kine, she takes as much milk as she can drain from the enchanted herd, for the witch commonly leaves very little. She then boils it with certain herbs, and adds to them flints and untempered steel; after that she secures the door and invokes the three sacred persons. This puts the witch into such an agony, that she comes nilling-willing to the house, begs to be admitted to obtain relief by touching the powerful pot; the good woman then makes her terms: the witch restores the milk to the cattle, and in return is freed from her pains.

A most remarkable story of witchcraft — which was frequently connected with the milking process and the milk obtained — was recorded by Otta F. Swire in the Island of Lewis in the twentieth century. It illustrates the hardships which frequently befell the Island of Lewis, the most northerly part of the Outer Hebrides, often known as ‘the Long Island’. There is a folklore story told about how this name was applied to the Outer Hebrides. The Island of Lewis has always been regarded in a superstitious light with its legends concerning the origin of the remarkable standing stones of Callanish (17) and many other tales of a supernatural nature. It was inevitably a focal point for marauders, a sort of stepping stone to other northern regions. On this particular occasion, raiders had left the natives of Lewis on the point of starvation, having consumed most of their edible supplies. One woman, driven to despair, walked down to the seashore with the intention of drowning herself. This was in order that her share of the meagre stores of food would then augment the pitiful rations of her husband and children. She began to wade out into the sea when a beautiful white cow emerged from the water and began to ascend the shore. It was clearly an Otherworld animal and the woman had never seen such a magnificent beast. Upon reaching her it gazed at her with sorrowful brown eyes; seen against the setting sun, its ears appeared to be blood-red in colour. In Celtic mythology, Otherworld animals are regularly described as being white with red ears. The cow addressed the woman in Gaelic — most supernatural animals were capable of human speech. It spoke in a soft, tuneful voice, telling her to return home, fetch her milk-pail and tell her neighbours to come with their own pails to the Stones of Callanish and there to milk it. The woman did as she was told, but her neighbours were sceptical: ‘How could one cow give enough milk to fill all our pails?’ they asked. No matter, they still went to meet the wonder cow, and each pail was filled to the brim, until all were full. The cow spoke again, and told the women to come to her there every evening, each bringing her pail. This miraculous happening saved the lives of the children and kept starvation at bay. Word got round other townships and people came from them to request milk from the magic cow. This they got. One night a woman came with two pails and incurred the wrath of the other women but the kindly cow said that one pail was for the woman herself and the other for a pregnant woman who was her neighbour. So things went on until a wicked woman in the community, who was in fact a witch, brought two pails for herself. The cow would have none of this, and she was unable to obtain any milk from it. She repented and the next night came with only one pail, but she had removed the bottom of the vessel and put a sieve there, and she continued to milk until the cow was completely dry. After that, the wonder cow was never seen again amongst the Callanish Stones (18).

17  Callanish, Isle of Lewis — the chambered cairn is situated immediately beyond the great central pillar stone. After R. Feachem 1992, 48

While on the subject of witchcraft and magic practices to do harm to others, it may be apposite to note another tradition in the same vein recorded by Pennant. He states that milk may be taken from cattle by means other than the Evil Eye and in order to determine this the following test is recommended: ‘The tryal is made by immersing in milk a certain herb, and if the cows are supernaturally affected it instantly distills blood’. He then goes on to note magical revenge which an unsuccessful lover can work on his happy rival. The rejected lover ‘. . . takes three threads of different hues, and ties three knots on each, three times imprecating the most cruel disappointments on the nuptial bed: but the bridegroom to avert the harm, stands at the altar with an untied shoe and puts a sixpence beneath his foot’. The use of coloured threads in both black and white witchcraft was widespread in the Highlands, even until comparatively recent times, and much-believed in.

Shaw, writing in the late eighteenth century of customs in his part of the Highlands, records that witches and belief in their powers were commonplace and caused the church much alarm. Practices of this evil and pagan nature were in fact so prevalent in his day that every person over 12 years of age had to swear each year never to perform spells, enchantments or witchcraft of any kind. Witches were there, as elsewhere, believed to hold their meetings in churches and churchyards; they could turn themselves at will into mares (19), cats or hares. Their delight was to cause sickness and disease of every kind, raise storms at sea and drown their enemies, and turn the Evil Eye on whomsoever they envied or disliked. Martin Martin notes certain things about witches and others imbued with evil or anti-social powers. In the Islands in his day people believed that not only could the milk be taken from the cows by magic, but also from nursing mothers or wet-nurses. He himself saw four women whose milk was tested so that one might be chosen to act as nurse to a certain child. The woman with the best milk was selected but after three days her milk disappeared. As a result, she was dismissed from service and another woman chosen. The third day after that, the first nurse recovered her milk. It was locally concluded that the initial loss was brought about by the powers of witchcraft.

Other people were accredited with the ability to take away the substance of malt so that the drink made of malt so enchanted had no strength and no taste. The charmer, however, who was responsible, then brewed particularly good and potent ale. Martin himself knew a man who was without a single drop of good ale in his house for a whole year; he was always complaining about this and finally a local wise man told him to obtain some yeast from every alehouse in the parish. He got some from one particular man which he put amongst his wort and was able to make as good ale as could be found, and so the charm was defeated. Ale was, of course, the ancient drink of the Celts everywhere, and there are many stories told in the ancient and more recent tradition about it; according to the early Irish tradition it was the drink of the gods, the elixir dispensed to god and man alike at the Otherworld feast.

18  Callanish, Isle of Lewis — oblique view of the circle, the lines of stones and the chambered cairn. After RCAHMS 1927, 25

19  The Witches’ horse

Martin also heard many examples of the belief in the powers of certain people to take away the milk from cows by the powers of witchcraft. Various kinds of charms were employed in order to bring this about. The flow of milk was transferred to the witches’ own cows, or obtained in some other way; there is a large repertoire of very extraordinary tales told about this widely-held Highland belief. People maintained that milk, obtained by magic, did not produce the ordinary amount of butter; and also, that the curds of such milk were so tough and rubbery that they could not be made into good cheese; they were also unnaturally light in weight. It was held that butter taken away and mixed in with the charmer’s own butter could be detected because the two were different in colour. The charmed butter was paler than the other; if a woman was found to have butter of this kind she was immediately deemed guilty of having performed an act of witchcraft. The thing to do to remedy this state of affairs was to take a little rennet from the suspected charmer and place it in an egg-shell full of milk; unlike the ordinary blend of milk and rennet, the mixture would not curdle. Many people, even the most hardheaded, gave Martin examples of this and claimed to have experienced such a loss themselves. Charms were used to prevent these powers, and women often put the root of groundsel amongst their cream as an amulet.

Many examples of witchcraft and belief in the powers of certain people have been recorded in the nineteenth century; it is not a subject that people care to talk about very much, but sympathetic and skilful collectors could, and still do, manage to obtain very interesting first-hand information on the subject. One remarkable instance was recorded by the great collector Father Allan MacDonald and published in his invaluable notebook of Hebridean traditions. A man, a Campbell, was on his way to Mass one Sunday morning at Kildonan. Walking along the strand, he came upon a woman and her daughter engaged in ‘deilbh buidseachd’, ‘framing spells’, by crossing threads of various colours in a variety of ways in the same way as threads are arranged by weavers for the loom. He tore the structure to pieces and severely upbraided the women for their evil, and especially for performing it on the Sabbath. They begged him not to speak of what he had seen and said if he kept quiet about it no harm should come to him. However, when Mass was over, he told all the people what he had seen. When he was about to sail to the mainland a crow (20) perched on the mast, an evil omen, and as soon as the boat left the shore a terrible storm arose and he perished.

Witches could be encountered in human form, as in the episode above, but they could also be met with in the form of animals, the hare (21) being a frequent shape for metamorphosis. It was widely held that if arrows barbed with silver or muskets loaded with a silver coin were pointed at them, or the metal struck them, the creature would immediately regain human form, and stand, often wounded, to reveal itself as a woman known to and respected by the one who had shot her. I myself have lived in close proximity to witches whose homes I had been warned never to enter although these seemingly harmless beings were always eager to extend hospitality to the stranger or traveller. I have also heard in the Gaelic Islands numerous stories of their powers and the advisability of avoiding them. Apart from being accredited with taking the milk from the cattle and putting the Evil Eye upon those who had incurred their hostility, they had, as we have seen, the powers of taking on bird and animal form in order to destroy or damage their enemies. In some areas, as we have noted above, the hare was a popular shape for witches to adopt. I myself had an unnerving encounter with a hare when driving back to Killin on a wild winter’s night (or rather, at about three o’clock in the morning) when I was returning from interviewing a Glen Lyon shepherd, the late and much lamented Bob Bissett.

20  The Witches’ crow

The road surface was extremely treacherous, with deep, water-filled potholes; the rain was falling heavily, and visibility was worsened by the long, white fingers of mist which constantly moved across the moor and in front of my windscreen. At one point my slow progress was abruptly halted when I became aware of a huge hare which was sitting right in the middle of the road and staring balefully at the car. The headlights revealed its size and its unusual character. I sounded my horn several times but the hare would not move. I began to feel afraid, especially considering the inimical nature of the countryside and the lateness of the hour. I slowly moved the car until it was almost touching the animal, which was not in any way disconcerted by the headlights, and I began to feel real terror. I was quite sure now that this was no ordinary animal, nor could I think of any way I could make it move. I stopped the car and the hare looked at me; I could see it clearly in between the swirling mists and the headlights glinting on the pools in the road. It was indeed an exceptionally large animal. I would not run it down, so the only thing to do was to get out of the car and try to scare it off. I stood out in the driving rain and mist and the hare did not move. I suddenly remembered one method of dealing with witches: I had no gun, but I did find in my pocket a silver coin and this, in desperation I threw at the animal. It struck it on the shoulder and immediately the hare loped off into the darkness of the night. It was an experience that I shall never forget, nor have I been able, even now, to find a rational explanation for it, so I am not at all sure that it was not a witch — but who knows?

21  The Witches’ hare

Another very sinister aspect of witchcraft was the making of a clay or wax effigy (corp creadha) of the person whom the witch desired to harm or destroy. Pins were stuck into this figure to the accompaniment of various incantations, and it was believed that the victim suffered agonising pain in the part of the body into which the pin was inserted. Death could be caused by sticking a pin into the region of the heart. A recent instance of this was told to the writer: the image — which in this case was not buried under the thatch of the victim’s house, as was frequently the practice, but placed under a lonely waterfall — was made by a jealous lover whose girl had preferred another suitor. When he had deposited the fetish under the overhanging rock in a lonely glen on a small island in the Hebrides, he returned home. Shortly afterwards his rival became ill. He fell into a decline and caused concern to all his friends. As he grew daily worse, some local boys noticed that, every evening, the jealous lover made off for the moor alone. They wondered what he was up to and decided to follow him. When he reached the stream, they hid and observed what he did. They saw him take some object from behind the waterfall, bend over it, and then replace it and set off for the township again. When he had disappeared they went to the spot and found the clay image, stuck over with pins. They took out every pin, using the correct words, and then destroyed the corp creadha. By the time they had returned home the sick man was already much improved, and his complete recovery was rapid thereafter.

Another story of this widespread and malicious practice was recorded in Perthshire, at Strathfillan. A minister there became afflicted with severe pains all over his body and fell into a wasting sickness. No doctor could discover the cause of his malaise. One morning, a woman from the far side of the river was on her way to call on the sick man and enquire after his health, when she observed another woman ahead of her whom she knew had a reputation in the locality for being a witch. Her suspicions were aroused, because it was still early morning, and she followed her. The alleged witch came to a hollow and there she buried something. The good woman dug this up when the other had gone and found it was a piece of wood stuck all over with pins. She at once took it to the Manse and revealed it, to the consternation of the witch, who was also visiting the sick man. As each pin was pulled out, the minister was instantly restored to health. It was also widely believed that no person lacking any limb could be affected by this evil form of magic; they must be completely whole in body.

Witches were believed to be capable of producing diseases in a variety of ways, apart from the use of the corp creadha. Campbell records how a young tailor, named Cumming, from Rannoch in Perthshire, fell into a wasting sickness. He told people that his terrible state was caused by witches who used to come to him at night and change him into a horse, on which they then proceeded to ride through the air to Edinburgh and back. In the morning he was completely exhausted. The belief that witches turned men into horses for their own purposes and rode them until they were almost dead is widespread, and has many variants.

Witches were disliked and feared in the Highlands and Islands and many counter-charms were made as protection against them, but the actual persecution of them stopped long ago. The last witch to die in Scotland was burned at Dornoch in Sutherland in 1722 for having allegedly transformed her own daughter into a horse and having her shod by the Devil. A method of transforming people into other shapes was to shake a bridle at them; and in some areas, death could be brought about, according to local belief, by accompanying this action by an incantation. One of the means of getting the milk from someone else’s cows was to ‘milk’ the slabhraidh or pot-chain — the chain which hung over the open fire and from which the great pot which boiled the water and cooked the food was suspended. Campbell records some extraordinary means whereby the stolen milk could be conveyed home by the witch. A native of Tiree took all the milk from the Laird of Coll’s cows. She had it in a piece of black seaweed, wrapped round her body. A man met with her and, guessing what she had been up to, cut the seaweed with a knife; immediately, all the milk flowed forth. Witches were believed to be capable of carrying away milk in a number of different ways, some seemingly quite ridiculous, for example in needles, dung-forks and so on. The powers of witches must be counteracted by protective measures. Juniper had strong apotropaic qualities; it must be gathered in a certain way, burned before the cattle and then a sprig placed in the animals’ tails as a charm against evil. In some instances a ball of hair — ronag — was put in the milk-pail on Lammas-day — on or about 1 August — in order to keep the substance in the milk for the rest of the year.

Stale urine was another powerful antidote for the Evil Eye and other malignant spells, and rowan, as always, more powerful than any other wood. It was believed widely that the handle of the churn should be made of rowan wood. Only a few years before Campbell wrote his book on witchcraft he recorded that in Islay a man used to have a rowan tree collar with which he habitually tied up his cow at night; and every time the cow went to the bull, her owner passed the rowan collar three times through the chimney crook (slabhraidh or pot-chain). On 1 May, Beltain, he decorated the whole house with sprigs of rowan. Campbell also notes an interesting tradition concerning a man from Craignish who habitually collected herbs with magic qualities on St Swithun’s Day and practised the magical arts with one foot on the chimney crook. This is reminiscent of the Old Irish Druidic spells which used to be chanted while the sorcerer went round a particular place or group of people on one foot (see 26, p97). Stallions were proof against witches, and no person riding a stallion could be harmed by this dread power. If all charms to return milk to a cow failed, some of the enchanted cow’s urine was placed in a well-corked bottle. The witch was then unable to pass water until she had restored the flow of milk to the beast. If pins were boiled in some of the milk of an afflicted cow until the vessel was dry, then the witch would appear and confess her guilt. In Skye it was apparently a custom to put the bull on top of the alleged witch’s house; this was sure to bring back the milk to the cows. The tradition of drawing blood from a witch, although known, seems not to have been much in vogue in the Highlands. One plant, amongst many to which magical powers were attributed, was the pearlwort (mothan); when this was put into the milk-pail, the good would gradually return to the milk. A piece of it inserted into the bull’s hoof at the time of mating ensured the milk from the future calf would be immune from the powers of witchcraft.

Amongst their many dread and sinister powers are those of raising storms at sea and causing death and suffering to those who navigated the treacherous waters of the Highland coasts. There are countless stories in the west of terrible events brought about by witches. The most famous witches in the western Islands for raising storms were the Lewis witches. They were also allegedly able to get the fish from the sea by magic. One episode, recorded by Campbell, tells how a Barra witch outwitted the other powerful witches of the islands, and took the whole catch to Castlebay. One witch used to disappear in human form from her home every night. This baffled her husband who eventually decided to follow her. To his amazement, she turned into a cat (22), and, in the name of the Devil, set out to sea in a sieve with seven other cats. The horrified man called upon the Trinity and instantly the sieve upturned and the witches were drowned. Eggshells were used as boats by witches; for this reason one must always pierce the bottom of an eggshell in order to prevent the witches from using it for this purpose.

One way in which witches were alleged to sink vessels was to place a cuach, a small round wooden dish, in a milk-pail full of water. They would then begin certain incantations and the dish would capsize; at that moment the ship would sink at sea. Some years before Campbell wrote, a boat was lost between Raasay and Skye. The witches responsible for this crime were seen at work near a stream in the Braes of Portree. There were three of them, and, in this instance, the presence of a man was also necessary. They floated a cockleshell in a pool and then arranged a number of black stones round the edge of the pool. They began to recite an incantation, and when it reached its climax, the black stones began to bark like dogs; the cockleshell disappeared and the ship sank.

There were male witches — magicians — as well as female, and certain of these achieved a widespread notoriety. It was believed that those who had practised the black arts in life were restless after death; they could cause a lot of trouble until they were safely buried. A Tiree tradition tells of a headstone which had been placed at the grave of a man who had been supposed to be a master of the dark art; the stone would not remain in the same place, but was constantly found in a different position. Eventually it had to be secured at the head of the grave by a chain. One sure means of detecting a witch was as follows: early on the morning of the first Monday of each quarter, the smoke from the house of one who was a witch could be seen to ‘go’ against the wind. In this manner it was believed a witch could be identified.

22  The Witches’ cat

The most famous witch story of the western Highlands concerns the hero MacGille Chaluim Ratharsaidh (Iain Mac Gille Chaluim of Raasay). He is an historical figure and the legend is widely believed to be true. He was drowned on 19 April 1671 on his way home from visiting the Earl of Seaforth in Lewis. Tradition holds that his death was due to the evil powers of his muime ‘foster-mother’, who enlisted the aid of several famous witches to raise a terrible storm in order to destroy him. Iain’s foster-mother lived on a small island to the north of Trotternish in Skye. No one knew what Iain had done to arouse her violent hatred in this way. He left Lewis on a clear, calm day. When his foster-mother, who was keeping watch on the sea from her island, saw his ship approaching, she placed a large vessel and a small vessel to float in the milk. She was a milk-maid on the island, and she set the calf-herd at the door of the shieling where he could see both Iain’s ship and the two vessels floating in the milk. She herself stood by the fire, with one foot in the slabhraidh (pot-chain) again, and began incanting; immediately the little vessel began to be violently agitated. The boy then cried out that the small dish was going sunwise round the big dish; the violent motion then made it go widdershins (tuathail — anti-sunwise). It shook the side of the milk vessel, then turned upside down and floated, bottom up. At that very moment Iain’s ship disappeared and the boy saw it no more. When the galley was halfway to the island off Trotternish, three ravens (the form taken on by the triple war goddess of ancient Ireland) were seen hovering about the boat in the wild storm that had developed so suddenly. Soon after this, 20 birds flew into the boat and took on the form of frogs (23). Then, all the witches of Scotland assembled round Iain’s doomed ship. Even so, they were powerless to sink it until Iain cried ‘What the Devil brought you here?’. The naming of the Evil One sealed his fate. He became quite distracted by all the birds and the frogs. Eventually a huge raven (24) landed on the gunwale beside him and he drew his sword to kill it, and in his rage and confusion he drove it right through the gunwale, where it stuck. Tradition varies as to what followed. Some say that Iain’s ghost appeared before his widow and said:

23  The Witches’ frog

Friday came the wind

And stirred itself to rage and fury;

Tell thou the mother of my body

That it was the evil ones that brought death.

The spirit allegedly repeated these lines three times. In 1861 a storyteller in Skye said that Iain’s foster-mother drowned her charge in order to obtain money; as soon as she had succeeded in her evil ploy she is said to have bitterly regretted it. The man who told this story also recited the lament traditionally sung by Iain’s wife when the news of his tragedy reached her:

24  The Witches’ raven

As I sit on the beach

Without joy or gladness,

Never more shall I raise a blithe song

After the Friday of my woe.

The greyhounds are unstirring,

Without tail-wagging or rejoicing,

Without welcome from the noble

Whose forebears were manly.

Without coursing or huntsmen,

Without trek to the hill,

To the heights of the hunt,

To the rough peaks of the Cuillin.

These are some examples of the hundreds of stories of witches who, in days gone by — and even not so long ago — used to terrorise the simple peoples of the Highlands and the Islands of the west with their alleged powers of sinking ships, raising storms by means of threads and wooden bowls; who took the milk from people’s cows, caused woe by their evil glance, and turned themselves into a variety of animals (25) for the forwarding of their dark pursuits. And even today, although rarely spoken of, there are certain people living in remote areas who cause some misgiving in the minds of their neighbours whose belief in the old powers of evil are still not quite extinct.

Over and above straightforward witchcraft, many people were believed to have certain powers, sometimes extremely limited, which enabled them to work woe or well on their fellows.

Although the power of the Droch Shùil, ‘Evil Eye’, was usually attributed to witches, it could be possessed by one who meant no ill and hated the ‘gift’. These people were quite unable not to blight things they admired. Over and above rowan branches, horseshoes and certain plants, some stones could assist in turning aside this unfortunate power. It could also be averted by drinking three mouthfuls of water which had been poured over silver (i.e. a silver coin); each mouthful must be taken in the name of the Trinity. The following incantation was sometimes made:

It is my own eye,

It is God’s eye,

It is the eye of the Son of God

Which shall repel this,

Which shall combat this.

Among their numerous alleged powers, witches were accredited with the ability to delay the birth of a child. This was brought about by means of a ball of black thread which was kept in a black bag at the base of the witch’s weaving loom, where it could not be seen. If the ball of thread was found and removed, then the power of the witch was destroyed. One story told in the Highlands has it that a child was kept in its mother’s womb for 22 years by means of witchcraft. When it was born, it had hair, teeth and a beard. This unlikely legend seems to hark back to early Celtic mythological tales in which a supernatural woman gives birth to a child who is already a mature and fully-armed warrior! One tale of this kind related by Campbell concerns the mother of a well-known Highland character, Ailein nan Sop (Allan of the Straws). She was a servant, who was made pregnant by a married man. The wife learnt of this, was duly enraged, and went to a local witch for help. The witch gave her a certain bone, and told her that as long as the bone was kept, the birth of the child would be prevented. Allan remained in his mother’s womb for 15 months beyond the normal period of her pregnancy. When the husband, who had fathered the child, came to realise that his wife was responsible for this unnatural delay in the birth, he decided to outwit her. He arranged that his jester should come home one day, apparently very drunk, and smashing things around him as he made his unsteady way through the house. When he was reprimanded for this, he was to say that he had been in a house where a long overdue child had been born. The wife, on hearing this, thought that the witch had failed in her powers, and in fury, seized the bone and threw it into the fire. It disappeared in a cloud of blue smoke; Allan was then born at once, with a full set of teeth!

25  The Witches’ eagle

A great variety of amulets could be used to keep the dread powers of witchcraft at bay. Martin records that in Harris a species of nuts called Molluka were to be found; some of these were used as charms against the Evil Eye or witchcraft in general, the most efficacious being the white variety. The nuts came from the Spice Islands and were washed up on the beach. They were placed about the necks of children to protect them; one of their great virtues was that if any evil was being planned against the wearer, the white nut would turn black. Martin attests to the truth of this, although he is unable to offer any rational explanation for it. The Steward of Harris, one Malcolm Campbell, told Martin that some weeks before his arrival there, all his cows gave blood instead of milk for several days. A wise neighbour told his wife that this was caused by witchcraft, and that the spell could be removed without undue difficulty. She was advised to take one of the white nuts and put it in the bottom of the pail into which she was about to milk the cows — this species of nut was known as the Virgin Mary’s Nut. She did as she was told; the first cow to be milked gave nothing but blood, as before, but the nut turned dark brown. She used the nut again, and from that moment, all the cows gave pure milk.

Belonging as it does to the category of folk belief connected with witchcraft, good and bad, the widespread belief in the power of certain people, voluntarily or involuntarily, to inflict woe on others by means of a glance of their eye, is one of the most rich and interesting aspects of Highland folklore. Carmichael collected a huge body of lore about the Evil Eye, and recorded many fascinating methods and incantations whereby its powers may be overcome:

Four to work sickness with Evil Eye,

Man and woman, youth and maid

Three to repel ill will,

Father and Son and Holy Spirit.

Deeply-rooted and ancient traditions underlie the widespread belief in this evil power; it filled people with dread, and many feared it so much that their whole lives were hemmed in and affected by tabu connected with it. A certain rhyme must be said on the first Monday of the quarter, a dangerous day:

The first Monday of the quarter,

Take care that luck leave not thy dwelling.

The first Monday of the Spring quarter,

Leave not thy cattle neglected.

According to Carmichael, some men observed this injunction so closely that they kept their beasts indoors all day on those ominous occasions, only letting them out at nightfall, lest the Evil Eye should fall on them. Only the eye of their owner was permitted to rest on them.

There were many antidotes for this form of witchcraft, and Carmichael was given an interesting example of this by a man who was a stonemason. One Spring, his father was busy with the ploughing when a man from the other side of the loch came across to see if he could get some oat seed. He was given this, and went home the way that he had come. He was very grateful for the favour that he had received. On the instant that he turned away, the man’s mare apparently fell down dead. The mason’s father ran into the house shouting that the man to whom he had been so generous had put the ‘Eye’ on his horse. The man was then followed so that he could repair the serious damage he had caused. The offender was one of the unfortunates who could not prevent his power, and he was extremely distressed about the occurrence. He explained his powerlessness over his unfortunate faculty. He then went three times sunwise round the mare, singing a rune of aiding and praying to the Trinity to undo the damage that the Eye had done to the animal. As soon as he had finished this ritual, the mare lifted her head and rose up alive and fit. The man with the ‘Eye’ said again how the episode had distressed him, but that he had no means of averting it.

There are innumerable fascinating charms for the Evil Eye in the Highlands. According to one woman, a native of Bonar Bridge, in order to counteract the ‘Eye’ one must rise early in the morning and go to a boundary stream over which the living and the dead have passed — a very magical point. One must then lift a small palmful of water from the lower side of the bridge, in the name of the Trinity. Next one must retrace one’s steps with the palmful of water in a wooden bowl, and sprinkle the sacred liquid on the backbone of the animal on which the Evil Eye has rested. All must be performed in the name of Christianity. Next the water in the bowl must be sprinkled behind the fire-flag again in the name of the Trinity. According to this informant, to follow the procedure closely would be certain to bring about complete healing in the stricken animal and destroy the force of the Evil Eye:

Thy strait be on the fire-flags,

Thine ailment on the wicked woman.

A moving incantation, a splendid blend of pagan magic and Christian faith was collected by Carmichael in the island of Barra. Three mouthfuls of water in which a silver coin had been placed must be drunk by the victim, the first mouthful in the name of the Father, the second in the name of the Son, and the third in the name of the Holy Ghost:

It is mine own eye,

It is the eye of God,

It is the eye of God’s Son,

Which shall repel this,

Which shall combat this.

He who has made to thee the eye

Surely lie it on himself,

Surely lie it on his affection,

Surely lie it on his stock.

On his wife, on his children,

On his means, on his dear ones,

On his cattle, on his seed,

And on his comely kine.

On his mares, grey and brown,

On his geldings in the plough,

On his flocks black and white,

On his corn-barns, on his coarse meal.

On the little fairy women

Who are reeling in the knoll,

Who are biding in the heath,

Who are filling the cavities.

Another means of countering the power of the Evil Eye was recorded by Carmichael at Kiltarlity, Inverness-shire. One must take a clay vessel and go, once again, to running water, over which both the living and the dead cross. On the lower side of the bridge where this happened, one must go down on the right knee, lift a palmful of water in the hollows of the hands and put it in the dish, repeating the following words:

I am lifting a little drop of water

In the holy name of the Father;

I am lifting a little drop of water

In the holy name of the Spirit.

One must then rub a little of the sacred water into the two ears of the person, or on the part afflicted by the ‘Eye’, and down the spine of the afflicted animal saying:

Shake from thee thy harm,

Shake from thee thy jealousy,

Shake from thee thine illness,

In name of Father,

In name of Son,

In name of Holy Ghost.

The remainder of the water must then be poured on a grey stone or a fixed rock, so that its holy powers should not be abused. The name of the person or of the animal must be mentioned at the same time as the healing water is being applied.

Threads were used both to enchant and to remove enchantment in the Highlands, as well as to cure certain maladies, and this persisted well into living memory. The charm of the threads was made to sick animals, generally cattle. The threads in question were made into a cord of three ply and of three colours. This was symbolic of the Trinity — black, symbolic of the condemnation of God; red, symbolic of the Crucifixion; white, symbolising the purification of the spirit. The cord was twisted three times round the tail of the animal which had been bewitched, and it was then tied in a very complex triple loop. Carmichael records how in February 1906 a Benbecula man came across to North Uist in order to buy a horse. Observing a fine animal outside the house of a certain crofter, he praised the beast and continued on his way. He had hardly passed out of sight when the horse had fallen to the ground and was rolling in agony. People knew this Benbecula man was reputed to have the ‘Eye’, so the owner of the horse immediately went to a woman versed in counteracting this distressing power. She twined with her teeth three threads of three ply, and different colours, and instructed the owner of the animal to tie these, one after the other, round the base of the horse’s tail, in the name of the Trinity. He did as the woman advised, and at once the animal recovered. The charmer told the horse’s owner that she had inherited this knowledge and power from her father, a very devout Christian, much given to prayer. She apparently was able to ascertain from the beginning of her prayer whether the illness had been brought about by natural sickness or by the Evil Eye. If the sickness was natural, then she would advocate conventional cures; if due to witchcraft, then she brought about the remedy by the power of her prayer. She maintained that the Evil Eye of a man, although less venomous than that of a woman, was more difficult to counteract then that of a woman. A common effect of their powers on all true charmers or healers is the illness and weakness that they themselves experience after having performed their cure, sometimes almost to the point of death. To remove the damage brought about by witchcraft involved a severe struggle against the powers of evil and inevitably resulted in total mental and physical exhaustion. Such white witches or charmers believed that their power came from God and that it was incumbent upon them to use it, no matter how unpleasant the consequences to themselves may be. Not to use the gift would involve its weakening and ultimate loss.

An interesting incantation appears in the Records of the Presbytery of Kintyre and Islay, dated November 1697. A Malcolm MacMillan confessed he had practised a charm with a string, and some words he spoke over the string were entered into the Records in Gaelic. He used the string for the cure of rickets, demonic possession and other sudden distempers; he put the thread to his breath and said into it:

I place the protection of God about thee,

Mayest thou be shielded from every peril,

May the Gospel of the God of grace

Be from thy crown to the ground about thee.

May men love thee

And women not work thee harm.

When cattle were being sent to pasture, or returning home from it, the person in charge of them would leave one or two beasts to follow behind, in the belief that this would ward off the Evil Eye, which allegedly required the whole stock to be in front of the herd.

One very moving story about belief in the power of the ‘Eye’ and deep faith in the ability of white witches to undo the results is told of a little boy from Leitir, Loch Duthaich, who had the misfortune to have the ‘Eye’ put on him. The child became desperately sick and the parents were in despair; all conventional remedies failed. Finally the distracted father was advised to make the long journey to the head of Loch Carron where there was a woman famed for her powers of counteracting the fierce force of the Evil Eye. All he was required to do was to take some small piece of the boy’s clothing with him. The charmer took the piece of cloth, went away, and performed some secret rites. She then told the man to return home where he would find his little son fit and well. This he did, and was amazed to find the child sitting on his mother’s knee, lively and completely restored to health. But this particular cure took heavy toll of the charmer; the virtue had entirely left her, and for a day and a night she hung between life and death; she said she was always very ill after performing a counter-spell, whether it be for man or beast.

Charm for thwarting the ‘Eye’:

Twelve eyes against every malice,

Twelve eyes against every envy

Twelve eyes against every purpose

Twelve eyes against every hope

Twelve eyes against every intent,

Twelve eyes against every eye,

The twelve eyes of the Son of the God of life,

The twelve eyes of the Son of the God of life.

The writer has heard many traditions of the above kind, still extant amongst the old people in the Highlands and Islands, but there is understandably a deep reticence to talk about such things, and any detailed information known is usually imparted in strictest confidence. In central Perthshire there are still lingering memories about working the Evil Eye by means of sticks, the willow being used for this purpose; it was not possible to get an exact account of how this was done, but the counter-charm was performed by means of rowan. The whole process, however, was regarded as a close secret.

Belief in the power of the Evil Eye then was extremely potent and widespread in the Scottish Highlands and has a long ancestry in the Celtic world. One of the earliest Irish tales, the magnificent mythological story of the war between the gods of Ireland, ‘The Second Battle of Moytura’ (see bibliography: Ross, A., Druids) concerns the malevolent god Balor Beumshuileach, ‘Balor of the Evil Eye’. The eye was kept permanently closed, so great was its power of destruction when unlidded; when Balor’s men were hard-pressed in battle, it took several men to lift the lid with sticks. The eye then sent out such potent rays of evil magic that the entire opposing forces could be wiped out by a single glance.

In the Inner Hebrides the charm for curing the Evil Eye must allegedly be made on a Thursday or a Sunday; in different places, different rhymes were used. Campbell, in his Witchcraft, recounts how an Islay woman achieved miraculous cures for the ‘Eye’ by using the following rhyme, which he publishes rather unwillingly, as such things were not easily divulged to strangers — or indeed at all. In this case, an ancient charm had been transformed into a Christian prayer, which, as we have seen, must so often have been the case:

If eye has blighted,

Three have blessed,

Stronger are the Three that blessed,

Than the eye that blighted;

The Father, Son and Holy Ghost;

If anything elfin or worldly has harmed it,

On earth above,

Or in hell beneath,

Do, Thou, God of Grace, turn it aside.

This rhyme had to be repeated three times, in traditional Celtic fashion.

Certain river stones were believed to have magical properties and these could be used both as amulets against evil, or, in the case of black magic, as charms to promote harm. In Glen Lyon in central Perthshire, every house, including the church (30), has its gateposts capped by a pair of fantastically shaped stones which have been worn into these weird forms by the action of the strongly-flowing river from which they have been taken. Local people will tell you that they are purely decorative, but one old man, well-versed in the traditional lore of the glen where he and his ancestors had always lived, informed the present writer that it was an ancient local belief that these strange stones from the nearby river had powers of keeping evil forces from the dwellings and the church. It was interesting to note that the War Memorial, higher up the glen, which is conical in shape and composed of ordinary stones, is crowned by a very fine example of these singular, water-worn boulders.

River stones believed to be possessed of remarkable powers were often blackened in the fire, and incantations were made over them in order to bring harm to some unfortunate person who had incurred the hostility of the charmer. At the end of the nineteenth century, in the same area of central Perthshire, such a curse was carried out by means of a circle of blackened stones, the right state of the moon, and ritual chants; the victim did in fact die, although in normal health at the time. It became known to the local people what had been done, and by whom, and the man in question was evicted from his holding by the landlord or, as they put it locally, ‘sent over the hill’. The writer had this information from an old man, a native of the place where the event happened, whose father had actually witnessed the incident; the spot where the circle of blackened stones was made is still known. The alleged magical properties of certain stones are further discussed on p110 ff. Some charms were incanted for specific types of evil magic, others to counteract enchantment in general. One of the latter, much used in the Outer Isles, is associated, like so many, with the beloved saint, Brigit or Bride, originally a powerful goddess invoked widely over the pagan Celtic world and in Christian times venerated as Saint Brigit of Kildare where, in true pagan fashion, nine virgins perpetually attended her fire, which was never allowed to be extinguished.

The charm placed by Brigit

About her horses, about her cows,

About her sheep, about her lambs:

To keep them from eye,

To keep them from omen,

To keep them from spell,

South and North.

(Carmichael)

A substance which was widely believed to be imbued with a certain magic power in the Highlands was cheese. This was regarded as a potent protection against the danger of wandering away from the correct track in the thick mists which come down so suddenly in the wild mountainous country of the north. and entirely blot out the dangerous cliffs and bogs that form so great a hazard to the traveller. Many wells are known as the Cheese Well (Tobar a’ Chàise), and it seems likely that it was at one time a custom to make an offering of cheese to a sacred well in some remote place, in order to obtain protection from the understandable fear of becoming enshrouded in one of these dread mists and meeting a miserable fate in barren bogland and treacherous countryside.

A charm used for the cure of sickness in man or beast was known as eòlas, ‘knowledge’. Hundreds of such charms have been collected all over the Highlands and Islands; there is a strong Catholic influence in these charms as the names of the saints invoked indicate, especially St Brigit, St Columba, St Michael and St Peter. People possessing the power of white witchcraft used to utter such charms over the ailing creature, while performing the requisite ritual at the same time. The eòlas or charm must also be repeated over water to be drunk by or poured over a sick person or beast. When animals or human beings were sick, those seeking a cure for them would walk for miles in order to get a vessel of sacred water over which some charmer had made an incantation. People were not always willing to impart information about the words used in healing or about the ritual involved; sometimes those cured were sworn to secrecy as to how the healing was performed, and complete silence throughout the ritual was a frequent requisite. The writer has known charmers who would not divulge their methods even to their husbands or wives. The Church, as well as the medical profession, frowns on these practices; the Church because they are suggestive of paganism, the doctors because they have no faith in them. But even doctors of high repute in the Highlands who have, themselves, been unable to cure a sick person, have expressed astonishment when a swift cure has been effected by a sincere charmer.

The eòlas was usually employed to cure illnesses of a limited kind such as toothache, bruises, urinary infections, swellings in the breast, epilepsy, and sprains, which were very common in rough, uneven country. The humblest of old women were often believed to have this power, and although any payment for a cure was prohibited, people often used to make some small present in kind for a bottle of special water and a healing charm. If the person seeking a cure had to make a long journey he must take up lodgings for the night before sunset. In some localities it was believed to be preferable if no lodging was taken on that night, and no food eaten. There are many stories told of the healing powers of certain people, often in conjunction with some sacred object or objects, such as stones, a holy well, a human skull and so on. One of the great curses of the Highlands and Islands was the high incidence of epilepsy, and many cures were tried in order to rid the afflicted person of the dread disease. One example of this which occurred in the parish of Nigg (Ross and Cromarty) in the nineteenth century concerns a boy of 15 who was very ill with epileptic fits. His distressed relatives first tried to cure him with the charm of mole’s blood. A plate was placed on the boy’s head; the live mole was held over the plate by the tail, its head cut off, and the blood allowed to drop onto the plate. Three moles were sacrificed, one after the other, but with no result. Next they tried the effect of a piece of the skull of a suicide; in order to obtain this, a journey of well over 60 miles had to be made. When the piece of bone was acquired, it was scraped to dust and mixed into a cup of water. This same ritual was performed in some parts of France, where ancient folklore is still in existence. The boy was made to swallow this concoction without knowing what it was. The results were not recorded, but the information was given to the informant, a patient of the doctor who noted the incident, by the sister of the epileptic boy. The skull of a suicide, often filled with water from a holy well, was a known and much-believed-in cure for epilepsy, but it was held in reserve as a final measure when all other, less dramatic remedies had failed. In Lewis, the skull of an ancestor would be dug up from a special place in the graveyard, after sunset and before sunrise, and water placed in it from a sacred well; this was then taken to the patient and he or she had to drink it; the whole ritual, from beginning to end, being performed in silence.

Because all matters of belief and superstitious practice are somewhat delicate, and information is often imparted in confidence, it has been decided not to give details of names or exact localities where first-hand information on ancient and often non-Christian practices has been obtained, and ritual actually witnessed. The most remarkable example of a human skull being used in the cure of epilepsy with seemingly unfailing success was told to the writer by the guardian of the skull, the man who actually performed the cures. A holy well, on a remote hillside, was an essential part of the procedure, and the well was called Tobar á Chinn, ‘The Well of the Head’. The story is as follows. In an isolated township in Wester Ross, in some of the wildest and most beautiful country in the entire Highlands, some 200 years ago a local woman committed suicide. According to religious custom, no suicide could be buried in the churchyard; her body was thus interred on the moor, outside the sacred precincts. After a time, her skull suddenly appeared miraculously, lying on the surface of the ground. According to the guardian, the ‘wise men’ of the township recognised this as a sign that it was to be used as a cure for epilepsy, for the crania of suicides were believed to have more potent powers of healing than those of people who had died in any other way. The waters of the well higher up on the hill were believed to have certain healing powers, and it was a powerful and ancient Celtic belief, of which there are many examples, that by placing a human head in a venerated well, the powers of the water — whatever they were, healing in general, effecting specific cures, imparting fertility, and so on — were markedly increased by the magic powers with which the human head was accredited in the Celtic world down the centuries. The skull was taken to the well and kept in a small stone coffin-like container, where it still lies. The guardian, a local charmer, was appointed and the position has remained hereditary to this day; cures are still performed on occasion. The well is not supposed to be visited for any purpose other than the healing of epileptics, for it is locally believed that the powers of the water are not inexhaustible, and must be used with care. The writer was in fact taken to see the well and the head, and the ritual was explained in detail by the guardian himself. The well lies in a hollow in the hill, and it would be virtually impossible to chance upon it.

The fame of the cure was apparently so great in the western Highlands and Islands that people who were seemingly incurable would travel there from great distances in the belief that it would not fail to bring relief from this deeply-distressing affliction. The patient and his or her companions must go to the house of the guardian. There, they would be instructed in the correct ritual; violation of any aspect of it would be certain to ruin all chances of a cure. The patient must climb the hill alone with the guardian. The ceremony had to be carried out after the sun had left the hill, and before it reached it again. Complete silence must be observed both on the long climb up to the well, and on the return to the house. Once the well was reached, the guardian took the skull from its stone cist and approached the well; the patient had to walk three times sunwise round the well (deiseal). The guardian then dipped the skull in the water and gave it to the suffering person in the name of the Trinity; this he did three times. He then put the ‘prohibitions’ on the patient, things that he must never do. What these were was not divulged. Then the descent back to the house was made. Before leaving for the hill, the guardian would ask the patient if he had complete faith in the power of the healing water. If there was any hesitation whatsoever about this, then he was not treated. It is widely believed all over the West that there has never been one failure to effect the cure. Although modern medical treatment for the control of epilepsy has lessened the popularity of this archaic folk healing, some people still prefer it, so great is their faith in its efficacy.

Various other methods for curing the widespread disease of epilepsy, which did not necessarily involve a charmer, were resorted to in different parts of the Highlands. Sacrifices of different kinds could be made. For example, it was believed that if a hen or a cock, a drake or a gander were buried alive at the exact spot where the epileptic had his or her first falling fit, no second attack would ever occur. Carmichael records an account of this given to him by a Ross-shire woman. A boy whose sister had an epileptic fit came to her mother to get a black cock which he knew she had. The bird was immediately buried alive at the spot where the girl had fallen. The girl had reached middle age by the time this story was told to Carmichael, but she never had another attack of epilepsy. Again, in Ross-shire, in the nineteenth century a minister records how he talked to his mother-in-law about the burying alive of a black cock at Evanton for the same purpose. She told him she had seen the girl in question fall in a fit on the floor of an upper room in the house. Straight away a hole was made at the spot where the girl fell, and a second hole made through the lower floor into the earth. A black cock was then procured, lowered down through the two floors and buried alive in the hole. Carmichael also records that some years previous to his writing, a boat was crossing Loch Duthaich from Letterfearn to Dornie, when a man in the boat had an epileptic fit. The other men took bearings, turned back to the shore, and obtained a black cock which they put, together with a stone, in a sack. When they reached the point where their companion had had his fit, they threw the sack with its victim into the water. The man, allegedly, never had another epileptic fit. Sometimes the blood of a black cock was sprinkled over one who was afflicted by the falling sickness; if no black cock was available, the blood of a black cat was used instead.

5 Supernatural beings, omens and social customs

Daily life in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland was dominated by superstitions and by a strong belief in spirits and supernatural beings of various kinds. The Church naturally disapproved of these blatantly pagan traditions but so deeply rooted were they in the daily lives of the people that they were almost impossible to eradicate. Supernatural beings, baleful and benign, haunted virtually every feature of the wild, mountainous landscape or the low-lying Islands, studded with bogs and waters and girdled with beautiful but treacherous shores. It was necessary for one going on a journey, no matter how brief, to be armed with talismans of various kinds to counteract the evil powers of many of the malevolent beings they were constantly in danger of offending or which might inadvertently cross their paths. It was necessary, according to belief, to arm oneself with protective amulets such as white quartz pebbles, a piece of wood from some sacred tree such as the rowan; and of course the Bible, kept in the pocket, was another potent source of protection. Not all the various creatures who shared with mankind the wild terrain were hostile; indeed, many could be protective and positively helpful to those in danger. One of the most widely known in the rich repertoire of ‘fairy’ lore was the ubiquitous each-uisge (water-horse, less commonly, tarbh-uisge, water bull), usually a dangerous being, which sometimes appeared in the form of a beautiful horse, occasionally saddled and bridled, as if waiting for some unwary traveller, who would be glad to shorten his journey by jumping onto the obliging animal’s back and — as he thought — obtaining a convenient lift to his place of destination. There are many different versions of this widespread motif. Sometimes the trusting traveller would be dragged into a lake or river and devoured by his steed; at other times, if he were quick-witted enough, he could manage to escape.

The each-uisge also had a penchant for young girls, many of whom seemed to have time to be lying invitingly on tufts of sweet-smelling heather, or by the grassy lakeside. A youth of great beauty would sit down beside the girl and would begin to converse with her. Totally disarmed by his god-like appearance, she, uncharacteristically, would submit to the embraces that he soon began to lavish on her. It would seem to her that she had encountered the great love of her life, and lying back, she would begin to stroke his head and sing a love song to him and he would be put under the spell of her sweet voice and sleep would overcome him. She would tenderly stroke his hair, and then, in a terrible moment of truth, she would come upon the water weeds which were still entangled in his copious locks. Alarmed, she would look down at his feet, and now see that they were not those of a youth, but the hooves of a horse. Fear of death would give her a wild courage, and, if she were lucky enough to rise without disturbing him, she would have to run for her life. More often, however, he would entice her to climb on his back and then plunge deep into the waters with her, and she would never be heard of again. I myself have heard various versions of this widespread and sinister motif, both in the Hebrides and on the Scottish mainland, and have sometimes felt a sense of dread when walking near a lake or river where the water-horse and other unpleasant beings were traditionally believed to lurk. But not all spirits were evil and dangerous to mankind. Unexpectedly, perhaps, it was the fairies who could manifest the greatest malevolence to human beings, and who had an unpleasant habit of stealing their babies. The best remedy for this was to put the cradle out in the sunshine or leave it in the living room which served many purposes, while placing the long, iron tongs, which were to be found in every home, across the infant’s cradle. Iron was a powerful averter of evil and dangerous spells.

There were countless other spirit beings, such as the glaistig (a female spirit, half-human and half-beast), the ùruisg (half-human, half-beast, and very hirsute), the nigheag (the little washer), the caoineag (the little weeping one), the beanshith (the banshee), and the direach (26). A vast amount of oral material pertaining to spirits such as those we have described was in circulation in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, and we owe a great debt of gratitude to the collectors who so painstakingly collected and recorded for posterity this fascinating, and in many ways unique, material which coloured and controlled the daily lives and actions of the Gaelic peoples.

Over and above the repertoire of cures brought about by the prayers and skills of the charmers or white witches, there were many other folk cures in circulation in the Highlands, as elsewhere, both for people and for animals, some based on respectable herbal remedies, and others relying on magic of some kind. As long ago as the second century AD the writer Pliny noted some of the plants that were used by the Gauls for purposes of healing and protection and recorded the various ways in which they must be collected in order to make them magically efficacious. Martin Martin gives a long list of diseases known, and not known, in Skye and the smaller Islands. He likewise notes that simple remedies used by the natives were effected by plants, roots, stones, parts of animals, and so on. Blood-letting was widely practised. He tells of a smith in the parish of Kilmartin in Skye who was believed to be able to cure faintness of the spirits (Martin does not say exactly what disease this is). The patient was seemingly laid on the anvil with his face upwards; the smith then seized a large hammer in both hands, and with a fierce expression approached the sick person. He then raised the hammer from the ground as if preparing to strike the patient with all his considerable strength. It was a risky cure to perform, because the smith must terrify the sick person, but use the hammer with so much skill that he did not in fact harm him.

26  Direach ghlinn eiti, or fachan, in the ritual pose used by, for example, Druids as they went round armies in order to protect them, using one leg, one arm extended, and one eye closed. From J.F. Campbell Popular Tales of the West Highlands, Edinburgh 1862, 326

The smith in question was apparently famed for his pedigree; he constituted the thirteenth generation of smiths, all possessed of this healing power. This too represents an archaic Celtic belief. The smith not only held an elevated position in society; his ability to handle the most potent charm against evil — iron — imbued him with semi-sacred powers in the eyes of his fellows (27). The early Celtic smiths were widely believed to possess healing and magical powers and such a belief has continued down the ages. It is an impressive feature of extant, or very recently extant, Highland folklore that one can constantly glimpse beneath all the borrowings and accretions that have taken place down the centuries, traces of that much older, much more powerful Celtic world, where the gods and goddesses walked side by side with mankind, with goodwill or hostility, as the case might be, and where the day-to-day life of the people was moulded and controlled by hidden forces, the powers of which linger on as pale shadows.

It was a widespread belief that the seventh son of a seventh son had the ability to heal people of King’s Evil (scrofula). Those with the power of healing were not always regarded with approval, especially by the Church; one famous physician, Neil Beaton of Skye, doctor to MacLeod of Dunvegan, was so skilled that it was darkly hinted by many that he had learnt his art from the Devil himself. He was in great demand all over the Highlands and Islands.

Together with cures for sickness induced by natural or magical agents, we must consider measures that could be taken to ward off ill-fortune before it had occurred. These include the reading of omens which could warn people of impending ill-luck, and things that must — or must not — be done in order to prevent evil powers from gaining access in the first instance. In early Irish society, a hero, when he was first initiated into the elevated status of warrior, had a number of tabus, or geasa as they were called, placed on him. Violation of these tabus meant certain destruction. It was always the aim of enemies, whether natural or supernatural, to trick the hero into violating his tabus, and many of the tales are concerned with the ways in which this was brought about. Tabu was also a major feature of Highland folk-life, and there were lucky and unlucky days, times, or situations, when things should or should not be attempted. For example, Martin again records that it was a custom of the natives of Colonsay, after they had landed on Oronsay Isle, to make a tour sunwise of the Church before they entered on any kind of business. The magical ritual of going sunwise, often three times, round a church, a holy well or a domestic building was very widespread indeed; it is known in Gaelic as deiseal. It was a custom — familiar to Martin, but not openly practised in his day — in the Island of Lewis, to make a fiery circle about the houses, cattle, corn, and other possessions belonging to every family. A man would carry a burning brand in his right hand and move round in a sunwise direction. This apotropaic round was performed in the village of Shadir in 1700, but Martin records that it proved fatal to one man; he was called MacCallum. The night after he had performed this undoubtedly pagan rite, all his own property and possessions were destroyed by fire.

27  Smith god with a La Tène-type anvil on a pottery mould at Corstopitum, Corbridge, Northumberland. After A. Ross 1967 and 1992, fig 129

The numbers and varieties of cures for various ills and the means of averting bad luck are incalculable. A great deal of superstition attended the birth of a child, a time when both the mother and the new-born infant were particularly vulnerable to all the forces of evil, witchcraft, and fairy power. Once the child had been born, the mother must on no account leave the house until she had been kirked; unbaptised infants, like suicides, could not be buried in sanctified ground. Often, when one is walking in a Highland township with a native of the area, a small stone is pointed out which marks the pathetic grave of some unfortunate babe who did not survive long enough to find a place within the protective walls of the churchyard. It was unlucky to rock an empty cradle if one did not desire an increase in the family — to do so ensured that a new baby would soon occupy it.

Ill omens were of many kinds, and could cause deep unease in people. It was considered unlucky if a stray swarm of bees were to settle on someone’s property without being claimed by their owner. It was, and still is, particularly unfortunate to catch sight of the new moon through glass; it should be seen out of doors, and various rites must be performed according to differing local tradition; it must be bowed to three times, or one must turn one’s money over three times in one’s pocket, and so on. To see the old moon in the arms of the new was a sign of good weather; the horns of the new moon must also be turned up — if they were turned down the water they retained would fall and flood the earth. McGregor records that in Soay, a small island off the south of Skye, when the head of the family died, a large lock of his hair was cut off and nailed firmly to the lintel of the door in order to keep away the fairies. There were various ways in which it was believed a snakebite could be cured; the head of a serpent was preserved for years and rubbed onto the wound. This was believed to be an infallible cure. The dried head was placed in water and then the wound washed with it. It was also widely believed that only a charmer or white witch must set broken or otherwise damaged bones; qualified doctors were believed to know nothing of such matters. Another widespread belief was that it was unlucky to enter a house by the back door; the prospective occupier must always go in by the front entrance. There were many other strange cures for miscellaneous ills which were absolutely infallible in the eyes of the people; warts were common, but could be removed by washing them in rainwater or in the blood of a pig. By putting gold rings in the ears, sore eyes could be healed; or the eye itself could be rubbed with some gold object while an incantation for healing was repeated. Other very general cures were the use of fried mice as a remedy for smallpox; a spider, sealed into a goose quill, could relieve a child of the troublesome disease of thrush.

Much superstition and tabu was observed by sailors: certain things must not be given their correct name at sea — even places came into this custom. For example, Martin records that the natives of Canna called the island Tarsin when they were at sea. Certain birds were much feared at sea, as well as on land. The stormy petrel was regarded as a bad omen when it fluttered about the boats; a raven landing on the mast was a sure indication of witchcraft. In order to protect the vessel and those who sailed in her from the evil powers of fairies, witches, petrels, the Evil Eye and so on, a horseshoe was nailed onto the mast — always a highly apotropaic object. Tabu then, both positive and negative, was widespread in the Highlands, and much lingers on, just as it does in other parts of the British Isles. It was considered to be highly unlucky if a stranger were to count one’s children, cattle or sheep. And, if one were questioned as to numbers of any of these, one must always end by saying ‘bless them’. An odd number should not sit at table, and especially not 13. It was believed that the first person of such a number who rose from the table would die within the year. A stranger must never walk across a pile of fishing rods lying on the beach, or over ropes, oars or any other item of marine equipment. If he inadvertently did so, he must be made to retrace his steps so as to undo the potential ill-luck he had caused. People must only be served at table from left to right. This is another example of deiseal; it was likewise considered to be unlucky in beginning to row a boat, or start a funeral or wedding procession except towards the right hand. To see a foal or a snail or to hear a cuckoo before having broken one’s fast in the morning were also omens that the day would not go well:

With its back to me turn’d I beheld the young foal,

And the snail on the bare flag in motion so slow;

Without tasting of food, lo, the cuckoo I heard,

Then judged the year would not prosperously go.

A peculiar superstition was that it was unlucky to stand between an epileptic man and fire or water. Water should not be thrown out of a house after sunset and before sunrise. One must never dig a grave on Sunday as another would be sure to have to be dug during the week for another member of the family. It was important that a corpse should stiffen up after death, otherwise another member of the same family would die before the year was out. Other widespread and common beliefs include the tradition that the howling of a dog at night presaged death, as did the alighting on the roof of a house of a magpie or a crow. It was also regarded as being extremely unlucky to weigh new-born infants; This would certainly bring about their death. No cat must be allowed to sleep beside an infant as it would suck its breath and so kill it.

Martin records many tabus and cures current in his time. He says that the inhabitants of the Flannan Islands must never call St Kilda by its proper name, Hirt, but only ‘the High Country’. Moreover, if they were fowling in the Flannan Islands, a common pursuit, they must not use the name Flannan, but ‘the Country’. Other things must not be called by their proper name; uisge, Gaelic for water, must be called ‘bùrn’. A rock, creag, must be referred to as cruaidh, ‘hard’. The Gaelic word for shore is cladach but the Flannan islanders must refer to it as uamh, ‘cave’. ‘Sour’ in Gaelic is gort, but they had to use the word gàire. There are countless examples of such tabu words, sometimes the tabu being permanent, sometimes applying only to some particular situation or occasion. They must not kill a fowl after evening prayers had been said. No one might take away to his home any sheep-suet, no matter how many sheep were killed in the Islands. Martin, in his invaluable work, records an interesting superstition which he got, not only from natives of Lewis, but also from two people who had been in the Flannan Isles the previous year. Martin asked one of them if he prayed at home as fervently and as often as he did in the Flannan Isles and he confessed that he did not. He said that these remote islands were places of inherent sanctity; anyone landing there would find himself much more given to devotion there than anywhere else. The ancient classical writers refer to certain islands off the coast of Britain that were held in deep superstitious awe by the natives, and even today the Flannan Isles connote something mysterious and savouring of the Otherworld — the island home of the departed spirits, far in the western ocean. The Highlanders have always regarded certain days and certain seasons of the year as being particularly lucky or unlucky; this superstition likewise goes right back to the ancient Celtic world, when omens were read in order to determine whether a day was likely to be favourable or unfavourable to some activity or decision. The 14 May was widely held to be an unlucky day, and indeed the whole week in which 14 May fell was looked upon as being inauspicious. May and January were not favoured months; Friday was always an unlucky day for a wedding. Alexander Carmichael collected many incantations connected with calendar superstitions. Some of these are given in sections connected with other, specific traditions.

Fire was, as always, an essential element in evil-averting rites; as we have seen, to carry a burning brand deiseal (sunwise) round a house was believed to purify and protect it. This was performed in connection with women before they were kirked after childbirth; fire was also carried sunwise about children before they were baptised; the ritual was performed both in the morning and the evening. It persisted at least into Martin’s time, but he remarks that it was only performed by old midwives; as he deeply disapproved of this pagan custom, people may have been unwilling to be quite frank about its continuing practice. When he showed his scorn of it, and asked why it was performed, the people were seemingly much annoyed by his attitude and refused to answer him. One or two, however, told him that the fire-round was a powerful means of preserving the mother and child from the ever-present forces of evil sprites, always seeking to do harm to mankind, and to snatch away the unguarded infant. The fairies were notoriously dangerous in this respect; once they could steal a healthy human babe, they would replace it by a puny, skeletal child which did not thrive, but had a voracious appetite; it would eat up everything that came its way and yet remain gaunt and under-nourished. It was customary for people in Martin’s day, who believed that their babies had been abducted by the fairies, to dig a grave in the fields on Quarter-day (an important calendar day) and to put the changeling there overnight. In the morning they expected to go and find their own healthy child lying there in place of the fairy baby. There are many versions of the changeling legend. In Martin’s time, some people used to perform these rounds sunwise about welcome strangers or people who had done them some good turn; they went round them three times, blessed them, and wished them success in all their affairs. This custom was likewise by no means kindly looked upon by the ministers of the Church.

Another ancient and widely-used antidote for plague or murrain in cattle and people was the process known as making tein-eigin, ‘need-fire’. It was performed as follows: all the fires in the parish must be extinguished and then, according to Martin’s account, it was necessary for 81 married men to participate in order to make the ritual successful. Two great planks of wood were taken and nine men were employed in turn to rub the two planks together until the great heat generated eventually produced fire. From this ‘need’ or ‘forced’ fire, every family must make a new fire in their homes; as soon as this was blazing well, a cauldron of water (28) was placed on it, and this sacred liquid was then sprinkled over people or beasts infected with the plague. The people swore to the efficacy of this practice, and, like so many Highland customs, its origins clearly belong to the distant past, with profound pagan associations connected with the magic of fire ritual in general. Martin records that it was practised on the mainland, opposite the south of Skye, within 30 years of his writing — and when such deeply-rooted customs finally ceased to be carried out in remote glens and islands is still open to question.

28  Bronze cauldron, Kincardine Moss, Stirlingshire. R. Hingley 1998, 52

In the nineteenth century, Carmichael, in his invaluable collection of the ancient lore of Gaelic Scotland, gives posterity many further examples of portentous signs, and the ways in which they may be interpreted. Lucky signs were known as rathadach; unlucky omens were called rosadach. Carmichael notes that the sight of a man, especially one with brown hair, is a good omen; a man coming towards or looking at the seer is likewise an excellent sign. But a man going away from the seer is an extremely unfavourable omen. If a man is seen by the seer, standing, or an animal in the act of getting up, this means that a sick person is throwing off the disease. The reverse is indicative that the illness will continue. The sight of a woman is likewise regarded as fortunate, provided she does not have red hair; this is never lucky, any more than is left-handedness. Corrach means ‘left-handed’; it also means tricky, crooked, and, in fact, in its true sense, sinister. There is some confusion in this vast repertoire of lucky and unlucky omens; according to some, for a seer to observe a woman standing is a sign of good luck; in the opinion of others, the reverse is the case. If the seer observes a woman approaching he should cross himself. It is also a bad omen if a woman is seen to be going away; a woman with light red hair is a bad omen; a woman with dark red hair is even worse. An augurer, performing an augury, must quickly cross himself if he sees a woman with red hair.

Sacrifices of various kinds were, as we have seen, performed for various purposes and for certain calendar festivals. Dark hints of human sacrifice underlie many of these vestigial pagan feasts; and human sacrifice, sometimes on a grand scale, was very much a feature of universal pre-Christian Celtic practice. There are also traces of its persistence into a Christian milieu, and even today, the saying ‘Chaidh ùir air sùil Odhrain’, ‘Earth went over Odhran’s eye’, is widely heard in the Highlands and Islands, and people will readily explain the meaning of this statement. When Saint Columba, best-loved of all the Celtic saints, left Ireland in the sixth century, in order to go into permanent exile, virtually as an act of martyrdom, he chose the island of Iona, because it was impossible to see Ireland from it; it is also possible that it was a Druidic sanctuary which he proceeded to Christianise. A legend, of a widespread kind, is told concerning the saint’s efforts to erect the first building of his monastic community. No matter how soundly they were constructed, the walls, by the machinations of some evil spirit, collapsed as soon as they had been erected. Columba recognised that some propitiation was necessary and, on prayer, was told that the building would never remain standing unless a human foundation sacrifice was buried there alive (29). Lots were cast and Odhran was chosen; other versions of the legend say that he himself volunteered to be the victim. He was buried alive, and after three days, Columba was overcome with curiosity to find out how his follower fared, and ordered that he should be dug up. Odhran allegedly looked at the saint and said: ‘There is no wonder in death, and hell is not as it is reported’. The saint was horrified by this unChristian statement and had Odhran buried again with all haste.

Another version of the saying is ‘Uir! Uir! air beul Odhrain’, ‘Earth, earth, on Odhran’s mouth’. Some people who still know the legend say that the story was invented by Columba’s Druidic rivals in order to discredit the saint. Martin records that in his day it was traditional belief that Columba allowed no woman who was not a nun to stay on the island. Nearby is a small isle where all the tradesmen employed on the island had to keep their womenfolk, and for this reason it was known as the Island of Women. This seems to be an echo of the ancient pagan legend of small sacred islands which were entirely inhabited by women who were completely dedicated to the cult of some powerful deity; their rites often included human sacrifice, and no man must set foot on these islands. The women periodically left them in order to have sexual intercourse with men; it is probable that the male issue of such unions were sacrificed, while the females were reared to become future initiates in the cult. The classical writers refer to such places, and there are references to them in the early Irish tales.

Things to do and things not to do encompassed a large sphere of Highland life, for not only was daily life closely circumscribed by tabu and superstition; social intercourse and human contact were equally restricted and founded on ancient tradition. And even today this applies to some extent, especially to such matters as good manners and hospitality, for which the Celt has been renowned down the centuries, to the amazement even of the classical commentators on ancient Gaulish manners. Travellers have always been astonished at the unquestioning generosity of the Highlander to the stranger; the custom of always leaving a portion ‘for the man on the hill’, i.e. the chance guest, is widely observed. This was one of the many features of the Highland temperament that so amazed Dr Johnson on his tour. The stranger had only to arrive at even the poorest dwelling, to be given a portion of whatever happened to be available. For example, Boswell tells us:

29  Iona: St Oran’s Chapel, partly twelfth-century, the Abbey Church, restored in the fifteenth century, other restored buildings including the Nunnery, and Early Christian crosses. After J. Fisher 1983, 5-7

At Auchnasheal, we sat down on a green turf seat at the end of a house; they brought us out two wooden dishes of milk, which we tasted. One of them was frothed like a syllabub.

Again, at an inn in Glenelg:

This inn was furnished with not a single article that we could either eat or drink; but Mr Murchison, factor to the Laird of MacLeod in Glenelg, sent us a bottle of rum and some sugar, with a polite message, to acquaint us, that he was very sorry that he did not hear of us till we had passed his house, otherwise he should have insisted on our sleeping there that night; and that, if he were not obliged to set out for Inverness early next morning, he would have waited upon us. — Such extraordinary attention from this gentleman, to entire strangers, deserves the most honourable commemoration.

Martin records the welcome accorded by the natives of the remote island of Ronay told to him by Mr Morison, a visiting minister from the Outer Isles. One of the natives demonstrated his high regard for the visitor by making a turn about him sunwise, blessing him and wishing him all happiness. He wished to avoid this, to him, pagan welcome, but the natives insisted upon it. On the way to the village they passed three enclosures. As Morison entered each of these, the inhabitants all saluted him shouting ‘Traveller you are welcome here’. A house had been chosen for his lodging. There was a bundle of straw on the floor for the minister to sit on. After a short, general discourse the natives went back to their homes and each man killed a sheep; five in all were killed. There were only five families on the entire island. The skins of the sheep were kept whole and flayed from the neck to the tail so that they formed a sort of sack. The skins were then filled with barley meal and this was given to the minister as a gift. Morison’s servant was also presented with some bags of meal, as he was also a traveller. Such was the sacredness of the stranger and the traveller in the eyes of the Highlanders to whom hospitality was almost a religion.

Martin has some interesting information to give about the natives of Ronay. He testifies to their devoutness; every Sunday morning they met in the chapel to repeat the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed and Ten Commandments (having no resident minister to preach to them). Their houses were built of stone and thatched with straw; the thatch was secured by means of straw ropes, and these were weighted down with stones. The only language spoken was Gaelic, and the people dressed, apparently, like the natives of Lewis. All the people died off when some sailors landed on the island and stole the bull; without it their only source of produce was taken from them; a new colony was planted there later, but it is not recorded by Martin how this fared.

Another instance of the widespread tradition of hospitality in the Highlands is given by Martin when he says, of North Uist:

There was never an Inn here till of late, and now there is but one, which is not at all frequented, for eating, but only for drinking. The fine hospitality of the natives rendered an eating-house unnecessary.

Many elaborate daily customs are recorded by Martin and other writers, some of obvious extreme antiquity. He says, for example, that it was an ancient custom which was still in operation in his day, that when a group of men went into a house to do business, or to drink, the door of the house was left open and a rod was put across it; by this, it was understood that no person without rank may approach the house; if anyone should be ill-mannered enough to remove this rod and enter without invitation, he would cause serious affront to the company assembled within. Severe punishment was meted out to the offender by the gathering.

In Martin’s observations, as in those of writers on the Celts down the ages, orators always held an elevated place in society. Their houses and villages were regarded as sanctuaries and they had precedence even over medical doctors. Martin says that after the Druids had lost their authority the orators were employed to preserve the genealogies of the noble families — always an important Highland activity. These were recited on public occasions such as the succession of a chief, or his marriage or the birth of an heir. As in the distant past, anything requested by these orators was given to them, more out of fear of satire — a powerful and much-dreaded weapon — than out of respect. By Martin’s time, however, these people had lost their effective power and only received a pittance.

Cures, tabus, and social customs are all closely intermingled in Highland life; for example, on the island of Gigha it was considered unlucky to bury people on a Friday. On the other hand, only a Friday would be suitable for the performance of certain cures. The healing of màm (fàireagan na hachlais), swelling of the glands, must be undertaken on a Friday by certain gifted people, using specific methods. A magical incantation was apparently whispered over the blade of a knife or axe — steel was an essential ingredient in the cure — which was then held close to the mouth, and finally the blade was placed upon the swollen part. The swelling was then crossed and divided into nine or some other odd number; each time one of these divisions of the swelling was crossed with the steel, the blade was pointed towards a hill, the name of which began with màm and not the more usual ben. In this way the swelling of sickness was transferred to the natural swelling of the hill and this performance was believed to be an infallible cure. When the swelling had been divided up and counted in this way, the blade was pointed towards the ground and the following words were said: ‘The pain be in the ground and the affliction in the earth’. Martin records an interesting remedy for fever which was used in the island of Colonsay. A certain man, a member of whose family was ill with a fever, went to Martin to borrow his Bible so that he could fan the patient’s face with it; at once, the sick person began to improve. This was apparently a recognised method of healing the sick.

Martin records a tradition connected with the preservation of boundaries which is of considerable interest. In Skye, people laid a quantity of burnt wood ash on the ground, and over this they placed large stones. A somewhat barbarous means of making each new generation aware of where the traditional boundaries were situated was as follows. Some boys from the villages on either side of the boundary were carried there and soundly whipped so that they should never forget the place; this, when the time came, they themselves did to their own offspring. Martin mentions that a boundary between the villages of Ose and Groban was being disputed at one time; when the stones were lifted and ashes were found there, the controversy was decided.

Charms were widely used, not only for the protection of the stock, the dwelling and its inmates, but against specific mishaps, including drowning and death in battle. The following translation of a Gaelic charm collected from an old man in Mull, about 1800, is given by Campbell in his book on Witchcraft and is important enough to quote here in full:

For himself and for his goods,

The charm Bridget put round Dorgill’s daughter,

The charm Mary put round her Son,

Between her soles and her neck,

Between her breast and her knee,

Between her eye and her hair;

The sword of Michael be on thy side,

The shield of Michael on thy shoulder;

There is none between sky and earth

Can overcome the King of grace.

Edge will not cleave thee,

Sea will not drown thee,

Christ’s banners round thee,

Christ’s shadow over thee;

From thy crown to thy sole,

The charm of virtue covers thee.

You will go in the King’s name,

And come in your Commander’s name;

Thou belongest to God and all His powers.

I will make the charm on Monday,

In a narrow, sharp, thorny space;

Go, with the charm about thee,

And let no fear be on thee!

Thou wilt ascend the tops of cliffs,

And not be thrown backwards;

Thou art the calm Swan’s son in battle,

Thou wilt stand amid the slaughter;

Thou wilt run through five hundred,

And thy oppressor will be caught;

God’s charm be about thee!

People go with thee!

A smith in Mull was alleged to have got this charm from his father. He subsequently enlisted in the army and fought in some 30 battles. He came home unscathed; although he had in fact been struck by bullets, the charm rendered them powerless. This is only one example of many beliefs in the power of the sian, ‘charm’ against war.

Charms were also used for the cloth when it had been waulked, or shrunk. It was then neatly folded and laid on the table, and the waulking women gathered round and sang a charm over the material. As they sang, they lifted their hands together and beat the cloth, turning it over after each repetition of the charm.

Popular belief has it the oldest traditions in the Scottish Highlands are to be found in the islands and the coastal regions. This is not by any means always the case and sometimes truly archaic customs and ritual survive in more central areas which tend to be isolated from intrusive cultural elements by reason of their wild terrain and general inaccessibility. One of the most exciting of these is the region from Killin in central Perthshire, leading through Fortingall and on up the long, wild countryside which borders Loch Tay and towards the mountains beyond. Loch Lyon itself was greatly elongated by the development of hydroelectric power, and to reach the upper wilderness it is more convenient for those who have not too much time to spare to approach by road one of the most fascinating cult complexes of a pagan nature in the British Isles. I have described this site and the traditions associated with it in Druids (1999) and the reader will find more information there than I have space to include in this more general work. The whole glen, from Fortingall up towards Loch Lyon, bears convincing traces of its former importance in pre-Christian times. Many beliefs are associated with the ancient, circular, fortified dwellings the ruins of which stud the region. The church of Fortingall, which stands at the mouth of Glen Lyon, dominates a countryside which was once believed to be a popular hunting ground of the Irish semi-divine hero, Fionn MacCumhail, and many prehistoric circles of stones and other ancient features have still survived, to a greater or lesser extent, no doubt in a considerably aetiolated form. It is not surprising that a church should have been erected in such a position, and should have possessed one of the most ancient yew trees in the British Isles, which has been dated by recent dendrochronology to a thousand years BC. It was clearly an important bile (sacred tree) of a kind and species which played an important role in wider early European paganism and here would have been accredited with strong apotropaic powers. The hallowed nature of the site is emphasised by the presence on the gateposts of two huge, leonine stones (30), their weird shapes fashioned, not by human hands, but by the action of the turbulent, dark River Lyon, which flows nearby.

30  Water-worn stones on the gateposts at Fortingall Church. From a photograph by the author

One can hardly do other than envisage these remarkable ‘monuments’ as apotropaic features, especially as the gateposts of an estate opposite the church are similarly adorned, as are the gates of many properties in the glen and one is even sited emphatically as the very top stone of the war memorial. Testifying, perhaps, to the original and intense pagan associations of these features is the fact that a mound opposite the church, which is popularly explained as having been the place where the bodies of an earlier population decimated by plague had been piled and covered over with turves and stones. Another factor pointing to the stubborn persistence of pagan practices is the presence of names of features or structures which contain the ancient word nemed, nemeton (31), a sacred grove or a building in a sacred grove. This word is found widely throughout Celtic Europe. The glen itself was once rich in legends of giants and water monsters and supernatural creatures of every kind. Sadly, many of the stories about them have virtually been forgotten as the old people who treasured them have now died and so many of the remaining, younger generations have lost interest in the old ways of the countryside. However, in spite of all these inauspicious factors, several fascinating folk sites and legends have been preserved and a new awareness of their unique importance has caused many of the people to determine that what is left of their Celtic heritage will not be allowed to perish.

31  Map of the distribution of NEMETON- in Scotland:

1     Neave/Eilann Coomb — NC 6674, p250

2     Navidale — ND 0315, p250

3     Dalnavie etc — NH 6473, p249

4     Navity — NH 7767, p249

5     Glen Urquhart — c.NH 5030, p249

6     Nevie — NJ 2127, p249

7     Ben Newe, Strathdon — NJ 3814, p248

8     Navar — c.NO 5386, p247

9     Finavon — NO 4955, p250

10     Nevay — NO 3444, p247

11     Tynayere, Duneaves, Fortingall — NN 7346, p247

12     Craig Rossie — NN 8912, p248

13     Navity Hill — NT 1798, p247

14     near Dumbarton — c.NS 3585, p246

15     MEDIONEMETON — ? Cairnpapple NS 9871

? Bar Hill NS 7176, p246

Page numbers from Watson, W.J., 1926

Such organisations as the Killin Heritage Society have already taken steps to ensure that the sacred healing stones of St Fillan will be preserved for all time and this enthusiasm extends to many other ancient objects and monuments. It also takes account of the extraordinary site of Tigh na Cailliche, situated in the remote upper glen. This consists of a miniature dry-stone shrine, thatched with rushes, in which are housed three large water-worn stones which have been shaped into crudely anthropomorphic form. The largest of these is known as the Cailleach, ‘hag’, ‘old woman’, or ‘goddess’. The second largest is traditionally known as the Bodach, ‘old man’, ‘husband’. The third and smallest stone is the Nighean, ‘daughter’ or ‘girl’. The cult legend must have originally been more detailed than the one which was communicated to me by the shepherd, Bob Bissett, who was by tradition the guardian of the shrine and the stones and had full responsibility for carrying out the ritual associated with them. The site is studded with Cailleach names, which would seem to attest to the genuine antiquity of the cult. This would not be surprising, for there are many other Cailleach legends in the wider region of this part of the Highlands, and a belief that such goddesses are sometimes to be encountered in the wild hills round Loch Tay and in the locality of Ballachulish (32). Here, some years ago, a wicker shrine was uncovered, containing the carved wooden figure of a presumptive female deity which has now been dated to the very early Iron Age.

Many goddesses possessing cattle and other beasts and roaming the hills and mountains figure frequently in the surviving traditions of Britain and Ireland. One fearsome example is the dread Cailleach Bhéarra (sometimes anglicised to Vera) who could allegedly be seen swimming towards the western shores of Scotland from time to time, her ghastly appearance striking terror into the hearts of those who chanced to catch a glimpse of her. The goddess of Glen Lyon, however, does not seem to have been regarded as anything other than benign. Briefly, the fragments of her cult legend which have survived orally tell of an event which happened ‘many years ago’ when, in a fierce snowstorm, an unnaturally large man and woman were seen coming down the mountain-side of the upper glen. They asked the people who were still settled there, for hospitality and shelter. These were willingly given to them. This pleased the supernatural pair well and they took up residence in the glen when the inhabitants had built a thatched house large enough to accommodate them. The woman was pregnant and in due course gave birth to a daughter. The weather was always favourable when they dwelt there. The stock flourished and the crops were always of the best. Then one day the time came when they decided they must go. Before doing so, they promised that as long as they were remembered and their house kept in order, and everything done as they themselves had done it, they would bring it about that winters would be mild, the summers warm, and peace and prosperity would always be with the people who had been so generous to them. In memory of this event of long ago a small shrine in the form of the house was constructed and every May Day the three stones representing the three deities would be taken out of the house and placed facing down the glen, there they remained until the house was re-thatched and made warm and comfortable for the winter and they were returned to the miniature house on the eve of 1 November, Hallowe’en. When the upper glen was flooded and the people moved away, it became the shepherd’s duty to continue this ritual and this was faithfully carried out. It was thought that with the death of Bob Bissett the end of this archaic custom had come. It is therefore extremely heartening news to learn that the new shepherd has every intention of carrying out the ritual as it had been handed down for noone knows how long and it now seems to be assured, in view of local enthusiasm from Killin, that the tradition will survive for many years to come. There must have been countless legends of this kind in circulation widely in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland but few of them have had similar favourable circumstances in which to survive.

32  Wooden idol, Ballachulish, North Argyll. National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland

6 Life and death

Death has always been one of the main preoccupations of the Celt; this no doubt stems ultimately from the cult of graves, ancestor worship, and the belief that the burial mound was either one of the entrances to the Otherworld, or the place in which the departed continued his ghostly life, and must be propitiated with various rites and offerings. Even the practice of placing flowers on the graves of the departed must be an almost instinctive continuation of the widespread and archaic practice of honouring and placating the dead with offerings. Burial and everything associated with death has by no means always been a purely gloomy affair, and the social gathering and meal provided by the bereaved after the funeral is probably likewise a carry-over from the old funeral games and merry-making which were an integral part of Celtic burial traditions until comparatively recent times. Very often the fun got out of hand and bitter quarrels ending in blows were by no means uncommon phenomena. Funeral customs differed in the Highlands from area to area and according to the religion — Catholic or Protestant — of the people concerned. Belief in the ghost of the departed person was very strong, and, on occasion, the spirit could be positively dangerous to the living. In some districts it was believed that the soul stayed close to the corpse until after burial, so the body must be watched day and night. This custom was known as the ‘late wake’, and very unChristian activities could take place during this period of watching over the dead, and keeping guard on the restless spirit. All sorts of tricks were practised, games of leaping and wrestling were indulged in, riddles asked and answered, music known as the coronach or ‘lament’ was played, and the whole sad situation was treated with an almost callous revelry.

At the funeral of one of the lairds of Culloden the mourners were entertained so liberally before leaving Culloden House that when they did start for the Churchyard of Inverness they left the coffin behind! At another funeral a similar mistake occurred, and was only discovered when the party arrived at the churchyard and the sexton remarked, ‘It’s a grand funeral, but whaur’s Jean?’. It is told of an old woman in Glenmoriston, who lived half-way between St Columba’s Churchyard at the lower end of the glen and Clachan Mheircheird at the upper, that when her funeral came to the point at which the roads to those burial grounds parted, a discussion arose as to whether she should be buried in the upper or in the lower. The dispute led to a fight in which several persons were killed. The survivors then solved the question in dispute by burying the old lady where they had fought.

(William Mackay)

Pennant describes how, on the death of a Highlander, the body was stretched on a board, and covered with a coarse linen wrapper; the relatives of the deceased then placed a wooden platter on the breast of the corpse, containing a small quantity of salt and earth, not mixed together, but kept separate. The earth was symbolic of the corruptible body; the salt was the emblem of the indestructible spirit. All fire was extinguished in the room in which the corpse lay; in Pennant’s time it was regarded as such a bad omen for a cat or a dog to pass over the corpse that the poor creature must immediately be killed. Pennant also refers to the Late-Wake; he records that on the evening after the death of any person, the relations and friends of the deceased were in the habit of meeting at the house, accompanied by the music of bagpipe, harp (33) or fiddle. The nearest of kin — wife, son or daughter — would open a melancholy ball, dancing and at the same time weeping. This would continue until dawn. The younger people present treated the occasion with much more levity. Should the corpse remain unburied in the house for two days, the same rites would be observed on the second night. ‘Thus, Scythian-like, they rejoice at the deliverance of their friends out of this life of misery.’ Pennant also observes that the coranach, or singing at funerals, was still in use in his day in some places. These songs were generally eulogies of the deceased, or a recital of the valiant deeds he and his ancestors performed. Pennant comments:

I had not the fortune to be present at any in North Britain, but formerly assisted at one in the south of Ireland, where it was performed in the fullness of horror. The cries are called by the Irish the Ulogohne and Húllulu, two words extremely expressive of the sound uttered on these occasions and being of Celtic stock, Etymologists would swear to be the origin of the ὀλολνγών of the Greeks and Ululatus of the Latins. It was my fortune to arrive at a certain town in Kerry at the time that a person of some distinction departed this life; my curiosity led me to the house, where the funeral seemed conducted in the purest classical form . . . when the time approached for carrying the corpse out, the cry was re-doubled — a numerous band of females waiting in the outer court to attend the hearse and to pay (in chorus) the last tribute of their voices. The habit of this sorrowing train and the neglect of their persons, were admirably suited to the occasion: their robes were black and flowing, resembling the ancient palla; their feet naked, their hair long and dishevelled . . . the corpse was carried slowly along the verge of a most beautiful lake, the ululatus was continued, and the whole procession ended among the venerable ruins of an old abbey. But to return to North Britain. Midwives give new-born babes a small spoonful of earth and whisky as the first food they taste.

33  Harp, sixteenth-century. Said to have been given to a member of the Robertson family of Lude, Blair Atholl, Perthshire, by Queen Mary in 1563. After D.S. Thompson 1983, 118

In certain places, Pennant records, ‘the death of people is supposed to be foretold by the cries and shrieks of Benshi or the Fairies wife, uttered along the very path where the funeral is to pass; and what in Wales are called corps candles, are often imagined to appear and foretell mortality’.

Martin relates how the natives of the Island of Eigg did not allow Protestants to come to their burials. He also mentions some small chapels on the Island of Benbecula. One of these was called Nun’s Town (Baile nan Caillich), for there were nunneries here ‘in the time of popery’. Martin tells how the natives had recently discovered a stone vault on the east side of the town which was full of small bones. Some people would have it that they were the bones of birds, and others that they were the remains of pigmies. Sir Norman MacLeod was asked about them and he surmised that they were the bones of the illegitimate babies of the nuns. This greatly displeased the Catholics on the Island; the vault was promptly closed up, and never again opened. Martin, who records a good deal about death customs and burials in the Islands, tells us that the burial ground near the houses on the Island of Borera was called the Monks Field, because all the monks that died in the Islands to the north of Eigg were buried in this small piece of ground. Another Island, Lingay, lying half a league south on the side of Borera is, according to Martin’s observation, entirely moss covered with heather which afforded five peats in depth; even so, such was the sanctity of the Island down the ages in the eyes of the natives of the Islands that they dared not cut fuel in it, rich in peats though it was.

Shaw, in recording traditions from Moray in the eighteenth century, gives us some information about death customs in his day. Although, like so many collectors of folk belief, he was a minister of the Church, and therefore somewhat ashamed and censorious of the customs of his fellow-countrymen, he did write them down faithfully as he found them, at a time when they were fully active. The area with which he was particularly concerned extended from the mouth of the River Spey to the borders of Lochaber, and from the Moray Firth to the Grampian hills. It was commonly said in Moray at this time that at death one passed into the saoghal thall, ‘the Yonder World’; today, in modern Gaelic communities it is never said of a person who has died, bhàsaich e (bàs, ‘death’); this is reserved for animals. Of a human being people say chaochail e, ‘he changed’, or shiubhail e, ‘he travelled’, which is very similar to Shaw’s eighteenth-century observation. He says, somewhat sternly, of the Highlanders of his day: ‘they retain many heathenish practices’, which included music and dancing at lyke-wakes and burials; these sports were commonplace. The nearest relations of the deceased were apparently the first to dance. He also mentions the mourning women (bean tuirim) who were employed to chant the coranach, or lament, reciting the heroic deeds, the hunting prowess, the largesse and so on of the deceased, in true archaic Celtic fashion. Shaw also notes that it was commonplace in Moray in his day for people to make a sunwise (deiseal) procession round the church at marriages, funerals and the kirking of women, that is, their first visit to church after the birth of a child — before this they were held to be unclean.

It was also at one time widely believed that on the night of the day that a child was baptised, the baby should neither be bathed nor washed. This was to make sure that the evil-averting baptismal water was not washed off the child before it had slept under its protection. Very often the holy water used at the ceremony was bottled up and kept as a precious remedy for various disorders. Female children must not be baptised with the same water as that used for a male child, otherwise they would, according to popular superstition, grow beards. One minister recorded an experience he himself had when he was about to baptise a female baby with the water with which he had just baptised a male child. The grandmother apparently snatched away the baptismal bowl and filled it with fresh holy water, lest the girl should grow up and have a beard. In many districts it was considered to be unlucky if a child was not baptised within a year of its birth. Another ancient belief of the Highlanders was in the efficacy of a cold plunge and in earlier times in the Highlands as soon as the baby was born it was plunged into a running stream and then wrapped in a warm blanket. This is almost identical with the custom recorded by Strabo for Gaul where mothers of newly-born infants plunged them into the ice-cold waters of some river in order to make them strong and lusty.

A widespread Highland custom was to make the baby swallow a large quantity of fresh butter after birth. At this time, the power of the fairies was much feared and before baptism it must be protected against this dangerous race of beings, and other supernatural creatures. One method was to take a basket half-filled with bread and cheese, and wrapped in a clean linen cloth. The child was laid on top of this package as if it were in a cradle. The basket was then lifted up by the oldest female member of the family, carried three times round the fire, and then suspended for a few seconds above it. After that, the infant was put back in its cradle, and the bread and cheese shared out amongst those present as a guarantee of their health for the coming year. Another superstition recorded like those above by MacGregor early in the twentieth century was that soon after the birth of a child and after all the correct ritual had been observed, a dish containing a mixture of oat-meal and water was made, and each person present must take three horn-spoonfuls in order to bring protection on the infant. The custom was still vestigially extant in Perthshire when MacGregor wrote, and may, of course, have continued long after, unknown to the minister. There too, it was traditionally believed that, until she had been kirked, everything a new mother touched was unclean. Another protection given to the newly-born child, this time against worldly ills, was to twine a straw rope three times sunwise round the infant’s body when it was being washed, in the name of the Trinity. This rope was then cut into three parts and as long as these pieces did not re-unite, the child would be safe from the curse of epilepsy; Carmichael recorded this custom in the Islands.

Birth, marriage and death have always, in the Highlands, as elsewhere, been the vital foci of mankind, and it is natural that these three major experiences should attract much belief and superstitious practice. Sometimes, when experienced medical attention failed, folk remedies to facilitate a birth were used, apparently, on occasion, with dramatic results. Carmichael records one remarkable and well-authenticated instance of this, which occurred at Rosehall in Sutherland in 1908. The birth was attended by an experienced and reliable nurse; it was a very difficult one, and the nurse, who was alone, could do nothing further herself to assist the desperately ill mother, except wait for the arrival of the doctor. The girl was in a terrible state of pain and finally her mother resorted to a traditional remedy for a delayed birth. She filled a small basin with water, no doubt from some special holy well, and into this water she placed a number of rings and brooches of gold and silver; she then stirred them around in the water. The girl in labour was by this time on the point of death; her mother held the basin to her dying daughter’s lips and made her drink three mouthfuls of the water, each mouthful in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost — the three persons of the Trinity. Almost immediately afterwards the child was born. The doctor arrived shortly after, and the girl recovered. Although the baby was born before the doctor could reach the house, the birth was extremely easy. The nurse was completely baffled by this experience and had no idea what had made this strange process successful and had, in spite of herself, to believe that some strange occult power had been at work.

MacGregor notes a remarkable marriage custom which was practised in Easter Ross. Once the wedding festivities were over the couple must go to be kirked on the first Sunday after the marriage. If several weddings had taken place in the same week, things became very complicated. In this instance, when the sermon was over, the newly-wed couples, without waiting for the benediction, would rush from the church and make for home; the couple to reach home first would then be certain of a happy and prosperous life; those left behind were more likely to be the victims of misfortune.

Even until comparatively recently, a Highland wedding was an elaborate and lengthy affair. It could last for several days and much ritual attended it. There was a wedding feast consisting of cold mutton and fowl and all the usual dairy produce, scones, cheese, oatcakes and so on, contributed by all the neighbours; whisky was drunk and the couple were toasted by all. After the feast, a riotous dance ensued, and the bridal couple had to take the lead in the Wedding Reel. The festivities continued for most of the night and often for several days, and there was much sport and fun and ribald humour.

To return to the most serious of these three stages of man’s life, MacGregor records that in Ross-shire it was believed that the soul did not finally leave the body until the corpse had been laid in the grave — this was, in fact, a very widespread Highland belief. In Perthshire it was held that, at the moment of death, whether it be natural or the result of an accident, the soul could actually be seen leaving the body in the shape of a small insect such as a bee or a butterfly. This belief in the soul in animal form is very widespread and ancient, and like so much else goes back to the earliest Celtic traditions.

Martin records that in Bernera, Harris, there was a freshwater lake called Loch Bruist, in which there were small islets, rich in fowl of many species. In the Island of Taransay, there were two chapels, one dedicated to Saint Tarran and the other to Saint Keith. He mentions an ancient tradition amongst the natives that a man must not be buried in Saint Tarran’s nor a woman in Saint Keith’s — if this were to be done, the corpse would be found above the ground on the day following its interment.

Amongst the many fascinating death and burial traditions Martin notes is that of a grave found on the little Island of Ensay which lies between Bernera and the main land of Harris. He mentions an old chapel, and he says there was ‘lately discovered a grave in the west end of the island in which was found a pair of scales made of brass, and a little hammer, both of which were finely polished’. The burial of grave goods in Christian contexts is rare, and this unusual interment may thus have been of great antiquity.

The Highlanders had, and have, a deep, widespread belief in death warnings of all kinds — portents which indicated the imminent decease of some member of a family or community. These, quite naturally, always give rise to superstitious dread, and there is deep unease until the omen has been fulfilled. Certain clans and their septs, as well as individual families, had death warnings known to, and peculiar to, themselves. Immediately before the death, someone was certain to see or hear the eerie warning. Campbell, in his book on Witchcraft, gives several examples of these, and the superstition still continues in certain remote areas where the old beliefs die hard. Before a member of the Breadalbane family died, for instance, a bull would be heard at night roaring on the hillside. As the animal ascended the hillside, the noise grew fainter and finally died away altogether as the portentous animal passed over the top. A folk legend accounts for this manifestation: apparently the head of a bull was at one time brought in to a feast as a signal for the massacre of a number of MacGregors whom Breadalbane had asked to his castle as guests. A small bird — a common death portent — was the sign of the death of a member of the MacLachlan clan. Some families were warned of approaching bereavement by a strange whistling sound; others by a light which glowed like a candle. There were countless other variations on the basic theme — screaming, wailing, the sound of someone sobbing, and so on. These death warnings were quite distinct from ordinary earthly sounds or objects, and when they occurred the air became unnaturally cold — another common feature in connection with supernatural happenings. Sometimes before a nobleman was to die a light like a meteor could be seen in the sky (dreug); this would move from the house where the death was to occur and make its way to the place of burial. This was invariably the route to be taken by the funeral procession.

As mentioned above, a feature of death and burial was the employment of professional female mourners; such a woman was known in Gaelic as the bean tuirim, ‘the weeping woman’. Carmichael gives us some valuable information both about death customs in general and about this professional class of mourners. Apparently, in the island of Lismore, the place over which a funeral procession travels is regarded both as sacred, and as a right of way. In Barra a corpse was left unburied for 48 hours alone; in Uist it was retained in the house from three to five nights. The seis or seisig-bhàis, ‘death-wailing’, could be heard in the house in which the death had taken place. The tuiream, ‘lament’, was the mourning in the open air after the doleful funeral procession. Some pipers were renowned for their laments at funerals. Carmichael records that the word gul or gal was a term which was applied to this archaic custom of professional mourning. By 1904 it had become redundant in Scotland although it was still in vogue in Ireland, where it was called caoineadh, which became the well-known anglicised word ‘keening’. Carmichael was able to persuade an old Barra woman to demonstrate this almost lost art, and his description of the whole performance is most impressive. The occasion was that of the tragic burial of a young fisherman:

The scene was remarkable; below and right before us on its tidal rock stood the magnificent ruin of Ciosmal Castle, the ancient residence of MacNeil of Barra, and beyond this for twelve miles out to sea lay one behind another the isles of the Atlantic, usually wild and foamy, like lions at bay, this day peaceful and calm as lambs tired of play. The bean tuirim was tall and handsome, though somewhat gaunt and bony, with long features and long arms. At first she was reluctant to sing, but by degrees she came to use her voice to the full and the result was striking in the extreme. She and I carried the body as it was carried in simple fashion on three staves by a man at either end of each. The woman rehearsed the grief, the bitter grief, of the winsome young widow, the bitter cries of young helpless children, asking who would now bring them the corn from the breird, the meal from the mill, the fish from the sea and the birds from the rocks? Who indeed? No one now, since he was laid low. She then rehearsed the sorrows of the poor and the needy, the friendless and the aged whom he had been wont to help.

Carmichael’s record of this procedure provides an important description of this deeply-rooted and ancient tradition, which, in his day, had so very nearly been lost to posterity. In Tiree, the bean tuirim was still employed until the mid-nineteenth century. There was seemingly ill-feeling between the last keening woman there and one of her neighbours, Domhnall Ruadh, ‘Red Donald’. When she last met him alive she told him she would make him live for ever. He died soon after that — and she took her place at the head of the procession according to custom. She had, however, hidden a cat under her cloak, and at the end of each eulogistic and elegiac passage, the cat mewed loudly. All the young people present thought this was very amusing, but the older people were shocked at the crudeness of her malice towards the deceased. As a result, she was never asked to keen again, and the custom died out. In 1872 Carmichael collected the following tradition from Catherine Pearson of Barra; each township had its own midwife and mourning-woman. These essential members of the community were provided by the township with free grazing and fodder. They were protected in every possible way so that they were able to perform their vital duties whenever called upon. Carmichael then gives a variety of incidents and laments which are invaluable to those who are interested in the rich lore of Gaelic Scotland, now so rapidly disappearing.

7 The seasons and the archaism of calendar festivals

In the wild, isolated hills, glens and Islands of the Scottish Highlands, where man is utterly dependent on the seasons and the forces of nature, there flourished from earliest times a rich folklore connected with lucky and unlucky days and months, and rites and incantations to manipulate the ever-present hostile forces into benevolence rather than malevolence; to ensure good harvests from the land and the sea, healthy stock, and an abundance of all the produce upon which the simple lives of the Highlanders depended. The ancient seasonal festivals survive vestigially in some areas, while even a century ago they were still a vital part of the life of the community, an insurance against ill-luck and the ever-lurking powers of darkness. Although these calendar feasts were regarded as great social affairs, relieving for a brief spell the hardship and monotony of more or less subsistence living, they also had a fundamental religious connotation; at first pagan, and then Christian, subtly interwoven with archaic non-Christian rites. Labour too, of an everyday nature, required blessing and protection, and it is in this whole field of activity that some of the most unique and fascinating folklore and customs of the British Isles is to be found.

The very names for the quarters of the Celtic year are pre-Christian. Earrach, ‘Spring’; Samhradh, ‘Summer’; Foghara, ‘Harvest’; Geamhradh, ‘Winter’. And, in the main, the ancient pagan quarterly festivals, for purification and good fortune, have continued to be practised at the same calendar seasons, with the inclusion of Nollaig, ‘Christmas’, as a Christian feast, although the Bliadhna Ùr, ‘New Year’, has always taken precedence over Nollaig as far as festivities are concerned. As in the ancient Celtic world, in the Highlands night is reckoned as preceding the day, and periods of time are counted in terms of nights rather than days. The main calendar festivals are, then, as follows.

Oidhche Challuinn, ‘New Year’s Eve’

The eve of New Year’s Day was one of supreme importance in the Highlands and Islands of the West and took precedence even over Christmas. It was a time of much ceremony and gaiety, but underneath the levity lay a sinister hint of the old ritual and sacrificial nature of the festival. The Eve of New Year was known as Oidhche Challuinn, and New Year’s Day as Là Challuinn. First-footing is still carried out, as in other parts of the Highlands, although, as elsewhere, it is a dying custom. Up to the beginning of the twentieth century at least, the festivities of New Year’s Eve were fully in operation and boys went round the houses in every township carrying dried cow-hides and chanting special rhymes continuously. They beat the skins with sticks and struck the walls of the houses with clubs; this ritual was believed to have an apotropaic effect and to keep at bay fairies and evil spirits and hostile forces of every kind. Carmichael gives the following example of a Hogmanay rhyme:

Tonight is the hard night of Hogmanay,

I am come with a lamb to sell —

The old fellow yonder sternly said

He would strike my ear against a rock.

The woman, better of speech, said

That I should be let in;

For my food and for my drink,

A morsel due and something with it.

The young people used to travel in groups round their own townships. In different areas, different rites would be performed at each house, but some form of Duan Challuinn, ‘Hogmanay Poem’, would always be chanted. There were two types of visitation: in one instance the duan was recited outside the house and the chant described the ritual of approaching and entering it. Another duan was sung after the house had been entered, when the Caisean Calluig, ‘Hogmanay Hide’, was beaten. The basic form of the ritual was universal in spite of regional variants in detail and terminology. These old practices have virtually died out, but the ancient and pagan ritual discernible in them requires no comment. The boys who took part in these rites were known as gillean Callaig, ‘Hogmanay lads’, and the ceremony was performed at night. One of the boys was covered with the hide of a bull to which the horns and hooves were still attached. When they came to a house in some areas they climbed to the flat edge of the thatched roof and ran round it in a sunwise direction, the boy, or man, wearing the hide would shake the horns and hooves, and the others would strike at the bull-man with sticks. He was meant to be a frightening figure, and apparently the noise of this ritual beating and shaking of the hide was terrific. After this part of the ceremony was performed, the boys came down from the roof and recited their blatantly pagan chants; afterwards they were given hospitality in the house. The rhyme when the hide was in the process of being struck was as follows:

Hogmanay of the sack,

Hogmanay of the sack,

Strike the hide,

Strike the hide.

Hogmanay of the sack,

Hogmanay of the sack.

This ritual rhyme was, of course, chanted in Gaelic. Its very monotony imparted a certain eerie relentlessness to the ceremony. When it was finished, another carol or chant would be sung at the door of the house; this would praise — in anticipation — the generosity of the occupiers and would request entry and reward. In some areas the skin was singed by the man of the house, and the fumes it gave off were believed to have powers of purification, imparting health to all the family for the next 12 months. A New Year’s Blessing, widely used and having a number of variants, could also be heard both in the islands and the Gaelic mainland. Pennant records, for the Dingwall region of Easter Ross, that he was told in the locality that on New Year’s Day the people burned juniper before their cattle in order to protect them — another custom going back to Druidic times. He also learnt that on the first Monday of every quarter, the beasts were sprinkled with urine — a potent evil-averting substance. The houses were decorated with holly in order to keep out the fairies, always a troublesome race; it was believed that if a boy were whipped with a branch of this plant it was an assurance that he would live for as many years as the drops of blood drawn by the sharp holly — a painful way of ensuring longevity! Cheese, as we have seen, was believed to have magical properties, and was eaten on this occasion. A slice of it was preserved, and if this happened to have a hole through it, it was believed to have special virtues. This sacred slice was known as laomacha, and a person who had lost his way at any time during the ensuing 12 months had only to look through the hole in the slice and he would know where he was — this was especially valuable to one lost on the hill in mist. It was regarded as a very magical festival in every respect, and games of all kinds were played (34). Some of these were concerned with the endlessly fascinating desire to find out who one’s future husband or wife was destined to be. Sometimes the boys in the Hogmanay procession were preceded by a piper. No matter how long or short the chant was, some words at least must be recited. It was the tradition to keep the fire, which was usually ‘smoored’ or extinguished at night, alive all through New Year’s Night. Only a friend might approach the sacred blaze, and the candles were likewise kept burning in the house.

This custom gave rise to another name for the festival, Oidhche Choinnle, ‘Candlemas’. These various rites were performed in the belief that, by observing them, evil would be kept from the dwelling for the ensuing year. When the fire was being fuelled on this night, a special incantation was recited, but Campbell was unable to obtain an example of this. If the fire went out that night, it boded ill for the coming year, and no neighbour would provide kindling to light it on the following day. Ritual even accompanied the extinguishing or ‘smooring’ of the everyday fires; the putting out of the flames was called in Gaelic smàladh an teine. The main fuel used in the Highlands and Islands was, of course, peat; wood was scarce, and although much more coal is used today, peat is still burnt. The fire was not entirely extinguished but kept barely smouldering during the night. Until very recently the fire was in the centre of the floor of the so-called ‘black’ houses, and the embers were smoothed out evenly on the hearth; these were then covered over with large peats and ashes to prevent the fire from blazing up in the night, but to ensure easy kindling in the morning. The whole process was regarded with superstition, and was accompanied by many incantations. One incantation, taken down by Carmichael invokes:

34  Five of the ivory chessmen found at Vig, Isle of Lewis, in 1831. National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland

The Sacred Three

To save,

To shield,

To surround

The hearth,

The house,

The household,

This eve,

This night,

On this eve

This night,

And every night,

Each single night.

There are many variants of invocations for this important function of smooring the fire, all of a sacred nature, and going right back to the ancient pagan belief in the miraculous power of fire. The kindling in the morning, on which all domestic comfort depended, had its own repertoire of charms and incantations for blessing:

I will raise the hearth-fire

As Mary would.

The encirclement of Bride and of Mary

On the fire, and on the floor,

And on the household all.

Who are they on the bare floor?

John and Peter and Paul.

Who are they by my bed?

The lovely Bride and her Fosterling.

Who are those watching over my sleep ?

The fair loving Mary and her Lamb.

Who is that at the back of my head ?

The Son of Life without beginning, without time.

Deeply and sincerely Christian as these devout Highlanders were, they managed to keep the essence of the old religion in being by turning from the many pagan gods and goddesses — although, as we have seen, some of these were retained underneath a veneer of Christianity — to the many saints and angels, as well as the Virgin and the Trinity, thus continuing to surround themselves with divine protection, of a Christian kind, but according to the ancient pre-Christian formulae.

To return to the important festival of New Year, Campbell, in his Witchcraft, notes that Latha na Bliadhn’ Ùr, ‘New Year’s Day’, was also known as the Day of Little Christmas. After the family had got up in the morning, the head of the house gave a dram of whisky to each member of the household; then a strange custom followed in some areas; a breakfast was provided of half-boiled sowens (fermented porage) — austere fare for a festive occasion. This was supposed to bring luck to the household. Campbell does say that this tradition was not observed in Mull, Morvern or the Western Isles. Then each member of the family exchanged traditional greetings and did likewise with every person they met. The boys then went off to play shinty and meanwhile a late and luxurious breakfast was prepared. Apparently, no substance of any kind was allowed to be removed from the house on New Year’s Day — dirty water, sweepings from the floor, ashes and so on. If a neighbour’s fire had gone out one must not give fire from one’s own house to him; this was regarded as one of the most unlucky things that could be done. It would ensure a death within that family during the coming year; it also gave power to the black witches to take away the produce from the cattle. No woman should enter the house first on this portentous day.

Là Féill Bhríde, St Bride’s Day

This most important festival is of particular interest in that not only has an ancient Celtic calendar festival been taken over into Christianity, but a pagan goddess, Bride, or Brigit, has become a Christian saint, and in the Hebrides is held to be the midwife of the Virgin Mary. St Bride’s feast-day is on 1 February, the time of one of the four great calendar festivals of the pagan Celtic year, Imbolc, a pastoral feast to celebrate lactation of the ewes, which began at that time. Bride was deeply loved in the Highlands, and until the nineteenth century very elaborate ritual was associated with her special day. In origin, the daughter of the Irish god, the Dagda (Deagh Dia, ‘Good god’), and envisaged, like so many Celtic deities in triple form, she was also venerated in Celtic Europe, and gave her name in the form Brigantia, ‘the High One’, to the powerful confederacy of Celtic tribes in North Britain, the Brigantes, ‘Devotees of Brigantia’. It is clear that she was a very important Celtic deity. She was taken over into Christianity as St Brigit of Kildare, and her association with the land and the stock is always stressed in the earliest written references. A perpetual fire was kept burning in her honour at Kildare, constantly attended by nine Virgins. As the midwife of the supreme birth, she was much invoked in the Highlands by women in child-bed who sought her assistance in an easy and safe delivery. Very complex and elaborate ceremonies took place on 1 February. Carmichael records that at one time, in the Catholic islands, the genealogy or sloinntearachd — always a passion amongst the Celts — of Bride was recited; it was chanted, and believed to be helpful in a variety of situations. Hymns were also sung to the goddess-saint on her feast day, but even in Carmichael’s time, there were only fragmentary folk memories of them extant. The day was known in Gaelic as Là Féill Bhrìde, ‘St Brigit’s Feast Day’.

A legend was current in the Hebrides as to how the saint delivered Christ in the stable in Bethlehem; immediately after his birth she placed three drops of spring water on his brow, in the name of the Trinity. For this reason, people used to say, she is called Muime Chriosda, ‘the Foster-mother of Christ’. He in his turn was known as Dalta Brìde ‘the Foster-Son of Bride’. This is an extremely important relationship in the Highlands, the tradition of fosterage being deeply rooted in Celtic traditions from earliest times, and the bond between foster-mother and foster-son being almost closer than that of parent and child. Carmichael, who made an invaluable contribution to our knowledge of Highland folklore and custom when he collected these vestigial remains of a once-elaborate ritual, records that when a woman was in labour, the midwife would go to her door, place her hands on the jambs, and beg Bride to enter by saying:

Bride! Bride! come in,

Thy welcome is truly made,

Give thou relief to the woman.

And give the conception to the Trinity.

An easy birth was believed to indicate that the saint was well-disposed towards the family; a difficult delivery suggested the opposite. The midwife placed three drops of pure water on the new-born infant’s brow, just as Bride is alleged to have done to the baby Christ.

Diardaoin Chaluim-Chille, ‘St Columba’s Day’

In discussing Highland Calendar Festivals, we have seen that Pennant mentions how on the first Monday of every quarter the people in the Conon region used to sprinkle their cattle with urine — urine being widely believed to have strong apotropaic powers. He then goes on to mention that ‘in some parts of the country there is a rural sacrifice, different from that before-mentioned’. He observed that a cross was cut on some sticks, which were then dipped in pottage; the Thursday before Easter one of each of these was placed over the sheep-cot, the stable, or the cow-house, to protect the stock. Maundy Thursday was, of course, St Columba’s Day — Diardaoin Chaluim-Chille, one of the best-loved of the Highland saints. The Day was observed in a variety of different ways throughout the Highlands. It was looked upon as a lucky day for all activities, including setting out on a journey. On the eve of St Columba’s Day, the woman of the house used to make a bannock of oats or rye and she would place a small silver coin in this. The cake was then toasted in front of a fire which had been kindled from one of the sacred woods — oak, yew, or rowan. On Maundy Thursday the head of the house would take the cake and cut it into as many pieces as there were children in the family, all of the same size. These were placed in a basket and each child helped himself to a piece; the child who got the coin was given the crop of lambs for the year, or at least part of them. In coastal regions a very pagan practice occurred; offerings were made to some now obscure sea-god. This strange custom persisted down into the twentieth century. In Lewis, for example, the god was called Shony, a corruption no doubt of some ancient pagan divine name. A man would wade up to his waist in the sea and pour ale into it at midnight on the Eve of Maundy Thursday; various chants are known, and one recorded by Carmichael is as follows:

O God of the sea,

Put weed in the drawing wave

To enrich the ground,

To shower on us food.

Everyone behind the man performing this ritual took up the chant; often the ceremony would be followed by food and drink and merry-making. The patently pagan custom was seriously frowned on by the Protestant Church, but persisted nevertheless. Thursday, because of its associations with St Columba, was always regarded as a lucky day, except, apparently, when Beltain fell on a Thursday. The following incantation used to be said on St Columba’s Day:

Thursday of Columba benign,

Day to send sheep on prosperity,

Day to send cow on calf,

Day to put the web in the warp.

Day to put coracle on the brine,

Day to place the staff to the flag,

Day to bear, day to die,

Day to hunt the heights.

Day to put horses in harness,

Day to send herds to pasture,

Day to make prayer efficacious,

Day of my beloved, the Thursday,

Day of my beloved, the Thursday.

Di-Dòmhnaich-Càisg, ‘Easter’

Easter Sunday was observed in the Highlands by preparing and eating certain kinds of pancakes made of eggs, milk and meal or flour. The tradition of taking quantities of hard-boiled eggs dyed in various substances was also prevalent amongst the young; these were rolled and then eaten; this custom persists in many places to the present day. Good Friday was also observed, and in many areas the sanctity of this day was remembered throughout the year. For example, the time of the marking of the lambs was once thought to be fraught with potential evil and danger. Invocations and special rites were widely regarded as being necessary to avoid disaster. The marking was traditionally done on a Thursday, St Columba’s Day. It was customary never to mark the lambs on a Friday, or to draw blood on that day. Carmichael records that the Highlanders tended never to use iron in any form on Friday. A blacksmith in Benbecula, and a Protestant not a Catholic, would, according to Carmichael, never open his smithy on a Friday. He used to say, apparently, that ‘that was the least he could do to honour his Master’. The pieces cut from the lambs’ ears were carefully buried beyond reach of bird or beast. It was believed that a certain plant grew from them, which was known as gearradh-chluasach; when this plant is ripe, it is cut, tied up in a bunch and hung from the beam above the door of the lamb cot. This custom still persisted until Carmichael’s time.

Là Beltain, ‘May Day’

Beltain was one of the most ancient calendar festivals of the Celtic year. It was sacred to the god Belinus, whose cult orbit stretched from the Italic Peninsula, across Europe and into the British Isles. The great Catuvellaunian leader in southern Britain, whose reign lasted some 40 years and ended shortly before the Claudian invasion in AD 43, bore the name of Cunobelinus — Hound of Belinus (35), and there is evidence that the mythological king in the story of Lludd and Llefelys in the Mabinogion, Beli Mawr, is a folk memory of this mighty god. His festival was held on 1 May, and the vestigial remains of it lasted into the twentieth century in the Highlands with all the essential elements of the pagan feast, modified, of course, by the dictates of Christianity. It was a great period of purification; at this time the Druids, the powerful pagan Celtic priests, used to drive the cattle between two fires, specially kindled, and made of sacred wood, to protect them from disease and the powers of darkness. Human sacrifice and offerings were made, and the ritual would be followed by rejoicing and festivities of all kinds. In recent centuries the sacrifices were replaced by token offerings.

Pennant says of the Conon region near Dingwall, that the sticks placed on the Thursday before Easter over the sheep-cot, the stable or the cow-house were, in his day, carried to the hill on 1 May where the rites were celebrated, all decked with wild flowers, and after the feast was finished, they were replaced on the places from which they had been taken; these sticks were known as Clou-an-Beltain or the split branch of the fire of the rock. He goes on to say: ‘These follies are now seldom practised, and that with the utmost secrecy; for the Clergy are indefatigable in discouraging every species of superstition’. But in spite of the very considerable power of the Church, the power of time-honoured tradition proved stronger, and these practices persisted into the twentieth century, publicly, or covertly. Shaw, commenting on Moray traditions from the eighteenth century, says that on May Day sacrifices were offered for the preservation of the cattle; the minister stated that, as a boy, he had been present at these.

Alexander Carmichael has, as always, much important information to give us which he recorded at a time when these pagan ceremonies were still practised to a certain extent, or when those who had taken part in them before they became redundant, were able to give him first-hand information about the details. The first day of May was the day when the summer grazings (àiridhean, ‘shielings’) began, and there is a whole world of folklore connected with the shielings alone. The cattle were taken to the hill, together with the sheep and goats; the women and children lived in small bothies and herded the beasts and saw to the dairy produce, and from time to time the men visited them, and there were stories told and songs sung, and the youths courted the girls, and this season was looked upon as the happiest and best of the entire year. After the huts had been repaired a lamb was killed; this was originally a sacrifice, but in Carmichael’s time it was simply eaten as part of the feast at the beginning of the summer grazings at Beltain. The shielings lasted in Lewis and some other places in the West until well into the twentieth century, but the custom, like so many others, has died out. Like everything else in the Celtic world, each activity must be hallowed by ritual; so the Driving of the Cows was sung or incanted for the protection of the beasts on the long journey. Another splendid and heroic mixture of paganism and Christianity is to be found in the incantation An Saodachadh, ‘The Driving’:

35  Coins of CUNOBELINUS. A. Ross 1967, 30, figs 50b-c

The protection of Odhran the dun be yours,

The protection of Brigit the Nurse be yours,

The protection of Mary the Virgin be yours

In marshes and in rocky ground,

In marshes and in rocky ground.

The keeping of Ciaran the swart be yours,

The keeping of Brianan the yellow be yours,

The keeping of Diarmaid the brown be yours,

A-sauntering the meadows,

A-sauntering the meadows.

The safeguard of Fionn mac Cumhall be yours,

The safeguard of Cormac the shapely be yours,

The safeguard of Conn and Cumhall be yours

From wolf and from bird-flock

From wolf and from bird-flock.

The sanctuary of Colum Cille be yours,

The sanctuary of Maol Ruibhe be yours,

The sanctuary of the milking maid be yours,

To seek you and search for you,

To seek you and search for you.

The encircling of Maol Odhrain be yours,

The encircling of Maol Oighe be yours,

The encircling of Maol Domhnaich be yours,

To protect you and to herd you,

To protect you and to herd you.

The shield of the king of the Fiann be yours

The shield of the king of the sun be yours

The shield of the king of the stars be yours

In jeopardy and distress,

In jeopardy and distress.

The sheltering of the king of kings be yours,

The sheltering of Jesus Christ be yours,

The sheltering of the Spirit of healing be yours,

From evil deed and quarrel,

From evil dog and red dog [fox].

In this incantation for the protection of the stock we have, once again, a marvellous blend of pagan characters and Christian saints; a faith in the elements which were much sworn on by the Celts in ancient times, and continued to be invoked with equal fervour in a Christian milieu. Perhaps, in these incantations, recorded for posterity just in time by the devoted labours of Alexander Carmichael, one can achieve the most profound understanding of the true and abiding nature of the Celtic psyche and cultural individuality. Just as the new-born child, or the infant, helpless in its cradle, had need of every charm and blessing, so must the stock be kept from physical and supernatural danger by incantation and ritual. Nothing must be overlooked, nothing left open to the evil forces that constantly lay in wait to destroy the progeny, the stock, the unwary traveller, the labouring mother.

Là Beltain, May Day, was then a most important calendar festival until the end of the nineteenth century. Fires were kindled that day on the mountain tops and all the cattle of the countryside were driven through them to preserve them until next May Day. On this day, all the hearth-fires were extinguished, in order to be kindled from the purifying flame from the sacred fire. In the past, the young people went out to the moors on this day, made a fire, baked a large cake, and this was cut into as many pieces as were people present. One of the pieces was daubed with charcoal and made quite black. Then all the pieces of cake were put into a bonnet, and all the men, who were blindfolded, drew out a piece. The man who selected the blackened piece was doomed to be sacrificed to Belinus; in order to avoid sacrifice. which would, of course, have taken place in pagan times, the victim had to leap six times over the flames. The writer heard of such festivities which still took place in Glen Lyon within living memory.

Lughnasa

Lugh was one of the most widespread and powerful gods both on the Continent and in the British Isles. Several towns are named after him and at Lugudunum (Lyon) an important festival was celebrated on 1 August in honour of the Emperor Augustus and it seems beyond question that this feast replaced one in honour of the native god, whose special day was 1 August. It goes back, then, to pre-Roman times and survived vestigially into the twentieth century. The Christian Church does not seem to have opposed this festival which was held to mark the beginning of the harvest. The feast is, of course, named after the pan-Celtic god, and Cormac in his ninth-century glossary makes the following comments: ‘Lughnasa, i.e. the násad of Lugh son of Ethle, i.e. an assembly held by him at the beginning of harvest each year at the time of Lughnasa’.

Násad means ‘games’, or ‘assembly’; in the Celtic world, the two were synonymous. In modern times, the festival has been called by a variety of different names, masking its pagan connotation, but it is clear that it is the ancient feast which was deeply-embedded in the lives of the people whose well-being depended upon the nature and quality of the year’s crops. Originally connected with the corn, it was extended to the potato-harvest as well, when potatoes became the staple diet of the people in Ireland and Scotland. An early Irish tradition has it that Lugh established the festival in honour of his foster-mother, Tailtiu. It was a time of much joy, because the people in the Highlands and Islands were very short of food before the harvest, and it was essentially a joyous feast, with plenty of good things and treats for all.

Once again, we must look to Carmichael for information in the Highlands and Islands about this festival:

The day the people began to reap the corn was a day of commotion and ceremonial in the townland. The whole family repaired to the field dressed in their best attire to hail the God of the harvest. Laying his bonnet on the ground, the father of the family took up his sickle, and facing the sun, he cut a handful of corn. Putting the handful of corn three times sunwise round his head, the man raised the Iolach Buana, ‘reaping salutation’. The whole family took up the strain and praised the God of the harvest, who gave them corn and bread, food and flocks, wool and clothing, health and strength, and peace and plenty. When the reaping was finished the people had a trial called cur nan corran, casting the sickles, and deuchainn chorran, ‘trial of hooks’. This consisted, amongst other things, of throwing the sickles high up in the air, and observing how they came down, how each struck the earth, and how it lay on the ground. From these observations the people augured who was to remain single, and who was to be married, who was to be sick and who was to die, before the next reaping came round.

Carmichael recorded a reaping blessing which contains the memory of the agricultural and pagan aspects of the festival.

On Tuesday of the feast at the rise of the sun,

And the back of the ear of corn to the east,

I will go forth with my sickle under my arm,

And I will reap the cut the first act.

I will let my sickle down,

While the fruitful ear is in my grasp,

I will raise mine eye upwards,

I will turn me on my heel quickly.

Rightway as travels the sun,

From the direction of the east to the west,

From the direction of the north with motion slow,

To the very core of the direction of the south.

I will give thanks to the king of grace,

For the growing crops of the ground,

He will give food to ourselves and to the flocks

According as He disposeth to us.

The Scottish Lughnasa tradition differed from the Irish and took place on St Michael’s Day, 29 September; this would seem to strengthen T.C. Lethbridge’s equation of the Christian saint, Michael, with the pagan god, Lugh. This later date is made clear in another incantation recorded by Carmichael:

The Feast Day of Michael, day beneficent,

I will put my sickle round about

The root of my corn as was wont;

I will lift the first cut quickly,

I will put it three times round

My head, saying my rune the while,

My back to the direction of the north,

My face to the fair sun of power.

I will throw the handful far from me

I will close my two eyes twice,

Should it fall in one bunch

My stacks will be productive and lasting,

No Carlin will come with bad times

To ask a palm bannock from us,

What time rough storms come with frowns

Nor stint nor hardship shall be on us.

Là Féill Moire, ‘Feast of St Mary’

Another important day in the Celtic calendar year which was still celebrated in Carmichael’s time was Là Féill Moire. This took place on 15 August, not long after the traditional Lughnasa feast, which it may have supplanted. Carmichael describes it as follows:

The Feast Day of Mary the Great is the 15th of August. Early in the morning of this day the people go into their fields and pluck ears of corn, generally bere, to make the ‘Moilean Moire’. These ears are laid on a rock exposed to the sun, to dry. When dry, they are husked in the hand, winnowed in a fan, ground in a quern, kneaded on a sheep-skin, and formed into a bannock, which is called ‘Moilean Moire’, ‘the fatling of Mary’. The bannock is toasted before a fire of rowans or some other sacred wood. Then the husbandman breaks the bannock and gives a bit to his wife and to each of his children, in order according to their ages, and the family raise the ‘Iolach Mhoire Mháthair’ ‘The Paean of Mary Mother’ who promised to shield them, and who did and will shield them from scath [harm] till the day of death. While singing thus, the family walk sunwise round the fire, the father leading, the mother following, and the children following according to age. After going round the fire, the man puts the embers of the fagot-fire, with bits of old iron, into a pot, which he carries sunwise round the outside of his house, sometimes round his steadings and his fields, and his flocks gathered in for the purpose. He is followed without as within by his household, all singing the praise of Mary Mother the while. The scene is striking and picturesque, the family being arrayed in their brightest and singing their best.

Máire MacNeill, in her brilliant book The Festival of Lughnasa, deals mainly with the Irish evidence; she rightly comments, of the Scottish surviving traditions, on the gravity and formality with which they were performed, in contrast to the ‘rustic high spirits’ of the Irish assemblies.

The end of the harvest was also marked by feasting and dancing and celebrations of all kinds. There are still many traditions extant about the cutting of the Corn Dolly or Maiden, ‘A’ Mhaighdean’ as the last sheaf was widely named in the Highlands. It is still done in parts of the Highlands, and the writer has been in farmhouses in central Perthshire where the Maiden occupies a prominent place in the kitchen, waiting for the first day of ploughing, when it is traditionally given to the horses. In this mechanised age, the cows often get the Corn Dolly instead. This custom was once widespread in Britain; the last sheaf was regarded as a symbol of good luck and treated with great respect and honour. Sometimes it was placed in the local Church; at other times it decorated the farmer’s house. Now that the conviviality and communal spirit of the harvest field have given way to the solitary efficiency of mechanical harvesters it is a custom that has almost died out as a spontaneous folk practice. In the Highlands, apart from the few places where the tradition survives vestigially, details can still be obtained from the local people about what really went on when the custom was universal. Even in the small area of Loch Tayside and the Carse of Dull in Perthshire, the custom varied from farm to farm. And over the entire Highland area there were marked variations in practice. One important detail was in the identity of the person who was to actually scythe the Maiden. In Rannoch, it was the youngest person on the harvest-field who cut the last sheaf; this could be either a girl or a boy. The writer met one man who remembers cutting it as a boy on Loch Tayside, and the great honour that was accorded to him on that occasion. No doubt in pagan times, a maiden was actually sacrificed after being decked and carried round the fields, and her blood would be a means of ensuring a successful harvest in the following year. This custom is ancient, and in Gaul the image of a goddess used to be carried round the fields with great ritual and solemnity.

In Strathtay it was the farmer himself who cut the Maiden and this tradition continued into recent times, but it was not followed by any special celebration; in Glenlochay, it was likewise the farmer who cut the last sheaf. Near Kenmore, Perthshire, the Maiden was given to the horses when the first load of the next year’s harvest was brought in. A native of Glen Lyon remembers how universal this practice was when she was a girl. She still carries it on in her own farm, and the Maiden is given to the horses on the first day of ploughing. In Glen Lyon the last sheaf was called A’ Mhaighdean and dressed like a young girl if the harvest was a good one; if bad, it was called the Cailleach, ‘Hag’, and dressed up like an old woman. This is the typical Celtic concept of the duality of the goddess — young, beautiful, favourable to mankind, or old, hideous, and hostile. In Skye, Harris and in Kintail one of the names for the last sheaf was the Gobhar Bhacach, ‘Lame Goat’; it is interesting to note that at Saint Gall (Switzerland) the last sheaf was known as the ‘Crooked Goat’. In the Hebrides and other areas, the last sheaf had rather sinister connotations. It was used as a dire insult to the man who was last in cutting his corn. This could result in actual physical violence and bloodshed, and would seem to be reminiscent of some ancient ritual connected with harvest sacrifice, for which there is plenty of evidence in the pagan Celtic world, as we have noted above. A man who had cut his own Cailleach or Gobhar Bhacach could throw it into the field of a farmer who was still working on his grain. It was considered very unlucky to be the last person in the community to finish the harvest. Anyone receiving the last sheaf in this manner regarded it as a very bad omen, because it was widely believed that he would have to support an actual Cailleach throughout the winter. There are accounts dating to the nineteenth century of the violence done to those who were caught by a farmer throwing the last sheaf onto his land; in one instance the messenger was ‘caught, stripped, clipped, and sent home naked’. This was one of the lighter penalties for such an act. One cannot wonder at this because it was firmly believed that:

Loss of cattle, loss on account of death and accident

Will befall the luckless one of the Gobhar Bhacach.

As a result of this belief, no one wanted to be last with his corn-cutting and there was tremendous activity in order to complete the work in good time. It was customary in the Hebrides to bind up the straw, the last sheaf of corn cut on the field and to fashion it into the likeness of a woman with dock leaves, stalks of ragwort and all tied into shape with many-coloured threads. In Argyll, Uist, parts of Perthshire, etc., this was known as the Cailleach, as we have seen. A special ritual was observed when someone wanted to insult a neighbour by throwing the Cailleach or Maiden into his field; usually, a young man hastily mounted his horse and galloped at full speed past the uncut field of his neighbour, pretending he was going somewhere else; he would then fling the Cailleach into the field as he passed. The punishments varied as we have seen, if the offender was caught, and one of these was known as bearradh eòin is amadain air, ‘a clipping of bird and of a fool on him’; this meant the shaving off of the culprit’s beard and hair. People felt so strongly about this insult and the hazards it would bring to the household that a crofter would seemingly prefer to see his best cow drop dead than have the Cailleach thrown into his fields.

Là Féill Bharr, ‘Feast of St Barr’

Martin Martin records that all the inhabitants of Barra observed the Festival of St Barr, the patron saint of the island on 27 September. It was their custom to ride on horseback, and this ritual ride was concluded by riding three times round St Barr’s Church. Martin tells how a foreign priest happened to arrive on the Island while this festival was in progress. The inhabitants immediately asked him to preach a commemoration service in honour of their patron, St Barr, according to ancient custom. The priest had never even heard of St Barr ‘and knowing nothing of his virtues could say nothing in his praise’. He did, however, offer to preach about St Paul or St Peter; this greatly upset the natives. They said he could not be a true priest if he had not heard of St Barr for the Pope himself was aware of him. Priest and people parted with mutual ill-feeling. They also had another cavalcade on St Michael’s Day, two days later. All strangers, together with the family must eat bread that night, according to Martin.

St Michael’s Day

Michael was an immensely popular Highland saint, and was indeed invoked widely throughout the Celtic world. As we have seen, he would appear to have taken over the rôle of some earlier pagan protector, as was so often the case. Michael was indeed spoken of as ‘the god Michael’ right down to Carmichael’s time, and brian Michael. An incantation, recorded again by Carmichael, in honour of the saint, makes a frank equation between him and his pagan predecessor.

You were the warrior of courage

Going on the journey of prophecy,

You would not travel on a cripple,

You did take the steed of the god Michael,

He was without bit in his mouth,

You did ride him on the wing,

You did leap over the knowledge of nature.

These lines would not have been out of place in any description of a typical Celtic deity riding his unbridled horse fearlessly through the skies, or over the seas.

This feast, which must have a great antiquity in the Highlands, is frequently referred to by Martin Martin. Of Lewis, he says that all the inhabitants were Protestant, apart from one Catholic family; at Michaelmas they had a cavalcade and both sexes rode on horseback. There was a cavalcade on the Island of Coll on St Michael’s Day. He gives a dramatic account of some riders he encountered when he came from South Uist. He saw some 60 men riding along the sands, directing their course for the east sea ‘and being between me and the sun, they made a great figure on the plain sands; we discovered them to be natives of South Uist for they alighted from their horses and went to gather cockles in the sands which are exceedingly plentiful there’. He states that there was a general cavalcade there on All Saints Day; the people baked the St Michael’s Cake at night, and the family and any strangers present ate it together at supper. Of Hirt (St Kilda) Martin records that on the Festival of All Saints the natives baked a large cake in the form of a triangle, furrowed round, and it must all be eaten that night. The people were extremely hospitable to strangers. There were 18 horses on the Island in Martin’s time; the inhabitants used to ride them at the Anniversary Cavalcade of All Saints; this feast they never failed to observe. They used to begin at the shore and ride as far as the houses. The only harness used was a straw rope to control the horse’s head. Of Harris, Martin says the people observed St Michael’s Day (all the inhabitants were Protestant) when they came together on horseback and made their cavalcade on the sands at low water.

Martin has some interesting details about St Michael’s Day customs in North Uist as he himself witnessed them. He says that the natives were much given to horse-riding, and they kept St Michael’s Day, both sexes then riding on horseback. The meeting-place was a large stretch of firm sand on the shore, and there they held horse races for small prizes, and these were eagerly sought after. He mentions an ancient custom whereby it was considered to be lawful for any of the inhabitants to steal his neighbour’s horse the night before the race and ride him all next day, provided he deliver him safe to the owner after the race. He describes the manner of racing; a race consisted of a few young men using neither saddles nor bridles, only two small ropes made of bent in place of a bridle; they had no spurs, using only their bare heels. And when they began the race, they threw these ropes on their horses’ necks and drove them vigorously with a piece of long seaware in each hand instead of a whip. This had been dried in the sun for several months before the Festival. As the people only met together on Sundays, such calendar festivals were regarded as times of great relaxation and joy. The men used to ride with their sweethearts behind them on horseback and gave each other presents. The men traditionally gave the women knives and purses; the women gave the men a pair of fine carrots.

Carmichael, as always, has invaluable details to add to our knowledge of this much-loved saint and his festival. Michael was the patron saint of the sea, various islands off the coasts of Britain, and Mont-Saint-Michel in Brittany, further testify to the connection of the saint both with eminences and the sea. He was also the patron saint of coastal districts, boats, horses and horsemen — hence the emphasis on horse-racing at his feast. Horse-racing was likewise a main feature of the ancient pagan Lughnasa Festival in Ireland, this perhaps strengthening the link between the god Lugh and the ‘god’ Michael. Temples were dedicated to him on the coasts in the Celtic countries; the late T.C. Lethbridge noted the close connection between Iron Age hillforts and dedications to Michael. Thus the Festival of St Michael on 29 September was, perhaps, one of the most blatantly pagan feasts of the Christian calendar, although the old faith was never far beneath the surface of any. On St Michael’s Eve, carrots were brought in, a special bannock called the struan was baked, lambs were sacrificed, and horses were stolen. On the Day there was a special early Mass, and the lamb and the cake were distributed; then there was a pilgrimage to the local burial-ground in honour of the ancestors — also an ancient pagan practice, worship of the ancestors and propitiation of the dead. There was a service at the burial-ground and a circuit of the churchyard was made. Carrots were then exchanged, and wishes were made during this act. The oda took place when horses were raced and athletic sports were indulged in. The Festival, in fact, much resembled the Old Irish descriptions of the feasts held under the aegis of the god and king. With night came revelry and merry-making of every kind. It was regarded as an auspicious time for lovemaking and betrothal. One person was appointed to guard the crops on St Michael’s Day and to make a circuit of the township on St Michael’s Night. Some days before the Festival, the women and girls gathered wild carrots. This was usually on the afternoon of the Sunday before the Feast and it was called Dòmhnach Curran, ‘Carrot Sunday’. If the soil was moist the carrots could be pulled out easily. If not, a special small three-pronged mattock was used; each woman would sing an incantation while pulling the sacred carrots. Carmichael records one of these chants which he heard from an old woman who had gathered carrots 80 years ago:

Cleft, fruitful, fruitful, fruitful,

Joy of carrots surpassing upon me,

Michael the brave endowing me,

Bride the fair be aiding me.

Progeny pre-eminent over every progeny,

Progeny on my womb,

Progeny pre-eminent over every progeny,

Progeny on my progeny.

To find a forked carrot was regarded as remarkably good luck and to be symbolic of real fertility. The women tried to rival each other in getting the most and best carrots. A special bag was suspended from the waist to put the culled carrots in, and this was known as a crioslachan, ‘little girdle’. The carrots were washed and tied up in small bunches with red thread; they were then put in pits near the houses and covered with sand. The people used to work all through the night on St Michael’s Eve. The men guarded their horses and stables, for people would try to steal a horse to use on the circuits of the following day. One proverb says:

Theft of horse on the Feast of Michael,

Theft that never was condemned.

It was essential to leave one horse for each man, but it could be the poorest of beasts. On St Michael’s Day, after the distribution of the food, the families would mount their horses and set out to make a circuit of St Michael’s burial ground. Husband and wife customarily rode on one horse; the children were also somehow fitted in as well. The priest would lead the procession, wearing a white robe and riding on a white horse; it must have been a magnificent sight to witness. If there was more than one priest present, they would ride abreast. While the circuit was being made all the people would sing the Iolach Mìcheil, Song of Michael the Victorious. After this ceremony, each girl presented her lover with a handful of carrots. Then the oda began. According to Carmichael’s information, the men raced their horses bare-headed, wearing only short trews and a shirt, without saddle or bridle. Sometimes the girls would compete with one another, sometimes with the men. The girls likewise rode bareback. Circuiting of some kind continued throughout the day. St Michael’s night was a time for high revelry in every township. The chief piper had the honour of selecting the place for the Céilidh, ‘party’. If the piper was a married man, each man present would make him some contribution; if single, he would play for no recompense. Fiddlers and other musicians also augmented the piping throughout the joyous night. It was the custom of the women to put their carrots into a linen bag with the name of the owner. During the day and the evening celebrations gifts were exchanged between the sexes.

Special dances and scenes were enacted on St Michael’s Night which clearly show the pagan origin of the Festival. One of these was a dance called Cailleach an dùdain, ‘the Hag of the Mill-dust’. Carmichael himself saw it performed many times; it was danced by a man and a woman. The man held a rod in his right hand known as the Slachdan Druidheachd, ‘the Druid Wand’ or the Slachdan Geasachd, ‘the Magic Wand’. The man would hold the wand over his own head and then over the head of the woman. She then would fall down at his feet, as if dead. He then mourned for her, dancing about her body. Then he would raise her left hand, touch it with the wand and the hand would come to life and begin to move up and down. The man was overjoyed, and he would then dance about her. Next he would bring her other arm and her legs to life. Then he would kneel over her and breathe into her mouth and touch her heart with the wand. This would restore her fully to life, she would spring to her feet, and both would dance joyously. The music changed with the different stages of this curious performance. The instrument might be the pipes, the fiddle or even port-a-beul, ‘mouth music’ which was often used at céilidhs instead of a musical instrument. According to Carmichael the accompanying music is peculiar and irregular and the words archaic. It seems beyond question that this dance is related to the kind of cult scenes that were mimed at the ancient pagan festivals in the wider Celtic world and have long lingered on its periphery. The great collector, Iain F. Campbell of Islay, also witnessed the dancing of Cailleach an Dùdain. Another strange dance, Cath nan Coileach, ‘The Battle of the Cocks’, and Ruidhleadh nan Coileach Dubha, ‘the Reel of the Black Cocks’, were danced on St Michael’s Night, as was the sword dance, another primitive and pagan dance; on that night, however, it was danced in eight sections instead of four. That this triumphal dance over the weapon goes directly back to pagan times is evidenced by its depiction on certain Gaulish coins, for example dating to the pre-Roman period.

All night long, individual struans were given and received. People of all ranks joined together in this ceremony. By the time Carmichael was collecting in the Highlands, this rich tradition had become obsolete, but memories and tales of it still survive. The last traditional circuiting of St Michael’s burial-ground in South Uist seemingly took place in 1820; the last great oda in North Uist was in 1866 and took place on the Strand of Mary, on the west side of the Island. Vestigially, the Michael lamb continued to be slain, the struan baked and the carrots picked, but by people who had no real understanding of the earlier significance of these things. Carmichael perspicaciously remarks, of affairs in his own day:

In the present, as a rule, the proprietors and gentlemen of the Highlands and Islands are at the best but temporary residents, if so much, and generally strangers in blood and speech, feeling and sympathy, more prone to criticize than to help, to scoff than to sympathise. As a result, the observances of the people have fallen into disuse, to the loss of the spiritual life of the country, and of the patriotic life of the nation.

Michael was, according to tradition, the leader of souls to the next world, just as was Mercury according to classical tradition.

Samhain, ‘Hallowe’en’

Hallowe’en, from the earliest Celtic records, has been the most important and sinister festival of the Celtic year. It was originally celebrated on the night of 1 November and on the following day. Then the whole world was believed to be open to the gods and spirits of the pagan Celts, and the Otherworld became visible to, and accessible to mankind. The occupants of the supernatural world could mix freely, a privilege fraught with peril for human beings. Originally a Druidic festival, and accompanied as the Irish tales indicate with human sacrifice and many propitiatory offerings, it remained the most popular of the calendar festivals, and was celebrated with much ritual well into the twentieth century. It is still observed vestigially, but the old significance has been lost. Different parts of the Highlands still carry on their own traditional activities, but these are less authentic and varied as the old beliefs and traditional ways of celebrating rapidly disappear. Divining the future by means of nuts, kail plants, dropping egg whites into water and so on, was a regular pursuit, and sometimes the person seeking to know the future would get unexpected and perhaps unwanted answers to the questions asked. The supernatural would really manifest itself, or one of the company would play a trick and make the seeker after future knowledge believe that this was the case. In many districts each house had its own bonfire, samhnag, and one house was usually especially popular as a gathering place. In early Celtic tradition, Samhain was closely associated with the burial mounds which were believed to be entrances to the Otherworld; and for this reason, the celebration of Hallowe’en at Fortingall, at the head of Glen Lyon in Perthshire, is of especial interest.

The festival itself was observed in a somewhat unusual fashion, being essentially of a communal nature there, and it continued well into the twentieth century. Another unusual feature in this region of the Highlands where so much archaic tradition has been preserved, was the date on which the festival was traditionally held — 11 November. The samhnag, ‘bonfire’, was a communal effort, and it was built on the mound known as Càrn nam Marbh, ‘The Mound of the Dead’. Local tradition has it that the mound contains the bodies of victims of a dreadful plague which were brought there and buried by an old woman with a cart or sled pulled by a white horse; the story has a clear supernatural flavour about it, and the mound is, in fact, a Bronze Age tumulus. A stone, known as Clach a’ Phlàigh, ‘the Plague Stone’ crowns the mound. Although people living in the neighbourhood knew of the Fortingall ceremonies, only the local populace seems to have taken part in them. In the other townships the usual individual bonfires were lit, and it was usually the children who built them.

The following account was obtained from a local man who actually took part in the celebrations as a boy. Everybody shared in the preparations which began months before the event. The young people used to go up onto the hill to collect and store great quantities of whin, which was once very plentiful there. This went on night after night. It was finally made into a huge pile with wood shavings and tar barrels added to increase the great conflagration. It was the duty of the older men to actually build the bonfire on the top of the Mound of the Dead. Finally, it was lit, and the whole community took hands when it was blazing and danced round the mound both sunwise and anti-sunwise. As the fire began to wane some of the younger boys took burning faggots from the flames and ran throughout the field with them, finally throwing them into the air and dancing over them as they lay glowing on the ground. When the last embers were cooling, the boys would have a leaping competition across the remains of the fire. When it was finished, the young ones went home and ducked for apples and practised divination. The older people went to Fortingall Hotel, an old coaching house, and held a dance there, with much merry-making. There was no ‘guising’ here, the bonfire being the absolute centre of attention until it was consumed. The last bonfire, made by the community, was lit on the mound in 1924. It is said that this ancient festival was finally destroyed, not only because interest in such things was dying out amongst the young, nor because the people ceased to remember it, but because it was stopped by the keeper who claimed that this great stripping of cover from the hill was interfering with the game there. It is thought locally that the unusual date of Samhain here was due to the fact that the date of the big Fortingall Féill or Market was held then, and there was some association between the two gatherings. In other places, the ceremony was observed on the traditional date and the activities varied from region to region.

After sunset, in many places, every youth who was able to carry a blazing torch or samhnag ran out and circuited the boundaries of their farms with these blazing brands in order to protect the family possessions from the fairies and all malevolent forces. Then, having secured their homes in this manner, by the purifying force of the sacred fire, all the households in a township would gather together and participate in the traditional activities. Nuts and apples were regularly used. In the Hebrides the boys dressed up as guisers and went from house to house; much damage to property was done by them on this wild night, gates being removed, carts overturned, and mischief of every kind indulged in. One means of divining the future was to place six plates on the floor, each with different contents. The girls of the house were blindfolded and led to the spot where the plates were laid down, and the first plate each blindfolded girl touched foretold her fate. Pennant likewise makes mention of these widespread Hallowe’en customs. He says that in his day the young people determine the figure and size of their husbands by drawing cabbages blindfold; and to divine the future, fling nuts into the fire.

When the festival was carried out with complete solemnity, new fire, kindled from the sacred communal fire, was brought into each house at Samhain, and it is likely that, like the Beltain fires, the Samhain fire was made from tein-éigin, fire made from the friction of two pieces of wood. Stones were sometimes placed in the great fire for purposes of divination. Traces of the original orgiastic nature of the festival remained in the Highlands until the end of the nineteenth century at least. In origin, Samhain was clearly a pastoral festival, held to assist the powers of growth and fertility, to placate the dead and keep at bay the forces of evil, to please the gods (and later certain spirits who had replaced them) with sacrifice, and as a clear demarcation between the joys of the ingathered harvest, and the hardships of the approaching winter.

These calendar festivals, then, not only provided occasions for religious and superstitious ritual, when the protection of the gods and, later, God and the saints, was sought against the countless hostile powers; they were times of great relaxation and feasting, games and entertainment of every kind, in a society which lived in many cases very near to subsistence level, and daily life consisted of heavy toil and labour and utter dependence on the elements and their influence on crop and stock, and the vital harvest of the sea.

8 Epilogue

In this book, the emphasis has been laid on those aspects of the vast and rich traditions which are essentially Celtic, and thus have a long ancestry in the pagan world. Many topics have had to be omitted, due to the dictates of length, but this is inevitable. They include not only the vast repertoire of tales, heroic and humorous, which so delight the Highland mind, but countless legends of birds and beasts; sacred springs and severed heads; holy trees and magic mounds; dread supernatural beings that were believed to populate the lonely moors and mountains: fairies, hags — black dogs, evil aggressive goats, sinister and dangerous bulls. In fact, the amount of recorded material of every kind is almost unbelievably large and varied, some published, much awaiting publication in the Archives of the School of Scottish Studies and elsewhere. I have used published material in many instances, but only when I have been able to corroborate the evidence by personal field collection and ascertain that practices and beliefs previously recorded are, in fact, valid.

The richness and the sophistication of Highland folklore and legend are due, partly, to the fact that so much of it has been handed on by means of the oral tradition which was so highly developed in Celtic societies from earliest times. It is also a manifestation of the spirit of the Gaels themselves; their love of words, their deep involvement with nature and its moods and beauties; and their intense passion for immediate locality, their homeland. The songs and poems of exile reveal in a deeply moving way this aspect of the Celtic psyche. Thus the songs and poems, the hero tales, legends of fairies, ghosts and monsters and a nostalgic preoccupation with the past, provided the sole relaxation in lives which were spent in the relentless struggle to obtain a sufficiency of food and clothing and shelter which was the daily lot of the crofters and cottars of the Highlands in past times. Nevertheless, the Celt has always had a great capacity for joy. He has always faced his rigorous life cheerfully and without complaint, his active mind and deep enjoyment of his home, his language and his rich storehouse of traditions doing much to compensate for paucity of worldly goods or entertainment of a more sophisticated kind. All is now, of course, changing. Radio, television, improved communications, higher standards of living and the opening up of the West to tourists have all played a vital rôle in transforming much that survived until the middle of the twentieth century; and it has not yet entirely gone. There is still a surprisingly large body of tradition to be heard and collected while the older people who knew a different way of life remain to give testimony to the past. But whatever survives in the way of superstitious belief — for superstition dies hard in every human milieu — the situation described to the great collector J.F. Campbell of Islay, by Hector Urquhart, gamekeeper at Ardkinglas, will never return. He says:

In my native place, Pool-ewe, Ross-shire, when I was a boy, it was the custom for the young to assemble together on the long winter nights to hear the old people recite the tales or sgeulachd, which they had learned from their fathers before them. In these days tailors and shoemakers went from house to house making our clothes and shoes. When one of them came to the village we were greatly delighted, whilst getting new kilts at the same time. I knew an old tailor who used to tell a new tale every night during his stay in the village; and another, an old shoe-maker, who, with his large stock of stories about ghosts and fairies, used to frighten us so much that we scarcely dared pass the neighbouring churchyard on our way home . . . it was a common saying ‘the first tale by the goodman, and tales to daylight by the guest’.

Rather than lament the rich treasure-house of lore and legend that has been irretrievably lost down the centuries, we should be deeply grateful for the amount of invaluable oral material that has been saved for posterity by the tireless labours and utter devotion of dedicated collectors, past and present.

Postscript

I should like to acknowledge the achievement of all the collectors of the past who worked tirelessly and in harsh conditions without the assistance of electric light and tape recorders, often in dangerous terrain, studded with peat bogs, lonely moors, and treacherous mountainsides. Our debt to them is immeasurable. I would also wish to make mention of some very distinguished field workers in the School of Scottish Studies, such as the late Calum MacLean of Raasay, Donald Archie MacDonald of North Uist, James Ross of Skye and many others. Today the School continues with its programme of recovering from obscurity valuable information of every kind concerning Scotland’s turbulent past. I myself had the privilege of being a Fellow of the School and of meeting and recording some fine tradition-bearers who are, alas, no more. It was a deeply enriching experience and one which brought a new dimension to my archaeological and historical studies of the early Celtic world.

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