Carmichael Watson Project Blog

Carmichael in Kintyre - 2: Rev. Donald John MacDonald of Killean

2012-01-27T00:34:00.003Z

In the last blog we investigated Alexander Carmichael’s apparently one-off visit to the Island of Gigha on 9 June 1887, during his journey back from Islay to Edinburgh. He seems to have spent the night on the mainland, perhaps at the inn in Tayinloan, just north of Killean. His brief notes are as follows:

Left Kil[l]ean Kintire at 8am
10 June 1887. Rev. Don[ald] Macdon
ald (Nunton) not at home
his mother & sister here. Met
Miss Colville & her brother at
Manse – Mu[a]sdale

Carmichael travelled south to the manse at Muasdale to pay a visit to the local minister, the Rev. Donald John MacDonald (1855–1930) of Killean and Kilchenzie. Carmichael didn’t meet him that day, but it looks as if he did a few years later. The Rev. MacDonald is the subject of today’s blog.

Alexander Carmichael must have known the young MacDonald when he was a schoolboy in Uist: the minister’s father was Norman MacDonald, an important island tacksman, farming both Baile nan Cailleach or Nunton in Benbecula and Bhàlaigh in North Uist, while his mother Jessie – at the manse when Carmichael visited – was the daughter of the Rev. Roderick Maclean (1772–1854) of South Uist. Jessie MacDonald née Maclean (1822–1924) would die a centenarian in New South Wales. The ‘Miss Colville’ who was visiting the manse along with her brother was probably none other than Margaret Colvill (1859–1936), the daughter of Robert Colvill, Belgrove House, Campbeltown, proprietor of the Albyn Distillery there. Two years later, on 12 June 1889, she and the Rev. D. J. MacDonald would marry.

Even though Alexander Carmichael and the Rev. Donald John MacDonald didn’t meet in Kintyre, there seems no doubt that they came across each other a few years later. On 30 January 1891, both men were present at the first annual gathering of the Clan Macdonald Society, held at St Andrew (Berkeley) Hall in Glasgow. ‘The attendance’, reported the Scotsman, ‘was far in excess of the accommodation provided.’

It’s tempting to think that during the evening Carmichael may well have badgered the minister into carrying out his own researches into west Kintyre. The following year MacDonald gave a lecture on the history of his parish, subsequently published in the Campbeltown Courier, then as a stand-alone booklet. The Annals of the Church and Parish of Killean remains a basic, if brief, text for the history of Killean and Kilchenzie. Its success must have encouraged the minister to broaden his investigations into archaeology and folklore: on 30 January 1895 he delivered a paper to the Gaelic Society of Inverness, printed the following year as ‘Jottings – Legendary, Antiquarian, and Topographical – from West Kintyre’, TGSI xx (1894–6), 54–65.

This was not the only paper MacDonald prepared for the Gaelic Society of Inverness. In February 1908 a brief and intriguing article on ‘West Kintyre Field Names’ was read to the society by Carmichael’s son-in-law William J. Watson. Doubtless the great place-name expert had a hand in the version which appeared in print three years later [TGSI, xxvii (1908–11), 31–40]. MacDonald was also the transcriber of portions of the now lost manuscript diaries of Rev Murdoch MacDonald (1696–1763) – these transcriptions are preserved in the National Library of Scotland as Acc.11529.

The Rev. MacDonald was not just a local antiquarian. We’ll end this blog by having a look at a heated intervention he made in an episode in the long struggle for Gaelic to be taught as a recognised subject in Highland schools.

On Saturday 6 March 1897 a sizeable deputation under the Marquis of Lorne, including 34 Highland-linked organisations (among them eight clan societies – changed days!) and five MPs, waited upon the Conservative Secretary for Scotland ‘at the Scotch Office’ in London ‘to urge upon him the necessity for more systematic teaching of Gaelic in Schools in the Highlands’. The deputation requested that a grant for Gaelic be distributed as for other school subjects, that encouragement and support be given to bilingual instruction in the Highlands, and that Gaelic-speaking inspectors be hired, thus putting the language ‘in the same position as had already been conceded to Welsh in Wales and to French in the Channel Islands.’ In his discouraging reply Lord Balfour alleged lack of demand from parents and School Boards, and lack of need, stating further:

It seems to me that the more you prove that the Gaelic language is the language of the scholars [i.e. schoolchildren] the less you need to teach it as in itself a subject of study. If, on the other hand, it is put to us that it will disappear unless it is taught, then my answer is that that goes far to prove that it will not be the natural tongue of the scholars, and that it would be beyond the function of a Government Department artificially to keep it up. [Glasgow Herald, 8 March 1897]

Balfour’s rather sleekit ministerial logic, and his bald statement that there was no Gaelic literature to teach children in the language apart from the Bible, provoked the irate Rev. MacDonald to dash off what the Celtic Monthly praised as a ‘scathing letter’:

Gaelic-speaking children should be instructed in Gaelic because it is their natural language. Suppose we vary the terms, and say ‘the more you prove that English is the language of the scholar the less you need to teach it as in itself an object of study.’ … [H]e would be a poor dialectician who would suffer himself to be put on either the one horn or the other of Lord Balfour’s dilemma. …

Did Lord Balfour never hear of Ossian’s poems, of ‘Caraid nan Gaidheal,’ of John Campbell of Islay’s West Highland tales, or of M’Kenzie’s ‘Beauties of Gaelic Poetry’?

MacDonald ended the letter by returning to his childhood in Benbecula:

I attended school in one of the islands of the Outer Hebrides, in which people read [English] fluently indeed, but what they did read might have been Greek for all they understood of it. Had they been taught to read their own language, and this made the medium of instruction, I am sure it would have been otherwise, and they would have profited immeasurably more than they did by their education. And instead of objecting to Gaelic being spoken in school or playground the conditions under which the children were taught were a source of constant complaint on the part of their parents. Highlanders value and even love the Saxon tongue. But that is no reason why they should neglect a language having associations, historical and mental, of so close a nature for them, or suffer it to sink into decay and become extinct. Let all interested persevere in their demands, and none can deny them. [Glasgow Herald, 11 March 1897]

After over 45 years in the pulpit, the Rev. Donald John MacDonald of Killean and Kilchenzie left his charge on 1 March 1926. He died at Muasdale on Saturday 27 December 1930.

References:

CW89/101

Celtic Monthly, 3 (1897), 130.

Glasgow Herald, 8 and 11 March 1897.

Rev. Donald John MacDonald, The Annals of the Church and Parish of Killean (Campbeltown, 1892).

_____. ‘Jottings – Legendary, Antiquarian, and Topographical – from West Kintyre’, TGSI xx (1894–6), 54–65.

_____. ‘West Kintyre Field Names’, TGSI, xxvii (1908–11), 31–40.

Scotsman, 31 January 1891, 9.

Images:
Where the Rev. Donald John MacDonald preached for over 45 years: Killean Church at Cleit, Kintyre. Image copyright J M Briscoe, licensed for reuse under Creative Commons.

Carmichael in Kintyre - 1

2012-01-20T23:23:00.000Z

Following a recent enjoyable visit to Campbeltown (Ceann Loch Chille Chiarain in Gaelic, or Ceann Locha for short), we thought we should have a brief look at some of what Alexander Carmichael recorded during a very brief visit to Kintyre – apparently his only one – in summer 1887.

Carmichael had been visiting the island of Islay for the unveiling of the monument to his friend and mentor John Francis Campbell (1821–85). This took place on Thursday 2 June; the following Saturday and Monday he conducted lengthy interviews about local Islay birdlife and fishes: nearly four thousand words in all. On Thursday 9 June, on his return journey, Carmichael appears to have stopped off at Gigha, the island where his younger colleague the Rev. Kenneth MacLeod would later serve as minister. Clearly tired out by his intensive collecting stint, he only managed to record a single page on this leg of his trip to the west.

He begins by writing down three bird names: firstly, fitheach-uisge [‘water-raven’], a sgart or cormorant, a word clearly related to Dwelly’s fitheach-mara and fitheach-fairge; secondly, Ailean na Gaoith Deas, ‘Allan of the South Wind’, apparently a local nickname for the mor-bhuachaill or muir-bhuachaill, a Great Northern Diver: Carmichael’s informant tells him that Ailean here means ‘ack’, glossed by the writer as ‘auk’; finally, a name for the teal duck: deirg or dearg. This last seems to correspond to Dwelly’s darcan (given as obsolete), probably a version of dearg-cheann, though ruadh might seem to be more appropriate for the teal’s chestnut-coloured head.

A list of place-names on the coast of west Kintyre follows, probably pointed out from Gigha opposite: Taigh a’ Chromain [Taychroman], Beath-meadhanach [Beacmenach], and Cleit, location of the handsome parish church, wrongly positioned as ‘N[orth] of Kil[l]ean’. Carmichael then records a proverb, ‘Posadh thar beinn ’s goisteac[hd] thar fo lingeari’, an apparently misconstrued version of the well-known advice ‘Pòsadh thar na h-innearach is goisteachd thar muir’ [Alexander Nicolson (ed.), A Collection of Gaelic Proverbs (Edinburgh: MacLachlan and Stewart, 1881), 338]: in Lowland Scots, ‘Marriage o’er the midden, sponsorship o’er sea’. An Islay version is ‘Goisteachd thar muir, 's pòsadh thar dùnain’. In other words, marriage sponsors can be chosen from afar, but care should be taken to select a spouse who is a ‘known quantity’! But what’s the meaning of the final term in the Gigha proverb? Carmichael answers this in his next line: ‘Lingearac[hd] = Midden!’ In other words, it’s (seemingly) just the normal ‘inneir’ (‘manure’, ‘dung[heap]’) with what seems to be a rather random initial ‘l’ added.

Carmichael then turns, rather half-heartedly, to a local antiquity:

Dunsgeig vitri[fied] fort
Carradale one also near
sea, One. This is a pen[insula] – nearly
an island (Dunsgaig?)

There is no mention of the various local legends connected with Dun Skeig, its fort, its caves, or the battle supposed to have been fought at its summit – nor, for that matter, are there any stories about Gigha’s most famous resident, or rather neighbour, the Cara Brownie. After a rather strenuous few days in Islay, it rather looks as if Alexander Carmichael was taking a rest.

Reference: CW89/99–100

Image: Eilean Ghiogha/The Isle of Gigha

Morag, the monster of Loch Morar - 3

2012-01-09T23:07:00.001Z

Alexander Carmichael wasn’t the only person writing about Morag in the early 1900s. The life of the subject of our third blog in this series – a fisherman, poet, fiddler, dancer, swimmer, Mod medallist, and newspaper columnist – is narrated in the first two chapters of Alasdair Roberts’ fascinating Tales of the Morar Highlands (Edinburgh: Birlinn, 2006). According to his own account, James MacDonald (1872–1908) of Sandbank Cottage, 17 Mallaig Bheag, took to writing down stories – probably English elaborations of Gaelic originals – which he would tell his fellow crew members to pass the time at sea. These stories formed the basis of a monthly column of local lore, stories, and autobiographical pieces which appeared in the West Coast edition of the Highland News. Unfortunately, as we saw in the previous blog, it doesn’t appear as if a run of that particular edition of the paper is preserved. What we do have, however, is Tales of the Highlands, by a Mod Medallist (Inverness, 1907), a collection of his columns which MacDonald had printed for friends and family. Today the little book is exceptionally rare: only two copies of it are known.

Among the writings in Tales of the Highlands, composed in the romantic, flowery style favoured by Victorian journalists with a column to fill, is a piece about Morag. This item has been reprinted in full in the book by Elizabeth Montgomery Campbell with David Solomon, The Search for Morag (London: Tom Stacey, 1972), pp. 109–10. In it, MacDonald writes that:

The Mhorag as a rule only shows herself on Loch Morar whenever a member of a certain clan is about to die. We durst not name the clan, but the clan there be, and woe betide someone on the night when the Mhorag detaches herself upon the surface in three distinct portions – one portion representing death, another a coffin, and the third a grave.

When the Mhorag appears in her normal state she is, as far as one can judge, a most attractive creature. The face is fair and prepossessing as that of the most winsome maid. Her blue eyes and wreaths of yellow hair, which are the most prominent proofs of her assumption to beauty, come upon the onlooker as a glad surprise, and thus confronting her she very much resembles a mermade, only the Mhorag’s body is more cumbrous than that of the latter. In fact, it is more in affinity to the sea serpent’s than the ‘Mhoighdin Mhara’s’.

MacDonald claims that he himself met Morag one winter’s night in January 1887, while crossing Loch Morar to stalk a deer at Rhetland. He continues:

A man from Brinincory [i.e. Brinacory] told me that the Mhorag once chased a boat from Scamadale all the way to Romasaig, and, after swimming in front, she raised herself almost clean out of the water, and on revealing a snowy bosom she afterwards began shaking a cluster of yellow hair with such magic grace that every time the tresses discurled themselves they rained showers of gold on the lucky wights that stood gazing in bewilderment hard by.

After this unprecedented lavishness of the miraculous metal having continued for some time, a young man, a member of the forbidden clan, who, being in the boat, grew so enamoured of the clustering locks that contained so much of intrinsic value in them, enhanced by the glow of the saintly violet eyes, dainty mouth, and teeth, that he plunged into the water to embrace the alluring creature, which, we may add, reciprocated to the length of enfolding the glamoured swain in her arms after the most endearing fashion conceivable, and like Tommie Hood’s ‘Hero and Leander’.

The outcome was that the two sailed down, down, down towards the maiden’s submarine palaces below, in that terrific depth between Swordland and Meoble… Hence, however, we believe the ‘Mhorag’s’ special predeliction for her periodical visits to the domain of Swordland, the scene of her wooing, winning and widowhood.

Blog readers will remember how Alexander Carmichael’s third and later piece about Morag rather differs from the first two. Instead of the cnap dubh or ‘black lump’ of earlier descriptions, the creature has now become something much more like a conventional mermaid, ‘half human half fish’. It may well be that in the interim Carmichael had met none other than James MacDonald; a likely occasion is the Oban Mod held on 26–28 September 1906.

The Oban Mod of 1906 was the gathering where James MacDonald won his prizes. On Thursday 27 September he finished in second place, winning £1, in in the competition ‘Seann Sgeulachd – Folk Tale (preferably unpublished) – narrated in the traditional style’. Incidentally, the first prize (£3) was carried off by David B. Fletcher, Morvern, and the adjudicators were the landowner Osgood H. MacKenzie of Inverewe (1842–1922), the Gaelic scholar the Rev. Neil Ross (1871–1943), and the Skye poet Neil MacLeod (1843–1913). James MacDonald also won another second prize, this time a silver medal, in playing of a Gaelic song on the violin.

Here are a few guesses and possibilities. Though we have as yet no direct evidence, it is probable that Alexander Carmichael also attended the Oban Mod. A piece of circumstantial evidence is that the folklorist does appear to have visited the Ross of Mull in September 1906, recording the fairy story ‘Dùn Bhuirg ’na theine’ from a fisherman John MacInnes at Bunessan [CW368 fo.278]: it is most likely that he’d have travelled out there from the ‘Charing Cross of the Highlands’. If Carmichael was at the Mod, he would surely have attended the Folk Tale recitation. If he did, he would have talked to James MacDonald about his visit to MacDonald’s native district four years previously, and about the mysterious creature of Loch Morar. Maybe it was Morag herself who was the subject of MacDonald’s seann sgeulachd. One way of cutting through all this guesswork and finding out, of course, might be to consult James MacDonald’s column about the Oban Mod printed in his book – but the only available copy is in Mallaig. We’ll keep you posted!

In addition to his other talents, James MacDonald was a fine swimmer. For saving the lives of three girls on board his boat when it capsized in Mallaig Bay in 1901, he was awarded a silver medal by the Royal Humane Society. On 24 February 1908, however, MacDonald was drowned, apparently while making an accustomed swim across Loch Moidart to Eilean Shona, where he was staying at the time, after giving a dancing lesson on the mainland. Family tradition says that following the tragedy the local doctor rowed around the island every night for six weeks until MacDonald’s body was found.

James MacDonald’s column about Morag demonstrates that many more Gaelic speakers than just Alexander Carmichael, people from all walks of life, were engaged in translating, adapting, and elaborating Gaelic stories in print for an English-speaking audience. Part of the problem these writers faced was how to make Highland beliefs comprehensible, accessible, and appealing to those outside the region, yet at the same time to preserve – or even introduce – some distinguishing traits. Note how James MacDonald – or even his original source – appears to have altered the creature of Loch Morar into a mermaid, but at the same time has given her a ‘more cumbrous’ body, ‘more in affinity to a sea serpent’s’.

To conclude: many still believe that the supposed growth of modern rationality, secularisation, and a scientific world-view has led to the ‘disenchantment’ of the world, as old superstitions and magical and mystical beliefs everywhere wither and die. The case of ‘The Morag’ suggests that in certain circumstances this might not exactly be the case. Supernatural ‘water deity’ though she might have been, Morag in Alexander Carmichael’s day seems to have been for many locals a surprisingly straightforward kind of creature, even rather prosaic: people generally knew what she looked like, and what her function was: to foretell the death of a member of a local family (Morar tradition states that it was the Gillies of Loch Nevis side rather than the MacDonalds, as Carmichael wrote).

Contrast Morag as was with Morag in our scientific age: a dimly perceived and fleetingly glanced unknown creature, an enigma, an inexplicable anomaly, a ‘monster’. This Morag has in the relatively recent past been the elusive object of considerable scientific research involving exhaustive biological surveys of the chemistry of the loch, its botany and fauna; painstaking correlations of sightings; and even diving expeditions and a submarine observation chamber. Nothing was found. Which is the more enchanted? The wailing and ‘much disliked’ creature known as Mòrag dhuibhre and the Mòrag odhar ghrànnda of the Morar of a hundred years ago, or the elusive crytozoological mystery of our present?

References:
Campbell, Elizabeth Montgomery Campbell with David Solomon. The Search for Morag (London: Tom Stacey, 1972), pp. 81, 108–10.
Mod Report, 1906: An Deo-Ghréine, ii, 2 (Samhuinn, 1906), p. 30.
Roberts, Alasdair. Tales of the Morar Highlands (Edinburgh: Birlinn, 2006), pp. 3–28, 117–33.

Image: Loch Morar (many thanks to Iain Thornber for the magnificent photograph)

A Strathconon Phlebotomist in the Loudies

2012-01-06T14:37:00.004Z

The series of scrapbooks from CW537 to CW576, filled with newspaper cuttings from newspapers published across the Highlands and beyond, has been rather neglected by the Carmichael Watson Project over the years. A recent query from Dr Jake King of Ainmean-àite na h-Alba/Gaelic Place-Names of Scotland sent us back to the strongroom shelves to have a second look at what is a wonderful resource. Local newspaper columns at the end of the nineteenth century, buzzing with letters and articles, served as a clearing-house for discussion about all kinds of items connected with Highland literature, lore, and history. The great Gaelic scholars of the time kept a close eye on Highland newspapers for any material of interest, and it looks as if we have in the CW collection examples of the cuttings books of Alexander Macbain, the Rev. Charles M. Robertson, Prof. William J. Watson, and Henry Whyte (‘Fionn’).

We look forward to the digitisation of all newspapers in the British Library collection currently being carried out. When – eventually – these are accessible online, it will allow those of us with an interest in Highland history and culture to investigate and assess a still sorely underused level of literature, an ephemeral and lively medium half-way between manuscripts and printed books. We worry, though, that some newspapers may be lost forever: one grievous loss, for example, appears to be the West Coast edition of the Highland News, the main outlet for Gaelic material in that paper. Only the Inverness edition, fascinating though it is, has been archived for posterity.

Here’s one example out of thousands preserved in the cuttings books: a (very lightly edited) Highland Reaper’s Song, transcribed from CW558, p. 34, a cutting from the Northern Chronicle, 4 March 1885:

THE HIGHLAND REAPER’S SONG

SIR, – Reading to-day the last volume issued of the Life of Thomas Carlyle, I was reminded, by a passage quoted (p. 325) from a letter to his wife, of some fragments of a song – of no great merit, certainly – which I used to hear sung more than sixty years ago by Highland shearers on their return from the ‘Loudies’ (Lothians). Their composition was ascribed to the ‘Bard Conanach.’ I am sure there must be a good many more verses than those which I send you, but I can recall no more – and no great matter! – Yours, &c. OCTOGENARIAN.

Tomnafeille, 24th. Feb. 1885

Tha mi ’n diugh ann an Dunèdin,
’S bha mi ’n dé ann an Dunbàr,
’S bi mi ’maireach an Dunchailion,
’S bi mi ’nearar ann am Blàr.

   So haorăvi ho-ru-nŏ-ŏ,
   So haorăvi ho-ru-naan,
   So haorăvi ho-ro-eile,
   ’S mo rùn fein dhuit gu bhi slàn.

Chaith mi ùin’ aig Port-na-ban-Righ
(’S beag a bh’ agam ’shannt ri tàmh),
Gus an d’ thainig am fear crubach
A chuireadh na siuil ris a bhàt.

…..

’S tha na leabannan cho daor ac’
Gun an t-eudach a bhi slàn;
’S bi na boguis ga mo chaobadh,
Mas ’gabh mi ’s an eudach blàs.
   So haorăvi, &c.

Ach cuiridh mise m’ aghaidh dhachaidh,
’S ann gu tìr nan cas-bheann àrd,
Far am biodh na mnathan fialaidh,
Nach do chleachd ’bhi ’g iarraidh pàigheadh.
   So haorăvi, &c.

Port na Bànrigh is of course Queensferry, while the hungry boguis are none other than (bed)bugs. The reference to Carlyle’s biography is to rather biased observations about Irish and Highland reapers in James Anthony Froude’s Thomas Carlyle: A History of his Life in London (London, 1884), volume i, p. 325. We don’t (yet) know who the Northern Chronicle’s ‘Octogenarian’ correspondent was. Tomnafeille, however, might be Tomnafeil, now anglicised as Markethill, in Fort Augustus – though there is another possible candidate in Markethill near Dunbeath.

Am Bàrd Conanach was the sawyer Donald MacDonald (1780–1832), whose life is described in John Mackenzie (ed.), Sàr Obair nam Bard Gaelach (Glasgow, 1841), pp. 347–51, and in Keith Norman MacDonald (ed.), MacDonald Bards from Mediæval Times (Edinburgh: Norman MacLeod, 1900), pp. 48–9.

In his paper ‘The Gaelic Incantations and Charms of the Hebrides’, published in the Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Inverness, xviii (1891–2), pp. 157–8 [reprinted in booklet form as Gaelic Incantations: Charms and Blessings of the Hebrides (Inverness: Northern Counties Newspaper and Publishing Company, 1895), pp. 61–2], William Mackenzie prints a blood staunching charm he had learnt from:

Duncan Campbell, an old Strathconan man, now resident in Beauly. He learnt it from a sister of Donald MacDonald, the Bard Conanach. The Bard, it appears, was celebrated for his Charms and Incantations, and taught the present one to his sister.

In an accompanying footnote, Mackenzie prints the following anecdote:

In local tradition he is represented as having been particularly successful both in letting and in staunching blood. On one occasion, while at the harvest in the Lothians, he lodged with a weaver, who was also a noted phlebotomist. A full-blooded damsel of the district called on the weaver in order that he might let her blood. He tried with all his skill, but the blood would not come. Whereupon the Bard took the damsel in hand, and, taking her by the small of the wrist, squeezed an artery, with the result that the blood squirted in the weaver’s face. The weaver desired the Bard to show him his method. The Bard responded in verse:–

Cha tugainn eolas mo lamh fhein
Dh’fhear bhualadh slinn no chuireadh i;

Lot thu gairdean na nighean dhonn
’S cha ’n fhac thu steall de ’n fhuil aice;

’S an uair a theannaich mi caol a dùirn
Mu ’dha shuil bha ’n fhuil aice.

Obviously, for somebody such as the bard who made his living from sharp blades – and, perhaps, from sharpening blades at the reaping – the skill of staunching blood would be very useful, and maybe rather lucrative as well.

Sources: CW558, p. 34 [Northern Chronicle, 4 March 1885].
Froude, James Anthony. Thomas Carlyle: A History of his Life in London (2 vols, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1884), i, p. 325.
MacDonald, Keith Norman (ed.). MacDonald Bards from Mediaeval Times (Edinburgh: Norman MacLeod, 1900), pp. 48–9.
Mackenzie, John (ed.). Sàr Obair nam Bard Gaelach (Glasgow, 1841), pp. 347–51.
Mackenzie, William. ‘The Gaelic Incantations and Charms of the Hebrides’, Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Inverness, xviii (1891–2), pp. 157–8.

Image: F. H. Mole, Highland Reapers (engraving).

Morag, the monster of Loch Morar - 2

2011-12-26T22:17:00.002Z

After the rather straightforward texts about Morag, the monster of Loch Morar, from Alexander Carmichael’s papers which we published in our last blog, here is what seems both from the handwriting and paper to be a later description – and a much more elaborate one at that – about the mysterious creature:

Morag

The Morag dwells in Loch Morar. She gives her name to the lake and still appears when any of the old Macdonalds of Morar die. Like the other water deities she is half human half fish. The lower portions of her body is in the form of a grilse and the upper in the form of a small woman of highly developed breasts with long flowing yellow hair falling down her snow white back and breast. She is represented as being fair, beautiful and very timid and never seen save when one of the Morar family dies or when the clan falls in battle. Then she is seen rushing about with great speed and is heard wailing in great distress bemoaning and weeping the loss of the House of Morar laid desolate.
The Morag has often brought out of their houses at night the people living along the shores of the lake and in the neighbourhood of her haunts causing much anxiety to the men and much sore weeping to the women. When the Morag was heard weeping and wailing the most thoughtless became serious and the most obdurate became subdued.
Old [ ] Macdougall, crofter, Mallaig Bheag [said] that the horn of the steamer, the shriek of the train and the crank of the rifle were inimical to the Morag giving no peace no rest no repose to bird or beast or fish day or night driving them all from their habitats to their secret hiding places in the recesses of sea and lake and mountain.
Macdougall described the Morag her form and face her hair and breasts her weeping and waling her rushing to and fro on the water with force and reality that carried conviction! The writer caught himself several times giving furtive glances away from his book to the calm bosom of Loch Morar in the late autumn eve. [CW493 fos.36–7]

Clearly, these aren’t field notes. The text is much more like an article or short speech worked up from earlier reminiscences. And what about Eòghan Dùghallach’s missing first name? Has Carmichael simply forgotten it (so casting doubt on the accuracy of other memories in the piece?), or has he hesitated between choosing Ewan or Hugh for his English translation?

For folklore archivists, Carmichael’s mention of ‘his book’ in passing in the final sentence is interesting. We don’t have any extant field notebook dating to 1902 in the collection, only later transcriptions. Is the folklorist describing the scene accurately? If he is, then we have tantalising evidence for a missing Carmichael notebook. What then happened to it? If the book contained lore gathered in the Island of Eigg, which the folklorist visited before he reached the mainland at Morar, it might just be possible that the missing book could have ended up in the collection of Carmichael’s assistant, that famous Eigeach the Rev. Kenneth MacLeod.

There is one obvious difference in this third description from the two earlier reports in Carmichael’s hand: the detailed mermaid-like depiction of Mòrag, part of which at least was supposedly supplied by Ewan MacDougall. This is quite a transformation from the not very thrilling description of her as appearing in a cnap dubh or ‘black lump’ in the second text. There may possibly be hints of a more attractive Morag in Carmichael’s notes there that the creature was described as ‘Morag dhubh – black Morag – morally not physically’. And Morag was certainly a ‘she’, who had once spoken to somebody at the far end of the loch – a rather difficult accomplishment for a cnap dubh.

On the other hand, it may be that Alexander Carmichael had met somebody in between writing the second and third texts who supplied him with a rather different picture of The Morag – or at least reinforced what he had already heard. We shall turn to this talented but tragic character in our next blog about Morag, the monster of Loch Morar.

References: CW493 fos. 36–7.

Image: Loch Morar

Morag, the monster of Loch Morar - 1

2011-12-22T23:40:00.003Z

For our festive blogs, we thought we’d give the red water charms a little rest and turn to quite another phenomenon altogether. Alexander Carmichael probably spent only a couple of days in the district of Morar, in the heart of the rugged Garbh Chrìochan or Rough Bounds of the western Highlands. Among the items he recorded there is some fascinating material concerning the mysterious ‘monster’ of Loch Morar.

Writing to Father Allan Macdonald of Eriskay on 9 September 1902, Alexander Carmichael describes how recently ‘I was in Canna, Eigg, Skye, Morar, Arasaig, and Lochaber. I have much to tell you but must defer.’ He had already been recording in the Hebrides since the middle of June. Carmichael goes on to tell Father Allan how he had returned home to Edinburgh with his daughter Ella the previous Friday – that is, the 5 September.

This letter, then, gives us a likely year for the recordings Carmichael made in Morar. In Carmina Gadelica iii we have a (suspiciously) lengthy Ùrnaigh Mhadainn or Morning Prayer taken down from Mary Gillies there on ‘1 September 190-‘ [CG iii, 40–7]. Carmichael’s 1902 expedition would tally perfectly with this date. It was probably on the same trip that Mary Maclellan née MacDonald, Beòraid, gave him a Moladh Moire or Praise of Mary [CG iii, 126–33: again, perhaps untrustworthily long as it is printed], while Ann Maclellan, crofter, Mallaig Mhór, gave a prayer to be recited on first glimpsing the new moon, A’ Ghealach Ùr [CG iii, 288–9].

This blog, however, is devoted to material the collector appears to have recorded from a Eòghan Dùghallach. Although the name Eòghan is often translated as Hugh, a couple of references in local census records available online might suggest that in English Carmichael’s informant was called Ewan MacDougall. In one text Carmichael describes him as living in Mallaig Bheag, while in another he is from Beòraid Bheag: the latter is named as his home village in an anecdote printed in CG iv, 230–1. This particular story tells of how Mary Macmillan from Sgiathairigh on the shores of Loch Hourn relieved MacDougall’s brother of a very painful fish-scale in his eye by using Eòlas a’ Chaimein or the Charm of the Mote, and how the folklorist made an epic journey to her remote village to try to record the charm from a descendant, Mary Cameron. Although ‘a pleasant and hospitable woman’:

on no account would she repeat to me ‘Eòlas a’ Chaimein’, though I tried every possible means to persuade her. She said that the ‘eòlas’ was entrusted to her for no foolish purpose, and she was not going to impart it for any foolish purpose to any person.

Alexander Carmichael had to return to Edinburgh empty-handed.

There are three separate texts in Carmichael’s manuscript collection about Mòrag, the mysterious creature which supposedly inhabits the depths of Loch Morar. As noted, it looks as if Eòghan Dùghallach was the principal source for his information. Judging from style and handwriting, it looks as if there are two earlier items and a later one. One is a series of notes, probably transcribed some time after the original recording:

Morag

Morag is always seen before a death and before a drowning especially before the death of the proprietor.
When Iain Ruadh was drowned she was seen by Coll MacColl a native of Tiree. She was seen about six years ago before a man was drowned.
Eoghan Dughallach saw the Morag several times in his long life.
The Morag came to a man in Gleann Loch an aineach [i.e. Gleann an Lochain Eanaiche] and spoke to him. [CW493 fo.35]

The second text is more expansive:

A’ Mhòrag / Mòrag

Tha creatair ann an Loch Morar agus is e a Mhorag / Morag a theirear rithe – There is a creature in Lochmorar and she is called Morag. She is never seen save when one of the daoine duchasach – of the hereditary people of the place dies. The last time she was seen was when Aonas na Traigh, Aeneas Macdonnell, died in 1898 (?).
The Morag is peculiar to Loch Morar. She is seen in broad daylight and by many persons – including church persons – parsons. [note in margin: She has been seen by the narrator Eoghan Dughallach and by many others including pearsachan eaglais.]
She appears in a cnap dubh – a black heap or ball slowing and deliberately rising in the water and moving along like a boat water logged.
The Morag is much disliked and is called by many uncomplimentary terms – Morag dhubh – black Morag – morally not physically – Morag Odhar – dun Morag. Morag dhuibhre – dusky Morag. Morag Ghran[n]da – ugly Morag. As sure as Morag is seen as surely a ‘duchasach’ [above: heredient] dies immediately thereafter. She is not seen when one of the common people dies but is always seen when one of the duchasaich – heredients – dies – One of the native chiefs or relatives of one of the native chiefs. The last time Morag was seen was immediately before the death of Aongas na Traigh – Aonas of Traigh – in 1898.
Eoghan Dughallach Beoraid bheag – Beoraid Mhic Shimi – firmly believed in the Morag and gave many vivid descriptions of its appearance and occurrence. [CW493 fos.38–9]

Any further information from local historians or genealogists about the people mentioned in Carmichael’s accounts would be very much appreciated. In our next blog we shall take a look at a third text concerning ‘the Morag’.

References: CW493 fos. 35, 38–9.
Elizabeth Montgomery Campbell with David Solomon, The Search for Morag (London: Tom Stacey, 1972).
Alasdair Roberts, Tales of the Morar Highlands (Edinburgh: Birlinn, 2006), 122–33.

Image: A lovely photograph of Loch Morar from the blog ‘The Adventures of Murpharoo’.

Wee Charmers - 1

2011-12-18T22:56:00.001Z

Over the past week a number of emails have arrived in the Carmichael Watson inbox with the rather alarming heading ‘urine charms’. The reason for the sudden spate of interest (to coin a phrase) is a series of threads on the online discussion group Old-Irish-L investigating three Old Irish charms in the illuminated manuscript known as the Stowe Missal. We thought it might be of interest to trace charms for what probably were similar ailments, as gathered by Alexander Carmichael when he was living in Uist between 1864 and 1882. The following blogs, then, will offer you all you’ll ever need (or probably want) to know about the mysterious world of red water charms.

The primary purpose of these charms is to cure cattle of a disease usually referred to in the islands as bun-dearg. The term is obscure, but if it derives from ‘bùrn dearg’, it is directly related to its English equivalent, ‘red water’. Although nowadays ‘red water disease’ refers to a serious and often potentially lethal ailment caused by the parasite Clostridium hemolyticum in the kidneys, in Carmichael’s late nineteenth-century Hebridean world the term would have been applied to any potentially lethal disease in which one of the principal symptoms was red urine. In a society where wealth was calculated by the numbers of cows owned, the loss of a single beast could have catastrophic effects, especially on poorer households. Here is Alexander Carmichael’s folk explanation of the bun-dearg in his ‘vocabulary notes’ at the end of the second volume of Carmina Gadelica:

Bun-dearg, red swelling; ‘burn dearg,’ red water; ‘galar dearg,’ red disease; ‘earna dhearg,’ ‘ earnach dhearg,’ red murrain; ‘earna dhubh,’ ‘earnach dhubh,’ black murrain. The red and the black murrain are two stages of this disease, which is produced by several causes. On the mainland it is generally caused by the cattle eating the young leaves of shrubs and trees, especially the bog myrtle, the alder, and the birch, and by drinking water impregnated with them. In the Isles the disease is caused chiefly by eating the sundew (drosera rotundofolia). Wherever sundew prevails red pleura is common. A place in South Uist is known as ‘Bogach na fala,’ marsh of blood, from the prevalence of sundew and its deadly effects. (CG ii, 238)

We’ll return to this account later on.

The first of Carmichael’s red water charms was gathered from Ann MacIsaac née Maclellan (c. 1808–1883), Ceann Langabhat, an t-Ìochdar, South Uist. Ann was the daughter of John Maclellan, farmer in Bòrnais, and his wife Christian Macmillan; she was probably from the same stock as the celebrated storyteller Angus MacLellan (1879–1949) from Loch Aoineort. In 1847 Ann married Hector MacIsaac, one of the principal seanchaidhean or storytellers in South Uist. Hector’s stories were first recorded by Hector Maclean in 1859 as part of John Francis Campbell’s Popular Tales of the West Highlands project. Alexander Carmichael clearly hit it off with the couple; perhaps they even regarded the young bachelor as the son they never had.

As we shall see in a later blog, Ann MacIsaac may have been the first person from whom Alexander Carmichael recorded charms and incantations, the genre with which he would go on to make his reputation in the first two volumes of Carmina Gadelica, published in 1900. Among the six charms she apparently gave to him on 16 October 1867 was Eòlas a’ Bhun-deirg, the Red Water Charm. Here is his later transcription:

Muir mor eas ruadh,

Ruith eir d’ fhual

Stad eir d’ fhuil.

Great sea, red cascade,

May your urine flow,

May your blood stop.

Note: this is thrice repeated over the sick animal afflicted with ‘Red water’. [CW87 fo.18^v]

Liquid imagery of sea, river, and waterfall, together with commands to flow or stop, are probably universal in all European charms concerning blood and urine, whether they’re intended against red water or for staunching wounds.

There was, however, one major problem with Ann MacIsaac's charm for Alexander Carmichael when he was compiling and creating Carmina Gadelica. It was far too short to be printed as a stand-alone item. In a subsequent blog we shall take a look at what might have been his solution.

The Laird of Coll's Powder Horn

2011-12-07T16:11:00.000Z

As the Carmichael Watson Project moves into a new, Leverhulme Trust-funded phase, we’re starting to investigate Alexander Carmichael’s fascinating personal collection of objects, now looked after in the West Highland Museum in Fort William. One particularly interesting item may be connected with an unusual waulking song Carmichael recorded in Mingulay.

As discussed in a blog earlier this year, Alexander Carmichael ‘discovered’ waulking songs while on a visit to the little island of Mingulay/Miughalaigh, at the southern tip of the Outer Hebrides, on 8 August 1867. Carmichael was back in Mingulay on 22 May 1869, doing intensive song-recording from his friend Roderick MacNeil (c. 1790–1875), Ruairidh an Rùma, as well as from two local women, Mary MacDonald (c. 1837–1915) and someone he later describes as ‘Mary wife of Angus Campbell’. We’ve been unable to trace her, but there’s a possibility Carmichael might have meant Marion (b. c. 1841), wife of John Campbell, who appears on the island in the 1871 census. The two women sang their songs to the very appreciative collector not at the waulking board, but while woolworking – ‘one carding, the other spinning’ – one singing the lines and the other the chorus.]

Among the songs Carmichael recorded is one with the following impassioned lines:

Mo cheist eir ti[gh]earna Cholla
S trua[gh] nach ann duit bha mi torrach
Luc[hd] mo dha chich liont am bhrollach
Ga nach beirinn dhuit ach torran
Bhi[th] gun chliu as gun char gun cholan[n]
Ach da shuil os cionn mala.
Sa leana[bh] beag na lai[gh] air a chulao[bh]
Sann daga sann aoraic [adharc] fhudair [CW150/24]

My love the Laird of Coll
A shame that I wasn’t pregnant for you
The load of my two breasts full in my chest
Even though I’d only give you a little heap
Without fame, strength, or body,
Just two eyes above a brow.
And the little baby lying behind him
[?With] the pistol and the ‘aoraic fhudair’.

Given the feelings they express, it’s hardly surprising that these lines don’t appear to have been given to any other song collector. But what’s the ‘aoraic fhudair’ in the last line?

The context gives the game away: it’s what would be written in standard Gaelic ‘adharc fhùdair’, a powder horn made out of cow horn, an object used to carry gunpowder without any danger of sparks or soaking. The heyday of the often elaborately decorated powder horn was the eighteenth century, the era of muskets, before the advent of the powder cartridge. By Carmichael’s time the powder horn was quite obsolete apart from occasional use in full ceremonial Highland dress – definitely not a common sight in the Outer Hebrides! It’s hardly surprising, then, that there are few if any other mentions of an ‘adharc fhùdair’ in the corpus of Gaelic waulking songs.

We originally thought that the word ‘aoraic’ which Carmichael wrote down meant that either he or the singer didn’t understand the reference to ‘adharc’ or horn. A brief chat with Professor Donald Meek from Tiree, however, put us right. Across much of the Scottish Gàidhealtachd, ‘adharachd’ is a perfectly acceptable dialect alternative to ‘adharc’. Maybe this is how Carmichael heard it when he was writing it down, or maybe the word was preserved like that in the song, testimony to its Argyllshire origins.

What of the item in Carmichael’s collection? As you’ll have guessed, it’s a powder horn, one of four he acquired. This one is said to have ‘belonged to MacLean of Coll’ – that is, the Laird of Coll, Tighearna Cholla. But did it really? Alexander Carmichael certainly visited the Island of Coll in September 1887, and knew a number of people with Coll connections, so the provenance of our powder horn may be genuine.

On the other hand, might this be a sly joke by the original donor, perhaps in reply to Carmichael’s question, ‘Who owned it?’ The object was a powder horn, an ‘adharc fhùdair’ (or an ‘adharachd fhùdair’). There was a waulking song praising the Laird of Coll where his powder horn is mentioned. ‘So it must have belonged to Tighearna Cholla.’ The story of the powder horn and the waulking song may demonstrate how closely bound up oral tradition and material culture might be. On the other hand, this may just be yet another example of a scholar making too much out of very slender connections. There may be a much simpler explanation lurking somewhere still in Alexander Carmichael’s archive!

Reference: CW150/24

Image: A not very clear picture of Carmichael’s powder horn

Oot an' Aboot

2011-11-28T16:46:00.000Z

It's been a busy few weeks for the team as Phase 4 fever takes holds. The objects which we are cataloguing and researching are held either by The West Highland Museum (WHM), in Fort William or by the National Museum of Scotland (NMS) a few minutes up the road from the office, all of which means we've had to go oot an' aboot.

Two weeks ago, we'd a very productive afternoon with Pam Babes, Collections Development Manager and Angus Kneale, Collections System Manager at NMS looking at their cataloguing system and talking about the best approach for listing Carmichael's objects. We also got a better idea of the material we'll be dealing with there, most of which is tartan and the oddest of which is crossopus fodiens - a water shrew.

Next on the list was a trip to meet Màiri Mooney, curator at The West Highland Museum and to clap eyes on the considerably larger number of items in their Carmichael collection. The weather was hardly kind as we stepped off the train into ankle-deep puddles and driving rain but the welcome was very warm when we arrived at the museum. Many objects from the collection were out on display anyway, so we were able to start matching them to our list, which was originally drawn up to value the collection in the late 40s. What an array of artefacts! Everything from fossils to Jacobite clothing to charms to domestic tools and of course brooches. Many, many brooches. Màiri took a great deal of time with us and let us have the run of the museum for the day, so that we could plan for our next visit. High on our agenda is photographing the items - the current list has around 250 objects, so the task is a considerable one. Personal favourites from the objects we were able to see were a targe, a riding cape and knotted wool for Eòlas Snàithle [Charm of the Threads]. Seeing unfamiliar objects which have been mentioned in now very familiar manuscripts was an enlivening experience altogether.

On my own way home I took a detour to visit the project's friends at Comann Eachdraidh Lios Mòr. I mention this simply to allow me to post a picture showing how beautiful it was on the Tuesday morning!

Reference: Carmina Gadelica, vol. IV (Edinburgh, 1941) pp. 166-167.
Image 1: Kirsty M Stewart, Màiri Mooney and Domhnall Uilleam Stiùbhart at West Highland Museum.
Image 2: Looking towards Ben Nevis from the north end of Lismore.

Divination on Latha Samhna

2011-10-31T15:31:00.004Z

Oidhche Challainn or Hogmanay tended to be an occasion celebrated by groups of boys. Hallowe’en (Oidhche Shamhna) and All Saints’ Day (Latha Samhna) were rather different: in the words of Margaret Fay Shaw writing about her time in Gleann Dail/Glendale in South Uist, ‘a night of much jollity, when the house was invaded by visitors in the ugliest disguises they could contrive of sheepskin and unravelled rope.’ It was also, as she goes on to remark, a time for ‘the foretelling the future of sweethearts’, not just in the Hebrides but throughout Scotland, Ireland, and far beyond. Here are Alexander Carmichael’s later transcriptions and expansions of notes on these calendar customs, originally recorded in CW111/15. The stories were probably been jotted down from Gilleasba’ Domhnallach or Archibald MacDonald (c. 1829–1922), a griasaiche or shoemaker in North Uist on 20 November 1873; they precede the items given in a previous blog.

Gilleasbaig, whose first name was mistranscribed by Carmichael as Alexander in Carmina Gadelica ii, 376, lived in Port nan Long or Newtonferry, where his father Donald had been ferryman. With his wife Margaret or Peggy (b. c. 1841) he had three children: Catherine Margaret (b. 1868); Donald (b. 1870); and Angus (b. 1875). When Carmichael visited the family in 1873 they were probably sharing the house with Gilleasbaig’s unmarried sister Mary (b. c. 1823), his apprentice Archibald Munro from Harris (b. c. 1851), and a local servant Christy MacDonald (b. c. 1846). By the time of the 1891 census Gilleasbaig was a widower, living alone with his daughter Catherine. Rather unusually for a man of his age, he is recorded as being able to speak English as well as Gaelic; this, and the knowledge he would have acquired from his trade of the people in the surrounding townships, may have been the reason why he was in charge of the local Post Office. We might wonder, however, just how strong Gilleasbaig’s grasp of English really was: ten years later, with all three of his children back living with him in what must have been a relatively substantial house, he appears as speaking Gaelic only. A picture of a refurbished Newton Post Office, Gilleasbaig's home, taken by Alasdair Alpin MacGregor, is printed on p. 144 of Bill Lawson's North Uist in History and Legend (Edinburgh: John Donald, 2004).

Gilleasbaig Domhnallach died of influenza on 25 February 1922. Only a neighbour was present, who gave his deceased wife’s name as Catherine MacDonald née Stewart: evidently it was known that his daughter Catherine Margaret had been named after his wife, but the wrong name was given. Born c. 1829, Gilleasbaig is a very unusual example of an informant who was born before Alexander Carmichael and outlived him – and, we can be sure, almost all of his contemporaries.

La Samhna Goid a chail [All Hallows’ Day, stealing the cabbage]. Girls put cal under the pillow. If a girl sees her lover talking the cal from under her pillow she is to be married to him that year. Three plates, one of earth, one of salt, and one of clean water are placed on the floor. A girl is blindfolded and the plates are moved about. The girl is then led to the plates, into one of which she places her hand – each place indicating something, as the uir, earth, death; the salt (bitterness) diolanas [illegitimacy]; and the clean water, marriage!

The girls then throw their criosans, belts, out through the opened window. A blindfolded person throws them back one by one each girl picking up her own crios as it came in. The position in point of trim of the belt in the ceremony indicated the position in point of the time of the owner’s marriage. If no belt could be found no marriage.

[in left margin: See Burns] The girls went to Allt criche a mach stream, when they dipped their hands. They were not to speak till spoken to in their sleep and the speaker then was their lover.

Tilgeil Ghloinneachain [Throwing Glasses]

Clear water was put into a glass. The white of an egg – gealagan uibhe – was gently let down. If the white rose craobhach briagh [beautiful like a tree] it was fortunate; if not, the reverse. Salt, drowning; dirty water meant Diolanas. A craobh chorc, an oat tree-stalk, was drawn out of a stack by the teeth. The number of grains remaining indicated the number of children. If the top grain – ‘graine mullaich’ –was off, the person died.

Reference: CW7/31
Image: Port nan Long in the fifties: Gilleasbaig Domhnallach may have lived in one of the derelict blackhouses on the right.

Another Glimpse of the Professional Weeper

2011-10-25T15:13:00.002+01:00

Alexander Carmichael’s Carmina Gadelica is one of the principal sources for information about the bean-tuiream: the mourning woman or professional weeper. An account has already been published in this blog for 30 January 2011, in which a quote is taken from CG ii, 309. There Carmichael reminisces about how, in 1870, he had ‘prevailed upon a woman in Barra to do the “tuiream” as she had heard it when young.’

More information about this intriguing episode is preserved in papers in CW383, apparently the text of a lecture given by Carmichael, probably in the 1890s. The keener is revealed to be none other than Catherine Pearson or MacPherson (c. 1813–1880), wife of Alexander MacFarlane, Ceann Tangabhal, Barra. Despite a reputation for witchcraft, Catherine, together with her brother John (c. 1820–1885), was clearly one of Carmichael’s favourite informants in the island. We hope to have more anecdotes about Catherine in subsequent blogs. The text below has been lightly edited for legibility:

The old custom of mourning, called in Scottish Gaelic tuireadh, in Irish caoineadh, ceased in the Highlands many years ago. Upon one occasion, however, the writer had the privilege of being present at a funeral in Barra where a woman was prevailed upon [supra: very unwillingly] to reproduce this lost art. [del: The woman is now dead but the writer sees her still before him. Her name] [supra: She was called] Catherine Phearsan.

She is now dead but the writer sees her still before him with her [supra: tall] spare figure which [supra: in youth] must have been once singularly handsome, her good prominent features, her fine, large blue eyes, silvery hair, and voice of great flexibility and compass, and [supra: her copious] [del: a] command over the Gaelic language, truly marvellous.

She was richly endowed by nature but not by art, mentally and physically.

This woman rehearsed in weird, [?] and measured cadences of great attraction to my untutored ear the deceased man’s kindly deeds and manly actions by sea and land, his kindreds for generations back, his relationship to long lineaged proud chiefs, ‘and fair women and brave men’. She pathetically told too of the prostration of the fair young wife with her swan-like bosom thus laid bare to the weary wintry blasts and of the tender nestlings thus bereft of a loving father whose brave heart, strong arm and deft hands was wont to bring them home the white ling from the angry sea, the brown barley from the laboured field, the juicy cockles from the distant strands and the good puffin from the towering cliff. The bare glaciated hill high overhead re-echoed the woman’s voice, whilst the deep rolling restless, heaving sea underneath our feet seemed to moan as if in sympathy.

We buried the man in Brendan’s lovely burying-place near the base of an amphitheatre of hills benignly looking down and surrounded on three sides by the sea. The glorious Atlantic sings requiem to the dead in a voice, now louder than loud thunder wakening terror in the trembling earth, and now softly sighing with an eerie sugh like the hallo[w]ed tones of dying love.

Carmichael certainly recorded Catherine or Catriona Pearson on 21 June 1870 (if indeed the year given in Carmina Gadelica is correct). He visited her brother John on 2 December and, perhaps, 2 June. We know he was on Barra on 30 September, 6 November, and the 1 December as well. We wonder if any of our readers could help us in working out who might be the crofter-fisherman of Castlebay, with widow and young children, who was mourned by her?

Reference: CW383 fos.11–13

Image: The burial ground at Gob Bhuirgh, Barra

A Weekend in Appin

2011-10-21T18:53:00.002+01:00

Last weekend I was lucky enough to be invited to give a paper to the Appin Historical Society on behalf of the Carmichael Watson Project. The drive up was rather eventful, with a caravan crash (luckily, nobody was hurt) a few seconds ahead of us at the Brander Pass necessitating a lengthy detour via Rannoch Moor and Glencoe. Nevertheless, we arrived at Port Appin Hall only five minutes late!

The subject of the paper was the lore and traditions of Appin which Alexander Carmichael gathered in the district during three days of intensive collecting in the late summer of 1883. Most of the paper was devoted to the wonderful material he scribbled down from the recitation of Donald MacColl (c. 1793–1886), ‘Domhnall Brocair’, the foxhunter then living at Fasnacloich up in Glen Creran. In his younger days Donald had met both Sir Walter Scott and Duncan Bàn Macintyre, Donnchadh Bàn nan Òran. He reminisced about both these literary giants to Carmichael, as well as about his own experiences during over fifty years of gamekeeping. Other stories Carmichael recorded relate to the Battle of Culloden, at which Donald’s paternal grandfather had been badly wounded and was lucky to escape with his life; to Colin Campbell of Glenure and the notorious Appin Murder; to the local hero Domhnall nan Òrd, the ‘Donald the Hammerer’ whose picaresque adventures so fascinated the youthful Walter Scott; and especially to the local MacColl burial ground Cladh Churalain, perched half-way up Beinn Churalain on the north side of Loch Creran. The ninety-year old Domhnall Brocair, clearly hale and hearty despite his great age, took Carmichael on a visit to the graveyard and its associated healing springs. One story he told particularly caught Carmichael’s imagination: the burning in the late eighteenth century of what appear to have been wooden images of saints Columba, Moluag, and the local holy man Curalan by three ‘scamps’ – sons of the gentry of the district, who all suffered divine retribution as a result.

The great thing about researching a paper on very local subjects is that you have to read the relevant manuscripts extremely closely. The field notebook in which Donald MacColl’s lore was recorded – CW120 – is horrendously difficult to read and leaps seemingly at random from subject to subject. Here I’d like to pay tribute to the transcribing abilities of our erstwhile colleague Dr Andrew Wiseman and the tireless and patient cataloguing of Kirsty Stewart.

The great thing about giving a paper on very local subjects is the feedback – and also corrections! – I always receive from people much more knowledgeable about the area than I am myself. I’d like to thank all those who attended, from Appin and further afield (including Lismore, Ardchattan, Oban, Taynuilt, Morvern, and the Isle of Luing) who kindly took the trouble to chat to me, to enlighten me, and to put me right! Especial thanks to Ronald and Sylvia Laing of the Appin Historical Society for their generous hospitality, and also for showing me two photographs of yet another ‘Carmichael informant’ – Janet MacColl the dairymaid, whom Carmichael met when hiking to Cladh Churalain with Domhnall Brocair:

‘Mòran taing a Chrìosdaidh chneasda’ said [supra: old] Seonaid Nic Colla, Glasdruim, when I helped her up the bank. [CW120/90; see also CW120/178]

Ronnie also told me the intriguing fact that the photographer Erskine Beveridge was taking landscape photographs in Lismore and Appin at exactly the same time as Carmichael was collecting lore there – surely they must at least have met?

Saturday morning was spent rambling in Carmichael’s footsteps up through scrub birch, old oak, and bracken to reach (thanks, GPS!) the graveyard of Cladh Churalain. Despite a couple of soakings, we had wonderful views and thoroughly recommend this fascinating site to our readers.

Images: Cladh Churalain

Job Vacancy: Research Assistant: 18 months

2011-10-12T14:30:00.001+01:00

The Carmichael Watson Project is currently recruiting for a Research Assistant for Phase IV, which is being funded by the Leverhulme Trust. All the details about the post are given below. Feel free to share the details with anyone you think might be suitable for the post or who might interested in working with us. The closing date for applications is 24 October 2011.

Vacancy details

Vacancy Reference: 3014922
Special Collections and Archives: Research Assistant (fixed-term, full time)
Closing Date: 24-Oct-2011
Salary Scale: £29,972 - £35,788

Following a recent funding award from the Leverhulme Trust, phase four of the Carmichael Watson Project aims to research the material culture and collecting practices of the Hebridean folklorist and collector Alexander Carmichael (1832-1912) and to catalogue and contextualise the objects, field monuments and sites collected or described by him. We require an experienced post-doctoral researcher with proven ethnographic, object-based, linguistic and research skills to play a key role in the Carmichael Watson Project team. You will identify, investigate, classify and contextualise objects collected by Alexander Carmichael, disseminate project findings and assist with overall project delivery and resource development.

You will have a PhD in one of the following fields relating to Scottish Gaelic/Irish: folklore, ethnology, literature, history or museum studies and be fluent in Gaelic, or fluent in Irish with some knowledge of Scottish Gaelic and willingness to augment that knowledge. Highly developed organisational and problem-solving skills are a requirement as are ICT skills and excellent interpersonal and communication skills.

The post is fixed-term for eighteen months and is available from 3 October 2011.

Details on how to apply are available here: http://www.jobs.ed.ac.uk.

Clean sheets

2011-09-21T11:02:00.001+01:00

Last week we were happy to see the return of Carmichael Watson documents which had been enjoying some tlc in the Conservation Department. Over the past 18 months, Mariko Watanabe, a postgraduate student, has, in her spare time, been cleaning, repairing and re-housing the 300 sheets of paper which make up Coll-97/CW244/1-200, under the watchful eye of Ruth Honeybone, conservator for the Lothian Health Services Archive. These documents are transcriptions of secular songs collected by Alexander Carmichael and include Brochan Lom, A' Bhanais Spòrsail, Mac Mo Rìgh air Tìr an Alba and Tàladh Cuain, amongst a multitude of others [refs. Coll-97/CW244/59/1, /79b, /107b and /181]. Ruth tells us that the work the manuscripts required was ideal for training in paper repair. Well there's plenty more where that came from!

Mariko returns the newly conserved manuscripts to Kirsty at "Carmichael Corner".

Mariko is now heading off to West Dean College in Sussex to train as a book conservator and we want to express our sincerest thanks to her (and to Ruth) for all the work she has put into preserving these precious papers and wish her all the best at West Dean. Beannachd leat, a Mhariko!

St Donan’s House, South Uist

2011-09-02T15:16:00.004+01:00

Eilean Donan Castle

From whom Alexander Carmichael got this snippet of information concerning St Donan’s House, South Uist, is not now known with certainty. Archaeological remains, particularly those with an ecclesiastical connection, were of great interest to the collector, something which is reflected in his folklore notebooks. Aside from providing rough measurements of the actual site, Carmichael then proceeds to give some traditions about it stating that the saint is said to lived there. Mention is then made of the nearby township of Kildonan – where the museum is now located – and how it was cleared during the 1830s. Before this rather sad event, Flora MacDonald, the most famous Jacobite heroine, is said to have lived in this township after she had separated from her husband, Allan MacDonald of Kinsburgh (c. 1720–1792), who is said to have come to visit Flora in his dotage.

St. Donans house in Eilean Donain
L[ength] 50 x 26 feet with several surrounding ruins
Length of Isle 70 y[ar]ds. B[readth] 50 yards. This isle
is about 25 y[ar]ds from the next isle which is ab[ou]t
50 y[ar]ds from Claddh [sic] Donain. Cladh Donain
is a peninsula with a no of ruins and that
of a chapel & altar and the font in a herds
house at Milton & used as a crotag. Isl[e]
Donain is a small gre[e]n fertile isle field
of nettles & viratus Alba. St Donan is said to have
lived here & the the [sic] large ruin is called ‘Taigh-
Dhonnain’. Graves and caibeil are in the
Peninsula of cleadh [sic] Don[ain]. Near by is the hamlet
of Kildonain the ruins of many houses fr[om] which
the people were ousted ab[ou]t 40 y[ea]rs ago. Beautiful
land now a sheep track. Ab[ou]t 20 tenants
Flora MacDonald is said to have lived here
left her husband fr[om] jealousy.
Alain Chi[n]sburgh came to Lochaoineart and
was so infirm with rheumatism & flesh & age
that he had to be carried upon a cra-leaba to Bornish
where he remained that night and proceeded next day
to Kildonan to Flora’s house. How long they remained

St Donan, a Columban saint, is closely associated with one of the Small Isles, namely the Isle of Eigg, where he suffered the death of a martyr on 17 April 617. Tradition says that this day was being observed as Easter Sunday. The Felire of Oenus the Culdee says (in translation):

“With the festival of Peter the Deacon,
To glorious martyrdom ascended
With his clerics of pure lives Donnan of cold
Eigg.”

Many are the place-names associated with St Donan, ranging from Carrick, Loch Garry, Kintyre, Arran, South Uist, and, of course, Kintail. The iconic Eilean Donan Castle situated on the island of St Donain is a familiar site and has been used in many films through the years such as The Highlander and as the Scottish HQ for MI6 in the James Bond movie The World is Not Enough. But don’t be fooled by the way it looks: it was restored during the twentieth century (completed in 1932 after twenty years of restoration work) from the ruins of a fortified structure which dates to around the thirteenth century.

Reference:
CW150/82, ff. 55v–56r.
Image:
Eilean Donan Castle.

A Close Encounter of the Fairy Kind

2011-09-01T15:16:00.004+01:00

Corunna (A Coruña), Galicia, Spain

Fairy lore looms fairly large in any collection of folklore and Alexander Carmichael’s extensive archive is no exception to this general rule. A song and the background story to it was collected from the recitation of Mary Ferguson (c. 1825–1909), a domestic servant, staying then at Cladach a’ Bhaile Shear, but hailing originally from Carinish, both North Uist, by Carmichael some six weeks before he neatly transcribed it on 15 June 1869. The story if not the song itself is typical fairy lore.

An old man in Baileshear
heard this song in a bruth[ain] in a
croc fraoich while pulling heath[er].
He heard this in a warm (braiste
day. He sat down took off his bon[ne]t
& had the song when he ret[urne]d at night
and the whole baile gath[ered] to hear
the oran si[th]. The man was Iain
mac Aon[gh]ais MacAulay. Twas
heard at Croca-du[bh]-Amhain an
iasgaich. The Knoll was always
haunted and even to this day none
likes to pass the way. One Mary
Mac Aulay in Baileshear while
out in search of sheep to mile saw
two women coming out fr[om] this si[th]
ein. They had on green petticoats
with sheen of silver. One tall & one
short & both of exceed[in]g beauty & grace
Their green dresses were like the
dewy grass. They accost[ed] her & told
her where she was go[in]g – for her caig-
ean chaorach & told her where she
would find one & then where the other.
They then told her to go on till she
would see a tall man with a white sheet
in his hand for her life not to to in his
sight. They then gave her a small
stone round stone with a hole in centre
& told her to keep it & that while she lived she
would have plenty of sheep & to give this
stone to her dau[gh]t[er]. This the woman
did & she & her desc[en]d[ents] have been
noted for the manner in which
their sheep have prosp[ered]
She saw the tall tall man
& he was so tall that the fright[ened] her
life & she threw herself down in a
ditch & then rem[ained] till he went
out of sight. He looked all r[oun]d
and gazed upon the sky. She
made for home & lay in leaba
bais for a long time & last rec[o]v[ered]

The informant on this occasion was nick-named Màiri Fheargasdan nighean Corunna and elsewhere, in Carmina Gadelica, Carmichael notes that she was a ‘boireannach bochd truagh ach làn ciùil agus seanchais’ (a poor pitiful woman but full of music and lore). Carmichael also noted the family tradition that Mary heard a lot of her songs from her own mother who had a ‘a large number of songs and lays of gr[ea]t antiquity’ and who was known as Cailleach Choruna on account of her many stories relating to Corunna (A Coruña, a Galician maritime city and municipality) in Spain where she had been during the Peninsular War and where she had given a drink of cold water to Sir John Moore (1761–1809) after he fell.

It seems as if the song Seathan Mac Rìgh Èireann, mentioned in a previous blog, held a particular fascination for Carmichael as he recorded many, many versions of the song, upwards of half a dozen and perhaps even more. The version given by the North Uist reciter on 29 May 1869 is as follows:

Hura hurabhi o
B anns Seathan cul to[bh]ta
Na i ora o agha[i]dh o
B anns Seath[an]
Huru a burra bhi o
Na dearbh mhac an righ eir lota
Na hi ora o agh o
Leaba fhraoich smi tha eir chlach
Nam faicte Seath[an]
Thig an t iasg. as an cuantan
’S thig na bric o na bruacha[n]
Thogta leat cro[dh] far a chrualaich
Cha bhi[odh] bo dhu[bh] na bo ghuaillean
An ioc[hd]ar ar uach[d]ar na buaile
Bh[e]ir[eadh] si[o]d an aon bho / gach aone bho bh[uamsa]
Gu ire mo bhreac[ain] uac[hd]air uaine
Sheath[ain] cridhe [th]u nan sul socair
Gur minig a dhearg [th]u na crocun
Cha bann le fuil chrui[dh] na chapal
Le sioda le strol la fasununn?
Tha S[eathan] a noc[hd] na mharbhan
Sgeul is ma[th?] le luc[hd] a leanabhain
Le mac cail[lich] nan naoi[dh] dealgun
Sheath[ain] sa Shea[thain] gun anam [th]u
Tha Sea[than] san t seomar ua[chd]rach
Gun ol cup gun ol caiche
Gun ol fion an cuirt dhaoine uasal
Nam faicte Se[athan] ag eiri[gh]
Ri sga[th] croic eir mad[uinn] Cheitin
S criosan caol du[bh] eir a leine
Gaol a mhuime gradh a cheile e
S seac[hd] seallai[dh] a mha[tha]r fhein e
Minig a chual e nach do dh’ in[nis] e
Gun ro[bh] mo lean[nan] an Minginish
Nam bio[dh] gun dean[ainn] fuirich innt
S meinig [thuirt thu] riumsa nach bu bhean sh[i]u[bh]ail mi
Bean bhoc[hd] chian[ail]
Bha mi o ru rudha gu ru[bha] leat
Bha mi an tir nan caill[each] du[bha] leat
Bha mi cill don[nain] a ghiubhais leat
Bha mi n Ile bha bha n Ui[bh]ist
Bha mi Eiri[nn] Choga M[h]umh[a]inn leat
Chuir m a[tha]ir an aite caraideach
Noch[d] sin a rinn [th]u banais dhomh
O choin a ri[gh] nach bi m fhalair[e]
Nach do rinn[eadh] [th]u an t anart ghearra[dh] domh
Nach do rinn[eadh] [th]u giu[th]as ghlana[dh] domh
Nach do chuir[eadh] [th]u san uir fal[ach] mi
Bann Seath[an] an cul to[bh]ta

References:
Carmina Gadelica, v, pp. 60–83.
CW150/67, ff. 42r–44r.
CW150/68, ff. 44r–45v.
Image:
Corunna (A Coruña), Galicia, Spain.

Lover’s Rock

2011-08-31T13:58:00.001+01:00

Hornish Point, South Uist / Rudha Thornais, Uibhist a Deas

Another song narrative recorded on 27 May 1869 by Alexander Carmichael was recited by a domestic servant, Mary MacMillan (c. 1825–1883) who hailed from Lionauiche, South Uist. The song and accompanying narrative are versions of A’ Bhean Eudach (The Jealous Wife), mentioned in previous blogs, as it contains similar motifs: for instance, the man has to choose between two sweethearts and then when he overheard his eventual choice singing about what she had done in order to gain his affection, he leaves her.

An Leumaire-rua[dh] at Holm
below Ru[bha]-thoirinnis. Then here the wom[an]
was left. There is a deep narrow channel
which a pers[on] might leap. The place
is full of limpets. The two women were
two sweethearts the man had. He mar[ried]
one & left the other & the mar[ried] one remained
on the rock till the first bhoinne
lionai & there[fore] was unable to leave
The man, mar[ried], the young girl & lived with
her till one day when she was milk[in]g
the cows she was sing[ing] this song
He over heard her & under[stood] how his first wife was
lost. He left her & never ret[urne]d.
The woman sat on the top of the rock
and comp[osed] the song while the other
sat opp[osite] her & learnt it from her.
Sin do chasa dhomh hug o
Sin do lamh dhomh
Hug o Cha sin cha sin hao u ri horo s beag mo
chas dhiot hugo
Thig an coite so maireach.
Iain bhig a hao sa naire
Chan iar[r] [th]u noc[hd] cioch do mhathar
This was a truthful song. The two wo[men]
& the man belonged to Ioc[hd]ar & both the man had been
courting. He mar[ried] one & the other resolved upon re-
venge.

The lyrics themselves are very truncated in this particular version which may reflect the fact that Carmichael had taken them down previously. Also, the song narrative would have been familiar not only the collector for this song and variations thereof were not only known throughout the Highlands and Islands but also in many parts of Ireland. Its geographic spread is probably a reflection of its popularity which remains to this day among Gaelic singers and musicians.

Reference:
CW150/59, ff. 33r–34v.
Image:
Hornish Point, South Uist / Rudha Thornais, Uibhist a Deas.

A Jacobite Song: The Silver Whistle

2011-08-30T17:09:00.004+01:00

Prince Charles Edward Stuart

Many would perhaps consider one of the most popular Jacobite songs out of more than just a few as An Fhìdeag Airgid (The Silver Whistle) composed in honour of the Young Pretender. The silver whistle in the context of the song refers to a silver reed used in the pipe chanter. Alexander Carmichael collected one of the earliest recordings of this songs from the recitation of Donald MacPhee, a blacksmith from Breivig in Barra, mentioned in an earlier blog. The version given here looks slightly corrupted perhaps because Carmichael had not understood the reciter or that the reciter himself had picked up the song incorrectly or perhaps merely misremembered some of the words:

Co shein[n]eas an fhideag airgid
Hi uill uill o
Mac mo righs eir ti[ghin]n a dh Alba
O ro hu o huill o.
Air luing a mharaiche ghreanan
Ho ro hu o hu ill o
Ribenan an t si[o]da Fhrangach
Ullagan oir eir g [sic] gach ceann diu
Mo ghaol ammister ainmeil
Cha b e mac sin M Fearachar
Cha b e ogha Mairi Simason
Ga b e thrialla gu tai[gh] talla

Carmichael notes that it was taken down on 21 May 1869 and he later wrote out the piece in a transcription book in a neater hand on 16 and 17 June 1869. Perhaps the most interesting part of this recording session is the song narrative that Carmichael had the pleasure of hearing. A further note says the MacPhee had heard from a North Uist bard and catechist called An Dall Mòr that the song had been composed specifically for the Prince. The reciter then goes on to give some historical details about the actual song. It is also of interest to note that this song or rather variations of this song was later recorded from quite a few tradition bearers from Barra:

One Peter Campbell from Barra
went to Loch nan Uagh for timber. Food
was scarce in Barra – no grain but
plenty of butter cheese & flesh. They
landed a pot in a nook to boil beef
when they saw a large vessel come
ashore in the Loch. He sent a boat
ashore. A gentleman landed
from the boat under whose arms
two men went & took him outdey[?]
They asked P[eter] Campbell to take
ashore arms swords & guns. He did
so and they hid them. He was asked
what pay he charged. He told them
that if they had grain food he pref[erred]. The
boat was loaded with flour & biscuits
till he told them that they would sink
his boat. He came home to Barra
and the pot is still in Lochnanua [Loch nan Uamh].
This was the landing of P[rince] Charlie.

References:
CW150/13, ff. 5r–5v.
An Fhideag Airgid: http://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk/fullrecord/22363/1 (Flora MacNeil)
http://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk/fullrecord/93660/1 (Captain Donald Joseph MacKinnon)
http://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk/fullrecord/30346/1 (Nan MacKinnon)
Image: Prince Charles Edward Stuart.

Song Narrative of Seathan Mac Rìgh Èireann

2011-08-29T11:01:00.003+01:00

Breivig, Barra / Brèibhig, Barraigh

An interesting bit of lore picked up Alexander Carmichael from the recitation of a blacksmith called Donald MacPhee (c. 1816–1869) from Brèibhig in the Isle of Barra concerns the famous waulking song Seathan Mac Rìgh Èireann (Seathan the son of the King of Ireland), as popular then as it is to this very day. The narrative speaks for itself:

Composed by a aunt of MacLeod
of Harris to MacNeill Dhun an t-Sleibh
her husband. She alleged that the Priest
attempted to take advantage of her in the
confessional (He was Irish.) The
Priest drowned a candle in chapel on
the Sunday foll[ow]ing indicating that she was
ex-com[municated]. This angered MacNeill
and led to a quarrel between himself
and wife. She left and went home to
her father. She fell with a former
sweetheart. She then comp[osed] this
song upon hearing which MacN[e]ill
said Co sam bi leis an leis
an long luchd s liomsa a clao [clar] and went
with his brolair for her. MacN[e]ill
then left the Church of Rome. There
was a ban against Cath[olics] during
the Carras and fad na h-aidolein
not to make balls. To spite the Priest
Mac Mhic Neill Dhun an t Sleibh
make to balls and feills. He was ex-
com[municated]. In going out of church he
said to the Priest that he would never
hear Mass again and so left the
Church of Rome. This was the
Lady MacNiell [sic] who left Cios-
mal. All rent was paid in kind
in those days. She then went to Lag
fhliodh from which the woman
came with the fish by the Lag fhliodh
close to Doirlin at Tangasdal.

As is well known this song is far longer than the mere fifteen lines taken down by Carmichael which probably reflects the fact that this was all the reciter knew or could manage to recall on that particular occasion when it was recorded:

Hu ru o na hi oro
Na nam fai[gh]te Seathain ri fhuasgla[dh]
Cha bhiodh an cro[dh] laoi[gh] eir bhuailt.
Hu ru o na hi oro
Cha bhi gobhar an Creag Ruari[dh]
A Sheath[ain] sabh[ail] nan anam
A Sheath[ain] sa mhic Iosa Criosda
Ge grianach an la[tha]
S beag m aithear ri bho[i]chead
O hi ri ri o huru bho rotho.
Mi nam shui[dh] eir an tulaich
Gon am mulad mi m onar
Smi ri feitheamh a chaolais, S gun mo ghaol
Nam faic thu tigh[inn] Smi gun r[u]itheadh ad cho[mhdh]ail
Bhiodh mo chri[th] lan solais

A far longer version of this particular waulking later appeared in the fifth volume of Carmina Gadelica where a number of reciters and so it appears that this version of the song was a conflation of many different versions. The song has been recorded on numerous occasions during the twentieth century, many from Barra tradition bearers such as Calum Johnston (1891–1972) and Nan MacKinnon (1903–1982), as well as being published in various Gaelic periodicals.

References:

Carmina Gadelica, v, pp. 60–83.

CW150/11, ff. 3v–4v.

Cumha Sheathain: http://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk/fullrecord/94370/1

Seathan Mac Rìgh Èireann: http://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk/fullrecord/21240/1

Image:

Breivig, Barra / Brèibhig, Barraigh.

Storm-bound on Mingulay

2011-08-23T10:48:00.001+01:00

Ruairidh an Rùma / Roderick MacNeil

A topic and a name mentioned previously in this blog is that of Carmichael’s visit to Mingulay and also that of the tradition bearer Roderick MacNeil, styled Ruairidh an Rùma (c. 1790–1875), so-called ‘from a hogshead of rum he found on the shore and from the contents of which he nearly died’. Alexander Carmichael visited the remote island of Mingulay on more than one occasion and in September 1871 he found himself there in company of his folklore mentor, John Francis Campbell. Whilst storm-bound for a three whole days, Campbell took the opportunity to sketch MacNeil and Carmichael wrote down some traditions from this excellent tradition bearer. An account written by Campbell says ‘Rory Rum the story man about 85 the best climber in Minglay till he got past work…He never wore shoes or stockings, never had a bonnet on his head till some years ago and how is crippled by the Rheumatism and stoops over a longs stick.’ MacNeil’s knowledge of birds, their habitats and behaviour must have been phenomenal given his many years of actively taking part in bird-fowling. Here is but one example that Carmichael noted down from MacNeil’s recitation about the langaid or guillemot:

Incident in Langai[d] – bird life. A Lang[aid] came
with a siolag and herring and left these with its
peite and left. Another came with the same
to its own peite which was young. The big
pet did not con[sume] what was given it and the
parent bird of the little pet with [went] over
and took the siol[ag] and the her[ring] over to its own pet
and left. The par[ent] bird of the big pet re[turned] and
foun[d] that its pet had nothing. The pet and
bird chattered for a moment after
which the pa[rent] bird went over to the small pet
took it up in its bill gave it a fierce shake
and threw it with the pre[cipice]! An old wom[an]
in Miulay has a pet gull 7 ye[ars] It goes am[ong]
all the house[s] in the place can un[derstand]
all said to it – and do what is said to it.

Reference:

CW114/41, f. 67v.

Image: Ruairidh an Rùma as sketched by John Francis Campbell. Courtesy of the Trustees of the National Library of Scotland (NLS Adv.MS.50.4.6, f. 119v).

Frìth: A Method of Divination

2011-08-18T12:54:00.002+01:00

Silhouette in Doorway

A name by now very familiar to this blog is John Ewen (Iain Eòghann) MacRury who hailed from Torlum, Benbecula, and who supplied quite a lot of information to Alexander Carmichael. It appears that he was something of a tradition bearer himself and so it is rather difficult to ascertain if some of his anecdotes were his own or came from some other source. Either way, what he did write down contains some fascinating details particularly about superstitious beliefs. In this narrative, a Donald MacInnes (fl. 1850), styled Dòmhnall mac Ailein, is name-checked as someone who had a particular bent for making auguries using the frìth. In short, this allowed the augurer to obtain occluded information previously hidden which allowed in some instances to find out the whereabouts of missing people or cattle. The first story tells of a lost vessel and its crew who were thought to have persished but are found safe and well in remote St Kilda whereas the second ones tells of the tragic drowning a young man from Howgarry, North Uist:

MacCallain Duncan
McInnes Balavanich
Benbecula was known
far and wide for his
power of Frith making.

On one occasion a
boat with four men
were driven, by a severee [sic]
storm from the N[orth] E[ast]
off the coast of Uig
Lewis. The idea was
at the time that the
boat was swamped
and all perished but
as no wreckage was
cast on shore on
the west of Lewis
or Harris resembling
the belongings of the
boat people thought
they managed to get
on shore in the Flannan
Isles. A boat & crew
went there but got
no trace of the miss
ing boat.
People advised
the nearest relative
of the missing crew
to visit MacCallen
in Benbecula and
he lost no time in doing
so. In his arrival at
his destination Mac
Callen received him
hospitably and told
him to at rest
It was late at night
for to make a Frith
but early the following
morning he told him
that his missing friends
were all well on
the Islan[d] of St
Kilda, and were actually
k[i]l[l]ing & flaying a
cow along with
some of the natives
and that they could
not come home till
the Month of March
This happ[e]ned in Winter.

On another occasion
a fine young man
from Howgarry
North Uist was
drowned and his
remains could not
be found,
His father
weeks after the
accident visited
MacCallen and
he told him to
go back at onc[e]
and that his son
was lying face
downward under
a quantity of sea-
weed in a “geobha”
at the point of
Ard-a-Runaira
Balranald.
Instances of this
sort could be followed
to a great length.

Elsewhere in Carmina Gadelica, Alexander Carmichael offers a description of this method of divination in connection with Frìth Mhoire (‘Augury of Mary’):

The ‘frith’ augury, was a species of divination enabling the ‘frithir’, augurer, to see into the unseen. This divination was made to ascertain the position and condition of the absent and the lost, and was applied to man and beast. The augury was made on the first Monday of the quarter and immediately before sunrise. The augurer, fasting, and with bare feet, bare head, and closed eyes, went to the doorstep and placed a hand on each jamb. Mentally beseeching the God the unseen to show him his quest and to grant him his augury, the augurer opened his eyes and looked steadfastly straight in front of him. From the nature and position of the objects within his sight, he drew his conclusions.

References:
Carmina Gadelica, ii, p. 24, p. 158, p,. 295; iii, p. 156; iv, p. 150; v, p. 286, p. 290, p. 292, p. 294, p. 296.
CW 1/65, ff. 28r–30r.
Image:
Silhouette in Doorway.

A Charm to Avert the Evil Eye

2011-08-17T11:46:00.002+01:00

Evil Eye / Droch-Shùil

Another example of the use of a thread cure used as a charm to avert the evil eye, or droch-shùil, was collected by Alexander Carmichael on 10 April 1875, from the recitation of Fionnghal NicLeòid, Flora MacLeod, a cottar, from Carnan, Ìochdar, South Uist. Immediately following the charm, the reciter then goes on to describe the actions that made such a charm efficacious. In effect, what she is describing is the method used to produce uisge-airgid, or silver-water, a cure used most commonly to heal cattle that had been subjected to the pervasive influence of the evil eye. The charmer would sprinkle the water over the animal, or in some cases, the person so affected, while reciting the verse and, if done correctly, this would relieve the sick animal or person which, according to the testimony, would make the charmer ill for the next twenty-four hours. This is most likely an example of what may be described as sympathetic magic. In recompense for such a service the charmer would require to be paid even it was merely something as insignificant like a pin.

Ni mis[e] air obair ri shuil
A uc[hd] Phead[air] a uc[hd] Phoil
A uc[hd] Phadra mhin na feaist
Is gach math ga math gan tig
Ga be rinn a t suil dhuit
Gun till i eir fhein
Gun till eir a dhaoine
Gun till eir a sprei[dh]
Eir a chaillich mhiongaich
Mhangaich bheur-luirg
Dh-eirich sa mhaduin[n]
A suil na seilbh a seilbh
na toin
Nar a lethi le a buaile fhein
A chuid nach ich na fith
ich dhi
gun ich na h eoin i
4 rin[n] an t suil dhuit.
Fear agus bean gill & ni[gh]ean
3 eile thileas e A[n] t Ath[air] s mac
agus an Spiord naomh.
Anothers – Goes ere sunrise
to a well where the living & the dead
pass – a spring that does not
dry. She puts the cuman sun-
wise round the well & strikes the
bot[tom] on the water say an ainm an
A[thai]r sa Mhi[c] san Sp[iorad] n[aomh] amen.
This is done 3 times. She then
lifts a small quant[ity] of water
a glassful will suffice. Then
3 leugagan beaga bronach
from the edge or bot[tom] of the
well. She throws on over the
guala thoisgeul left saying
Rosad [ag]us farmad na bhas
deoi[gh] a bheo’aich [bheothaich] (no’n duine)
sin a lai[gh] eir a siod. She then
brings home the 2 other & silver
(1/-) (6d is broken money & will not
do) or a brooch in the water
which she bri[n]gs home sprinkles
it on the animal saying an
ainm an A[thai]r sa Mhic san
Sp[iorad] N[aoimh]. The illness then
leaves (a greim?) the sick
and goes to the expert which
makes her sick & vomiting
for 24 hours. She w[ou]ld re-
quire to be well paid – some
thing must be given her – even
a pin.

References:
Carmina Gadelica, ii, pp. 56–57.
CW111/89 & 90, ff. 20v–21r.
Image: Evil Eye / Droch-Shùil.

Red Thread: A Charm to Counteract the Evil Eye

2011-08-16T10:51:00.002+01:00

Red Thread

One of the most persistent superstitious beliefs to have survived until relatively late in the Western Isles (as well as on the mainland Highlands) was in the curative powers of the snàithle or thread. This, it seems, was often resorted to in order to negate or counteract the effects of the evil-eye especially, as is the case here, if it in any way involved cattle. At least two interesting points may be observed from Alexander Carmichael’s note: that a different colour was used to differentiate between animals and humans (although this might vary depending on the locality) and that an incantation (of which Carmichael had a few examples, some of which were published in Carmina Gadelica, iv, pp. 166–69) was recited over the thread in order to make the charm effectual.

Elsewhere in Carmina Gadelica, Carmichael defines snàithle thus:

Thread. gearradh snàithle, ‘cutting the thread’, gearradh snàithle na beatha, ‘cutting the thread of life’, are symbolic phrases frequent among the old people and often symbolised on the old tombstones. On some of these shears only are shown, on some shears and thread, on some the shears, thread and ball of thread. The ball is down at the foot of the stone; from it the thread ascends, winding and twisting between the blades of the shears and thence ascends and disappears in cloud above. On some stones the thread is between the blades ready to be cut, on the others the thread is cut, the lower part falling in crooked coils on the ground.

Extraordinary. While travelling along the road
today – Friday the 5th July [recte: August] 1870 – I overtook a
woman who told me that she had a cow
very poorly and that she could not understand the
nature of her illness – diseased. Ultimately
she confided to me that she had just been away
at a “wisewoman” getting a “snai[th]le” made
for the cure of her cow. The wise woman told
my friend that 2 or 3 per[sons] put an eye in the cow
Bu leoir a h-aon ’s cha ionada i bhi fo ghealai[dh]
crai[dh] said the owner religiously believing her
witch friends. She got 2 Snai[th]les which
she kindly showed me each about 6 or 9 inches
long and twisted of natural dusky brow[n] wool
This is the colour “ciar” for brutes and
scarlet for human beings. The woman
witch des[ired] her to put on the shorter first and
to put it hide na h-earubal where it would not be
seen & if not efficacious to put in the longer
which would for certain efficacious. Her
snai[th]le is made with much mystery and
secrecy dipt [dipped] in some mystery water
saliva &c and incantations said over
it. Some ecclesiastics here are not
proof ag[ains]t the snai[th]le and I have heard of some upon
whose cattle the snai[th]le was put if not at their re
quest at least with their sanctions.

It is interesting to note that some of the clergy seemed to approve of (or did not actively condone) this method perhaps because some of their prayers were not being answered and resorting to the snàithle may have been a last resort. The longevity of this ‘occult’ method can be gauged by the observation of one of Scotland’s best ever collectors:

The making of a snaithle or charm of plaited wool of varying colours was common. The late Calum I. MacLean, of the School of Scottish Studies in Edinburgh, said in 1947 he saw an old woman spinning a charm and chanting a spell as she worked. This was a rare privilege as the spell was usually kept a secret of great potency. This woman was well known throughout the Hebrides and her charms were often so be seen adorning even the radiator caps of lorries or tractors.

References:

Carmina Gadelica, vi, pp. 128–29.

CW116/105, ff. 32v–33r.

Thompson, Francis, The Supernatural Highlands (London: Robert Hale & Co., 1976), p. 51.

Image: Red Thread.

When Kelping First Came to North Uist

2011-08-15T14:25:00.006+01:00

Sollas / Solas, North Uist / Uibhist a Tuath

In this historical narrative Alexander Carmichael noted down the origins of how the kelping industry was first introduced to North Uist. This anecdote was recited by Alexander MacDonald (fl. 1850), known as Alasdair na h-Aibhne, who hailed from Claddach Kirkibost, North Uist. The first part of the story tells of the arrival of Am Moraire Bàn, the by-name of Sir Alexander MacDonald of Sleat (c. 1740–1795) along with his wife and family. Judging from the next part of the narrative, the North Uist people were then living in a state of dire poverty and this is probably the catalyst behind the introduction of kelping to North Uist as Kingsburgh, yet another Alexander MacDonald (c. 1689–1772), saw that there was ‘plenty of gold on the shores & rocks of Lochmaddy.’ Surprisingly, perhaps, the expertise for the manufacture of kelping is said to have originated in Ireland for a dozen Irishmen were brought in to teach the locals how to go about burning the seaweed most effectively in order to produce the precious ash which resulted from such a process. Unfortunately, an unforeseen mishap occurred whereby nearly all of them were burned when one of the kelp kilns exploded but this, it seems, never put off any of the locals who remained unhurt and who then went on to become successful kelp-makers in their own right.

When the Moraire Ban and his wife
& 3 child[ren] & factor Kingsburgh came to Uist The
family lived at Sollas partly. They went round
& when they reac[hed] Bailemhartain they found a man
plough[ing] with two horses & 2 cows all of which were mere
skeletons. Kinsg [Kingsburgh] told the man that Lady Macdonald
had come among her Uist tenantry for assist[ance] to enable
her to educate her child & that she expext[ed] 5/- fr[om] each
crofter. The crofter told him that there were only £3 [of money] in the
whole of Uist & that this was sent from one man to another
ment[ionin]g the dif[erent]t per[son] who had the use of it an[d] where
it was lying there. Lady Mac[donald] wept & said that she
could not ask money of people so poor. Kinsg [Kingsburgh]
then asked the man if they would make kelp. The
man asked what that was. Kinsg [Kingsburgh] told him & that
there was plenty of gold on the shores & rocks of
Lochmaddy that they w[ou]ld get £1 a ton for the kelp
& that Lady MacDon[ald] would have 5/- profit
out of this & that he w[oul]ld send them min gheal chor
A vessel with 12 Irishmen then came to L[och]maddy
& began kelp[ing]. The peop[le] on the west side heard this & they
flocked to L[och]maddy to see the oper[ation] The Irish
had the kelp kilns in full operation. The 12 men
went to the sea to fetch buckets of water which they
threw into the kilns. They then progged the burning
kelp with their long oak cabers expecting
thereby to burn & frighten the Uist people. The
burning kelp flew out in all direct[ion]s & burnt most
severally 11 of the Irish men & all the Uist peop[le]
escaped injuries. One Irish man alone rem[aine]d
to carry his comp[anions] to the smack where they lay
a long time at deaths door. And so this was the beg[inning]
of kelp making in N[orth] Uist.

Reference:
CW116/165, ff. 62r–63r.
Image: Sollas / Solas, North Uist / Uibhist a Tuath.

The Old Woman of the Mill-Dust

2011-08-09T10:55:00.008+01:00

Cailleach

A 6/8 jig still popular amongst musicians, especially pipers, is Cailleach an Dùdain (‘The Old Woman of the Mill-Dust’). Alexander Carmichael notes down three versions of a port-à-beul (mouth music) that accompany this tune but they all appear to be unfortunately rather fragmentary. The most complete version is given at the very end of one of his longest fieldwork notebooks (CW120):

An toir thu do nighean domh
Chailleach an dudain?
An toir thu do nighean domh
Chailleach an Dudain?
An toir thu do nighean domh
Dheanainns mire rithe
Ghleusainn fiodha[l] dhi
S dhannsainn cridheil rithe
Chailleach an dudain!
&c &c

Elsewhere in Carmina Gadelica, Carmichael has a long note about the curious ‘resurrection’ dance which accompanied the playing of this jig:

One dance is called, ‘Cailleach an Dudain,’ carlin of the mill-dust. This is a curious character-dance. The writer got it performed for him several times.

It is danced by a man and a woman. The man has a rod in his right hand, variously called ‘slachdan druidheachd,’ druidic wand, ‘slachdan geasachd,’ magic wand. The man and the woman gesticulate and attitudinise before one another, dancing round and round, in and out, crossing and recrossing, changing and exchanging places. The man flourishes the wand over his own head and over the head of the woman, whom lie touches with the wand, and who fills down, as if dead, at his feet. He bemoans his dead ‘carlin,’ dancing and gesticulating round her body. He then lifts up her left hand, and looking into the palm, breathes upon it, and touches it with the wand. Immediately the limp hand becomes alive and moves from side to side and up and down. The man rejoices, and dances round the figure on the floor. And having done the same to the right hand, and to the left and right foot in succession, they also become alive and move. But although the limbs are living, the body is still inert. The man kneels over the woman and breathes into her mouth and touches her heart with the wand. The woman comes to life and springs up, confronting the man. Then the two dance vigorously and joyously as in the first part. The tune varies with the varying phases of the dance.

It is played by a piper or a fiddler, or sung as a ‘port-a-bial,’ mouth tune, by a looker-on, or by the performers themselves. The air is quaint and irregular, and the words are curious and archaic. In his West Highland Tales Iain F. Campbell of Islay mentions that he saw ‘cailleach an dudain’ danced in the house of Lord Stanley of Alderley. He does not say by whom it was danced, but probably it was by the gifted narrator himself. In October 1871, Mr. Campbell spent some time with the writer and his wife in Uist. When driving him to Lochmaddy, at the conclusion of his stay, I mentioned that there were two famous dancers of ‘cailleach an dudain’ at Clachan-a-ghluip. We went to their bothy, but they were away. The neighbours told us that they were in the direction of Lochmaddy. When we reached there we went in search of them, but were unsuccessful. Some hours afterwards, as I was coming up from the shore after seeing Mr. Campbell on board the packet for Dunvegan, I saw the two women racing down the hill, their long hair and short dresses flying wildly in tlie wind. They had heard that we had been inquiring for them. But it was too late. The packet, with Mr. Campbell on board, was already hoisting her sails and heaving her anchor.

With regard to the name of the jig itself the cailleach may well refer to the Corn Dolly or Maiden, the last sheaf to be taken in from the harvest which in some regions of the Highlands and Islands was referred to as the cailleach. And if this is the case then the dust even on the mill floor could still retain the spirit of grain. Perhaps the ‘resurrection’ dance associated with the tune can be interpreted as mimicking the life, death and rebirth of the cailleach while she is meant to represent the spirit of the grain.

References:

Carmina Gadelica, pp. 206–07.

CW120/344, f. 100v.

Image:

Cailleach.

An Anecdote about Bonnie Prince Charlie

2011-08-05T10:48:00.007+01:00

Berneray, Harris / Beàrnaraigh na Hearadh

Anecdotes and legendary accounts of Bonnie Prince Charlie were legion in the Western Isles and Alexander Carmichael was particularly fortunate to have collected quite a few of them. Although Carmichael is given rather scant acknowledgement by William Jolly, a school inspector and close friend, in his book Flora MacDonald in Uist: A Study of the Heroine in Her Native Surroundings (1886), it may be assumed with some degree of certainty that Carmichael would have supplied him with as much historical information as he had then to hand. In any case, this short anecdote tells of the Prince in the isle of Harris and his involvement with the Campbell of Srannda. He is said to have stayed, while on the lam, for six nights in Donald MacLeod’s house. Subsequently, or perhaps during the Prince’s visit, the host felt it expedient to make himself scarce and fled for safety to the nearby Cave of Ulladale. This would have been a wise move given that he did not wish himself to be associated with harbouring Public Enemy Number One at least as seen in the eyes of the Hanoverian Government. Nevertheless, MacLeod had clear Jacobite sympathies – he had been out – otherwise the Prince would not have been invited to have stayed in his house. For his trouble in offering such generosity despite the risks involved Berneray house was threatened by Captain Ferguson to be blown to kingdom come, a warning which came via the intermediary of Iain Laith mac ’ic Choinnich (a Campbell). It would seem that such a dire consequence was avoided as the house, it would seem, remained intact. The personalities mentioned were well-known in Jacobite circles: Dòmhnall mac Iain Òig, was Donald MacLeod (1671–1781), perhaps better known as Old Beneray or Old Trojan and Iain Mòr Liath mac ’ic Choinnich was John Campbell. The Captain Ferguson mentioned was a naval officer who originally hailed from Inverurie, Aberdeenshire and more details of his career can be found in John S. Gibson’s Ships of the ’45: The Rescue of the Young Pretender (1967):

Prince Charlie live[d] 6 nights in Don[ald]
Mac Iain oig[’s] ho[use]. Old Bearn[ar]y
fled to Ua[mh] Ulladail Capt[ain] F[e]rg[uson] set
his guns & casks of powder at the
house. Gen[e]r[al] Campbell came
to see Iain mor lia[th] mac
mhic Coinnich (Campbell)
(Strannd) then blind who told him
of their com[in]g & if he blew up Bearn[ar]y
house that he might levy Harris of
all the Camp[bells]. Gen[eral] took Iain lia[th] out
to see the long chog[aidh]. On their arri[val] F[e]rg[uson]
cursed Campbell insolentl[y] what
kept him.

Reference:
CW90/63, f. 24v.
Image:
Berneray, Harris / Beàrnaraigh na Hearadh.

A Clan Battle fought at Lagan a’ Chatha

2011-08-02T11:29:00.005+01:00

Glenlyon, Perthshire / Gleann Lìomhann, Siorramachd Pheairt

Highland history is replete with legendary accounts of clan battles from small skirmishes to large-scale fights. Outright violence or the mere threat of violence in the Highlands never seems to have been too far away but for the fact that this would be overstating the case. Perhaps such an image was partly inspired by the Highlanders’ martial spirit which was very much to the fore particularly because of their famous regiments which pushed, kept control and consolidated the boundaries of the British Empire. Be that as it may, in comparison to the Lowlands of an earlier period, blood-feuds were more or less on par with those that took place in the Highlands. It is rather surprising that Alexander Carmichael did not take down more than he did about the legendary accounts of clan battles for they were the stock in trade of most reciters who had any kind of historical bent. This example, set in Perthshire (specifically Glenlyon), was taken down by Carmichael from an unnamed source and name-checks those clans that held sway in this part of the Highlands:

Gleann Li-un
Name
Cama ghleann du[bh] nan clach.
32 miles long. Battle fo[ugh]t between
the Robertson Campbells & Mac
Gregor & the Clann Imhear.
Killed the Macivors out[right?]. They then
went to Breadalbane. The Mac
grigors came down from Bun
rainich. They battle at Lagan
a chatha & stopped at Ceann
Chnoc at Cainis nan cam.
The men washed themselves
& arms at Ford Li’un & the river
ran red with blood. There
a man said. Bho la[tha] nighe
nan arm bith Li’un mar
ainm air Diubh. Srath
Dubh-uisg. Where the
river ran before – silent water
remains there still –
where the river ran before.
My informant killed two otters
here with one shot.

Reference:
CW1/38, f. 11v.
Image: Glenlyon, Perthshire / Gleann Lìomhann, Siorramachd Pheairt.

Some Prophecies of the Brahan Seer

2011-07-29T11:36:00.004+01:00

Howbeg, South Uist

Many traditional tales of Coinneach Odhar or the so-called Brahan Seer were floating around the isles when Alexander Carmichael was collecting there in the early 1870s. One typical tale, noted down on 3 January 1872, from an unnamed reciter in Gramsdale, Benbecula, tells of how the seer came by his powers of prophecy and then how he eventually threw this stone into Loch Ness. It is said that when this stone is eventually rediscovered that all his prophecies will come true. The reciter then goes on to relate a number of prophecies especially those with a connection to Uist and Barra including the presence of grey geese and white sheep; that a battle would be fought at Claddach Kyles after which the raven would drink the blood of the fallen men from the hill at Clach Mhòr a Che and about MacNeil of Barra and the ‘maor nan òrdagan mòr’ who wrote with his left hand:

Coinneach Odhar is said to have

been born at Howbeag – the son of a
widow. He dreamt & got up & dug the
sand on the strand. Twas tho[ugh]t that he got
derg[?]. He wro[ugh]t hard at this for a long time.
He then got a box & in the box a stone
& in the stone all the prophecy – buai[dh]
He kept the stone & as long as he kept
it he proph[esy]ng. He threw fr[om] him[self] the stone
in a lake at near Lochness. When
this lake is drain[ed] the stone will be
found & then many things will c[o]m[e]
to light. He heard a voice when
he was lifting the box on the strand
Prophecies – Uist (N[orth]) will be fo
gheoi[dh] ghlas us caor[aich] gheala which
is true. A battle will be fo[ugh]t at Clad[d-]
ach & the fi[th]each will drink his fill
of the blood of the slain on the top
of Clachamhor a che Passing
a lake at Oban-cinn lianacleit
he said that Lake (Dig mhor[)]
would yet be the best croce feam[ad]
in Uist. There he proph[esied] about
the Macneills of Barra & the duin[e]
mor 24 meoir, & maor nan ordagan
mora a sgri[obhadh] leis an lai[mh] chearr
This maor went to Barra to sequester
Macn[e]ill. He said a coit bheag
would yet carry all the Macdonalds
in S[outh] Uist when the whole country
was full of these.
Calum Bōdach in N[orth] Uist had
tai[bh]searac[hd] & confirmed many of C[oinneach] Odhars.
The man re[a]p[ed] Clai[dh] Chorcail & then
threw at Ioc[hd]ar] the sheaf of corn at the cow
which began eat[in]g & he left & the owner
of the sick cow was d[y]ing. C[oinneach] Odhar
is the seer me[a]nt in S[aint] Clair of
the Isles.

Clach Mhòr a' Che, North Uist

Reference:
CW90/94, ff. 9v–10r.
Images:
Howbeg / Tobh Beag, South Uist / Uibhist a Deas.
Clach Mhòr a’ Che, North Uist / Uibhist a Tuath.

A Colonsay Marriage Custom

2011-07-28T14:54:00.002+01:00

Wedding Rings

Tucked in between a proverb – rinn e sùilean na cait rium with the meaning ‘growing wild at me’ – and a fragmentary pibroch song Bodach nam Briogais, Alexander Carmichael noted down a short item about how marriages were negotiated in the isle of Colonsay. Presumably, though it is not explicitly stated in any way, Carmichael got this information from a native of the place. It may also be noted, judging from the tenor of the opening, that such customs were no longer in use but clearly that they must have lingered long enough in living memory in order for them to be written down. In many ways such customs made a lot of sense and this is perhaps why pre-nuptial agreements have become in a similar fashion more usual when marriages are nowadays being negotiated:

About the beginning of this century it
was customary in Colonsay to meet
on two hillocks to arrange marriage
preliminaries. On the farm of
[ ] they met – the bride’s
party on one knoll (cnoc) and
the groom’s party on another. Then
one man from each party
descended the valley and came
within speaking distance of one
another. They conversed in solemn
tones and then retired to their respective
parties. They descended the valley
a second time and came nearer
than before and talked again in
a formal manner and then
went back up the hill as before.
The two men met again for
the third and last time and on
this occasion came quite close
to each other and after a third
and final and formal negociation [sic] they
parted.

If either party with-drew the
party withdrawing paid the tochar
agreed upon to the other. In case the
girl withdrew, her father had to pay
his daughter’s tochar; if the man
withdrew he paid the equivalent of
the girl’s tochar to the girl and there
was an end to it. Neither lost
cast.

Reference:
CW120/341, ff. 99v–100r.
Image: Wedding Rings.

Nine Nines: A Sacred Number

2011-07-22T15:50:00.010+01:00

Another short anecdote, dating from 14 January 1895, about fairy lore from the pen, or rather pencil, of John Ewen (Iain Eòghann) MacRury, from Torlum, Benbecula, concerns a sacred number in the shape of nine.

Nine, Naodh
The fairies are said
to be nine nines of y[ea]rs
sucking the bre[a]st.
Nine nines in boyhood, Nine
nines in younghood
Nine nines in Middle
man hood Nine nines
in old manhood, and
Nine nines to the bre[a]st
of death “ri uchd bais”

On the following folio Alexander Carmichel himself appends a Gaelic version of the above but from whom he got his he does not say. As well as this, Carmichael has added another stage to the six others mentioned in the above indicating that he may have heard his version from a different source:

Naogh naoghanan a deo[ghai]l
nan cioch naoi 9 a nam corrachadh
naogh naoigh na oganach
naogh naogh na fhear
agh naogh naogh na dhann
fear (dol leis a bhiuthadh) naogh
naogh na dhean fhearagh
naogh naogh ri uc[hd] bais
is duile dhomh nan a
naoghannan D bha = 567 years.

The sum of 9 x 9 is, of course, 81. Adding all these six stages (9 x 9 x 6) gives the total life expectancy of a typical fairy to be 486. The sum of nine nines would seem to have a connection with the sacred number 432 (the so-called cycle of time) that Joseph Campbell came across during his studies of comparative mythology. This, however, falls rather short of 486. Perhaps it may be stretching things out a little to far to suggests there might well be some sort of connection between this pithy anecdote and the cosmic cycle of time. However, within a more specific Celtic context, nine maidens and nine virgin attended Bridget, while the sacred Beltane fire rites were attended by a cycle of nine groups of men consisting each of nine men. And, of course, when looking for other nines there are a great many: nine months for the period of human gestation, nine muses, nine planets and, if we want to look smart, then we all get dressed to the nines.

Reference:
CW1/71 & 72, f. 38v & f. 39r.
Image: 81.

The Gaels Have a Word for It

2011-07-21T11:41:00.003+01:00

John Ewen MacRury (1853–1909)

John Ewen (Iain Eòghann) MacRury, from Torlum, Benbecula, and the various materials that he collected for Alexander Carmichael has been the subject of numerous blogs on previous occasions. Here, for example, are a couple of very useful words if you ever get into a dispute and are looking for just the right words:

Feicheantas a common word
in olden times for an arugment [sic]
between man and wife about
paltry dispuits [sic], especially when
such dispute took place regarding
each other’s people.

Cramhan is a continual
low murmuring complaint
by any person kept up for
no other purpose than to keep
on grumbling and dissatisfy[ing]
others.

Both these words can be found in Dwelly’s dictionary where they are glossed as ‘friendly dispute’ under the heading féicheanas and as ‘unceasing, vexatious talk’ under the heading cnàmhan. MacRury’s definitions are certainly more colourful that those given by Dwelly and reflect the intricate nuances of a rich Gaelic vocabulary.

References:
CW1/106 & 107, f. 111r.
Dwelly, Edward, The Illustrated Gaelic-English Dictionary (Glasgow, 1994), p. 217 & p. 426.
Image: John Ewen MacRury (1853–1909). Reproduced with the kind permission of Calum Laing.

Never Refuse a Drink from a Fairy

2011-07-20T12:20:00.005+01:00

Shawbost, Isle of Lewis

Perhaps one of the best defining characteristics of the fairly folk is their moral ambivalence towards people. Whatever else may be said about them it was downright foolhardy to insult them in any way for they took umbrage at any perceived slight and would then immediately exact revenge. Here, for example, is one such story collected by Alexander Carmichael from a reciter in South Uist in September 1872:

Two were pas[sing] a si[thein] & hea[r]d mais

readh with[in] glug us glag. They

were plough[ing] near the Sith[ein]. I wish
I had a drink of what she is maist
to cais[g] mo iota[dh]. Thainig bean
chaol chota uain[e] mach agus
deoch aic[e] ann an corn. & she
off[ered] it to him & he refused it.
Fhir a shìn mo dheoch s nach
do gha[bh] mo dheoch galar na te duie
a chir Chiad-aoine na ceann
orst. She then of[fered it] to the other & he took [it]
Fhir a gha[bh] mo dheoch ’s nach do dh iarr
mo dheoch rath is buai[dh] gam bi eir
a cheann.

This fairy legend must have been fairly common as there is evidence for plenty variants. A contemporary example collected by Rev. Malcolm MacPhail, a colleague of Carmichael’s, was printed in the journal Folklore, entitled Sìthichean Chaipighill, named after a place in Shawbost, Isle of Lewis:

The fairy legend associated with the two Caipighill knolls is the following. A woman who happened to be passing between these two hillocks one hot summer day heard the sound of churning in the fairy knoll (chuala i fuaim maistreaidh anns an t-sitheain). She said (sotto voce): “Is truagh nach robh mo phathadh air bean a’ ghlugain” (“It is a pity my thirst was not on the churning woman”). (“Glug” is the noise of fluid in motion, but confined in a vessel.) No sooner had the words escaped her lips than a fairy woman (a ’bean shith) attired in green came out of the “sithean” with a drinking cup (a ’cuach) of buttermilk in her hand, and offered it to the woman to drink. At this sudden and unexpected answer to her wish she felt a good deal put out, and declined the fairy’s hospitality, giving as her reason for so doing that she was not thirsty. “Why then did you wish for it?” said the fairy woman (“Carson mata a dh’ iarr thu i,” arsa’ bhean shith). Observing the woman’s embarrassment, she said : “Are you afraid it will injure you?” (“Thubhairt i am bheil eagal ort gu’n dean i cron dhuit”). “Yes,” she said (“Tha,” ars’ ise). “The misfortune of her who put the first comb in her head on Wednesday be mine if it will do you any harm” (“Galar na te a chuir a’cheud chir cheud-aoin ’na ceann armsa ma ni i cron ort”). “What misfortune is that?" said she. “The misfortune of having neither son, nor daughter, nor grandchild, nor great-grandchild” “Coid an galar a tha’n sin?” ars ise. “Tha arsa’ bhean-shith, galar a bhi gun mhac, gun nighean, gun odha, gun iar-odha”). This legend is of some interest philologically, as it indicates that Wednesday (Di-ciadain) was the day of the first fast. Thursday (Diar-daoin) the day after the fast. Friday (Di-h-aoine) the fast-day. The legend clearly shows that these days of the week derived their names from “aoin” (a fast), and that these fastdays were considered so sacred that the first woman who ventured to comb her hair on a Wednesday was believed to have been punished with sterility for her profanity. (I was acquainted with some people in my young days who would not comb their hair on Sunday.) This view is strongly corroborated by a Lewis proverb: “O aoin gu h-an-aoin,” i.e. “From the calmness of sacred fast to the most admired disorder.” It was considered unlucky to marry on Friday, and even at the present day Thursday is the day usually selected for “tying the nuptial knot.” In reading the Apostolical Constitution a few months ago I discovered that Wednesday and Friday were held as sacred fast-days, as the subjoined note shows:

“Wednesday and Friday Fasts.—The reason for fasting on the days specified is given in the Apostolical Constitution thus because on the fourth day judgment went forth against the Lord, Judas then promising his betrayal for money, and on the preparation (fast), because the Lord suffered on that day the death of the cross.” (The Church of the Sub-Apostolic Age, by Professor Heron, p. 185.)

References:

CW108/89, f. 23r.

MacPhail, Malcolm, ‘Folklore from the Hebrides II’, Folklore, vol. 8, no. 4 (1897), pp. 380–86.

Menefee, S. P., ‘A Cake in the Furrow’, Folklore, vol. 91, no. 2 (1980), pp. 173–92.

Image: Shawbost, Isle of Lewis.

The Satirical Wit of Gille na Ciotaig (Archibald MacDonald)

2011-07-18T11:43:00.007+01:00

Boleskine Cemetery

The use of satire, especially in poetry or song, was a common phenomenon in Gaelic tradition. Such was the very great fear of being satirised that it was believed that it caused blisters to erupt on the skin or could even cause death! A skilled poet was to be admired as well as feared for in his or her hands words spoken or sung had the power to influence by either praising or dispraising. A good reputation was highly sought after in the Gaelic world and this is why powerful people would pay bards generously to make sure that they would be well thought of and even be remembered to posterity. There are a great many examples of praise songs or poetry. Those who had the temerity to be put in the black books of any given bard would pay the hefty price of being satirised. Aside from any individual bard probably the most famous group of these, of which Alexander Carmichael collected and wrote about, were the Cliar Sheanchain, a wandering band of performers. From whom Carmichael took down this song narrative and satire, he does not say, but in all likelihood it would have been collected in North Uist sometime in 1877 when Carmichael was on his rounds. The bard in question, Gille na Ciotaig – so-called for he probably had a shrivelled or stumped hand – was Archibald MacDonald (c. 1750–c. 1815), a North Uist bard. By refusing to let the bard graze his horse Gille na Ciotaig “lampooned the inhospitable farmer, and thus had his revenge. He gave him the horrible description of being the ugliest man in the sherrifdom, and predicted that there were terrible things in store for him.” It is said that while on his way to Inverness to get his works published he fell gravely ill in Fort Augutus and he was subsequently buried in nearby Boleskine cemetery though his grave remains unmarked. A plaque was raised to his memory in 1988 by members of the Gaelic Society of Inverness:

Gille na Ciotaig was a native of North
Uist but having satirized the factor or
proprietor there for some act of oppression
he was obliged to leave the place. He went to
South Uist and lived at Lochaoineart or
Lochboisdale – uncertain which – . He
travelled much about throughout the
Highlands and Islands and being highly
connected being a near relation of Lord
Macdonald he had access to the best society
in his travels. He travelled on horseback.
Upon one occasion when going through
Bearnasdail in Skye he called at a
friends house and tied his pony at the door.
The pony broke loose and found his way into
the corn of the tacksman of Bearnasdail,
a miser and a churl. The poet’s pony
was poinded and when the poet came
out he found his pony poinded and
would not be released except upon pay-
ment of the damage – miastadh, domail –
done by him to the corn of Fear Bhearnas-
dail. Gille Na Ciotaig put down the half
crown on the wall of the poind – the legal
mode – and got his pony. He then
sang or recited the following satire
which so stung the miserly tacksman
that he begged him to take up his half-
crown and never to repeat his satire,
and besides that he was welcome to
cuid oi[dh]che us la[tha] to himself and his
gearran whenever he came the way.
The poet, however, would not be
thus silenced and he left singing the
satire as he went his way.

Bodach Bhearnasdail an Innis (Uinis?)

Duine is grainnde tha ’s an t-siorrac[hd]

Bodach Bearnasdail an Innis

Ceann-cinne [fine] gach déisdin – èigin

Tha do ghruaidh gu’n aona mhir bithidh

Do chom lac[hd]un[n] cartaidh ruighinn

Coltach ri bian beiste-duibhe

Ga ruitheadh air dile.

Bodach Bhearnasdail an Innis

Duin is grainnde tha ’s an t-siorrac[hd]

Bodach Bhearnasdail an Innis

Ceann-fine gach déisdin [Ceann-uidhe]

Do cheann urrad ri brìg mhoine

Do chluas urrad ri lòban

Do bhial mar gu’m biodh òbar

Le gran eorn air leighinn!

Amhach chaol na corra-ghrithich

Ni thu fathast cainb a ruitheadh

Croich a feitheamh ort na suidhe

Gheobh na fithich fèasd ort!

Bodach Bhearnasdail an Innis

Duin is grainnde tha ’s an t siorrac[hd].

Memorial Plaque to Archibald MacDonald / Gille na Ciotaig

References:

CW108/81, ff. 23r –24r.

MacDonald, Archibald (ed.), The Uist Collection (Glasgow: Archibald Sinclair, 1894).

Images: Boleskine Cemetery © Copyright Steven Brown and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence and the Memorial to Archibald MacDonald / Gille na Ciotaig.

Cod Liver Supper, Anyone?

2011-07-15T15:31:00.003+01:00

Cod / Bodach Ruadh or Trosg

Very rarely does Alexander Carmichael take the trouble to write down recipes but here is one interesting example of presumably a local delicacy. It would appear that Carmichael took down the instructions in order to prepare cod liver from the recitation of Anthony Campbell (1825–1907) who belonged to Kentangaval in Barra. As is well known cod liver oil – though perhaps not to everyone’s taste – is a common nutritional supplement that is beneficial as it is full of vitamins that help to maintain good health. Carmichael doesn’t mention whether he ever tried the recipe but it seems that he probably did given that he was intrigued enough to have even bothered to have taken it down. Perhaps the resulting dish was rather tasty and it certainly would have been full of very healthy nutrients given that the Hebridean diet then, as now, includes fish such as cod, halibut or turbot and ling:

Gnuan [Gruthan] nam bodach, the liver is washed & put
in clean cold water & all[owed] to stand there for 3 or 4 hours

when it becomes nearly snow white. Then put in a
basin agus ga thaosna[dh] agus toirt as a chuile
riamhach a th ann. Then put puts [sic] a small
grain of salt, soda & pepper & then oat
meal or bere & baked & put in a say a pudding
plate. Puts this in a Poot [sic] of boiling water & if at
hand flounders soles Crog or Crogabhaigean
or piece of cod or skate. Nearly an hours or ¾
takes out allows it to cool little warmer
than cold. Like butter them & delicious
2 put in the goile of the trost & used as a
marrag. The gnuan [gruthan] of the langa is stronger
again. first boiled like fish & then fried.
But only the liver of the ling with the iuchair is
safe. If the gnuan [gruthan] of a ling is taken it causes
for 3 days a heaviness & then the skin peels
of & casts. He is troubled with musgaid, ruai,
trom or sac. The bradan leathan's gnuan [gruthan]
if with iuchar does the same. When the fish[erman]
wants a gruan [gruthan] langa he puts a X of the
gnuan [gruthan] of the ling that has an iuchair & upon
no account touches another.

Reference:
CW108/22, ff. 7r–7v.
Image:
Cod / Bodach Ruadh or Trosg.

Otters and Eels

2011-07-14T11:39:00.004+01:00

Otter / Bèist D(h)ubh or Dòbhran

It is perhaps not a well-known fact about Alexander Carmichael that he planned to publish a natural history of the Hebrides. Somewhat like a few of his other plans, this project for whatever reason never saw the light of day. Every so often Carmichael took the opportunity to note down something about the beasts and creatures that he would encounter on his ‘beat’ around Uist as well as other islands. A typical example of this is a short note concerning the reproductive cycle and animal behaviour of otters and was probably taken down from the recitation of Anthony Campbell (1825–1907) who belonged to Kentangaval in Barra:

Otters bring forth end of Sep[tember] or beg[inning] of Oct[ober]
two pups – a male & female each time.
In swimming about pups go on each
side of dam. They eat muca-rua – eels
they prefer. They have the head half of the
eel & eat the tail half. They catch the
eel by the tail & allow it to drag the otter till
the eel gives up dead. The eel lives in a faic[he]
in a cairn with a clear morghan in
front & round it. Faic[he] = sloc under
a big stone in a sea cairn. The same
with the lobster.

Reference:
CW108/16, f. 6r.
Image: Otter, called Bèist D(h)ubh or Dòbhran in Scottish Gaelic.

Druidic Lore in the Hebrides

2011-07-13T10:42:00.005+01:00

Druid

It may come as something of a surprise, given that Alexander Carmichael was so immersed in the spiritual and religious life of the Gaels, that it would appear that he did not gather a great deal of oral traditions about druids. Perhaps the real reason behind all of this is that there was not a great amount to be had. The age old connection of the Druids with fairy mounds is made apparent as well as their important rituals that were held during the quarter days. Carmichael, it seems, was rather intrigued for he notes down a woman called Beathag in Berneray whose name, it may be presumed, was passed on to him as someone who knew more about these traditions and may have also been an authority on local lore in Berneray itself. It remains unclear whether Carmichael ever managed to visit this woman for if he had then presumably he would have taken down a great deal more material about this fascinating subject:

Duns in L[ong] Isle erected by the
Druids not tilling – nothing but
siothan & iasg. Worship at
end of each quart[er] met not at
the baile but in a glen & kind[led]
a fire upon a sithein far
fr[om] houses & they went round
the brudh. They held each others
hands & cont[inued] for a trath[?] then
one of the no [number] wou[ld] put into the fire
an iobradh. La[tha] Beall[tainn] La[tha]
Luineasdal La[tha] Samhna La[tha] Ille
Bride. Hence arose the naming of sith
ein & the supposed fires & sup[erstition]. A
Sithein at Fī-leum Stronind. A
mound green in a moss
Croc-sonari a sithein See Beathag
in Bearnara. This is in Bear[nar]y.

Reference:
CW90/58, f. 22v.
Image: Sketch of a Druid.

Rockall: An Islet on the Edge of the World

2011-07-11T10:28:00.007+01:00

Rockhall / Rocabarraigh

The tiny rocky islet of Rockall or Rocabarraigh lying some 188 miles from Soay, the easternmost island of the St Kilda archipelago, has been claimed by United Kingdom on a number of occasions. The ownership of the islet is still a matter of dispute as it is claimed by Denmark (for the Faroe Islands), Iceland, Ireland and, as mentioned, the United Kingdom. In the following tradition, noted down by Alexander Carmichael around 1872 from, it would seem, an anonymous source, the tale has all the hallmarks of a mythological island – the title probably refers to a sandy isle – that had been mistaken for the rather rocky and extremely isolated islet practically in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean:

Eilean Gaineacha
A man coming fr[om] abro[oad] & he saw
a black spot bad om[en] & he near[ed] & what was
this but & iallain an t sao[gha]il &
f[indin]g above a small isl[e]. He put out
the punt A large ford ran
across the isl[e] & a stac of fish
bones on the ea[st] side ford. He del[iberated]
that he sh[oul]d have some for din[ner] in
such a pl[ace] He left with the int[ent]
of ret[urnin]g He came to Engl[and] Ere
he could ret[urn] went came in &c
know[ing] the wild[ness] of the pl[ace] with
out anchorage ex[cept] the ford
He & oth[er]s ret[urned] & when th[e]y came
no isl[e] was vis[ible]. They were mock
ing him & they began sounding &
found nothing but rock
& this they called Rockall.

Reference:

CW90/71, f. 29r.

Image: Rockall or Rocabarraigh taken from Harvie-Brown, J. A. & Buckley, T. E., A Vertebrate Fauna of the Outer Hebrides (Edinburgh: David Douglas, Edinburgh, 1899), facing p. lxxxvi.

Rain-Goose: A Weather Forecaster

2011-07-07T10:22:00.009+01:00

Rain-goose or Red-throated diver or loon

Reflecting perhaps the eclectic mixture of items to be found in Alexander Carmichael’s fieldwork notebooks is an example of a verse about a rain-goose, so-called for its ability to predict weather patterns. There is, however, no indication from whom Carmichael got this item but he may have heard it at different times from a variety of reciters and also in various localities. Rain-goose is the name given to the bird in the Western Isles as well as in Orkney and Shetland but perhaps it is better known and perhaps even more familiar as a red-throated diver or loon. It may also be of interest to note that Forbes in his book Gaelic Names of Beasts (1905) does not give the same name (bir-ghia or perhaps better understood as biorra-ghiadh) as Carmichael which may or may not indicate that it is in fact a ghost-word. In the final volume of Carmina, however, rain-goose is mentioned but with an alternative name: giadh gob, and also in the second volume of Carmina with a slightly different spelling: giadh gaob.

Bir-ghia Birghia = Rain Goose
from bir = water and geadh = goose
Bir! bir! bir!
An lin[n] a traghadh
Bir! bir! bir!
An lin[n] a traghadh
Bir! bir! bir!
An lin[n] a traghadh
M’ urlagann {muirlagan {muragan
M’ eoneagan
M’ uibheanagan
M’ ulaidh agus
M’ auradh

To this Carmichael appended a close translation which eventually found its way into print in the second volume of Carmina:

Rain! rain! rain!
The lake drying
Rain! rain! rain
The lake drying
Rain! rain! rain!
My little gifts / presents
My little cheeks
My little eggs
My treasures
thy troubles!

In a fairly long note Carmichael states that ‘‘giadh gaob, rain goose…is in reference to the belief that certain peculiarities in the cry and flight of the bird indicate rain. The bird is familiar in the West of Scotland, although rare or unknown in other parts of Britain.’ Carmichael then provides a version of the above making a general statement about its origin:

Should draught occur, and the water subside below her reach, the bird flies about hither and thither uttering cries of concern. The people have rendered these utterances of the bird in human language:–

‘Deoch! deoch! deoch!
An loch a traghadh!
Deoch! deoch! deoch!
An loch a traghadh!
Burn! burn! burn!
Mo luth ’m fhagail!
Burn! burn! burn!
Mo luth ’m fhagail!’

Drink! drink! drink!
The loch is drying!
Drink! drink! drink!
The loch is drying!
Water! water! water!
My strength failing me!
Water! water! water!
My strength is failing me!

Not content with giving only one version Carmichael then proceeds to give one more with particular relevance to Harris and Lewis than the immediate one above which prevailed in North and South Uist:

‘Bir! bir! bir!
An lir [sic] a deabhadh!
Bir! bir! bir!
An lir [sic] a deabhadh!
Burn! burn! burn!
Burn! burn! burn!
Burn! burn! burn!
Mo luth ’m threigsinn.’

Rain! rain! rain!
The lake is drying!
Rain! rain! rain!
The lake is drying!
Water! water! water!
Water! water! water!
Water! water! water!
My strength’s failing me!

As can be readily seen the manuscript version differs slightly from that which Carmichael based his printed long note with regard to the rain-goose and if that is the case then this is but one example of his editorial method by which he wished to improve things and so to present his fieldwork notes as more a literary endeavour than a literal rendition.

References:
CW122/89, ff. 17r–17v.
Carmina Gadelica, ii, pp. 336–37.
Image: A red-throated diver or loon as known as a rain goose.

An Appin Fairy Story

2011-07-05T17:44:00.009+01:00

Glencreran, Appin

A fairy story, collected in 1883 by Alexander Carmichael probably from his namesake, Mary, who was then aged around seventy-one and who resided in and probably belonged to Druim a’ Bhuic in Glencreran, has all the classical ingredients of this genre. In the story, the man, from Blar nan Laogh, Ach-nan-Con, Appin drags his wife by the ankle through a fire and discovers the fairies had replaced her with the trunk of an oak tree ‘black stoc daraich’. The story states that the fairies are keen to take women for their milk in order to feed their fairy children. A summary of this story may be given as follows as a foiled abduction of a woman. The fairies are forestalled in their attempt to steal her (usually she is heavy with child and, of course, indicating a liminal status) and they leave a wooden image of her behind which would have been put in her place. It may also be of interest to note that urine or in Gaelic maistir – presumably human as well as animal – has apotropaic qualities and which could be used to avert any danger that fairies posed for they are said to take great offence at strong smells. Presumably, then, a fairy waulking or luadhadh would be out of the question!

The fairies carried her away from her
lea[baidh]-shiula. There was a man in Blar
nan laogh Ach-nan-con, Appin.
He went to Duror for whisky. In ret[urn]ing he
laid down the jar & made water. This
Chuala e “ocaid” eir sgioblachadh
a bhreacain. He looked down & saw his own
wife whom he carried home – & plac[ed]
in the barn. When he went in his
own mother & his wife[’s] moth[er] were
in great distress about his un-returned
wife. He cau[gh]t her by caol nan cas
& dragged her thro[ugh] a large fire & she was
a black stoc daraich in the door.
This was what the sith plac[ed] in his
wife[’]s bed when they carried her away.
He placed his wife in her bed. She
was deliv[ered] before he left. That is why they
are so keen to take women for their
milk to feed the clann nan sith.
Urine stops fairy cantrips.
‘Is meirg a leigeadh uc[hd] ri tailean.’
When the old black fairy was thrown in the
glumag was by the woman. When
the tailor told her he was a fairy
when he made the fuarag.

References:

Black, Ronald (ed.), The Gaelic Otherworld (Edinburgh, 2005), pp. 19–20.

CW120/82, ff. 28r–29r.

Image: Glencreran, Appin © Copyright Alan Partridge and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

A Cure for Syphilis

2011-07-04T16:42:00.010+01:00

Fr. George Rigg

Folk cures taken down by Alexander Carmichael form not an inconsiderable part of his fieldwork notebooks. Book-ended between a song and a note about North Rona, a cure for syphilis is related, whereby the healing power of ‘Sugh brist lus-nan-laogh and the Meacal’ [the sap from bruised golden saxifrage and its root] is noted as ‘ordered by’ Fr. James MacGregor (c. 1790–1867) who was a priest in Iochdar, South Uist, for many years.

Sugh brist Lus-nan laogh

and the Meacal ordered

by Rev. Father MacGrigor

Ioc[hd]ar the man in S[outh] Uist

for cure of syphilis.

Irrespective of whether such a cure was effective or not, it reflects the fact that such cures were known about and perhaps even used in the absence of a qualified practitioner. Medical assistance in South Uist even in Carmichael’s own day would have been difficult to come by and there are eyewitness accounts of disease wiping out many of the poor. One such outbreak of typhus, similar to the one mentioned recently regarding Lismore, carried away Fr. Alan McDonald’s close friend (and successor at Daliburgh) Fr. George Rigg who died from the disease in 1897:

News has been received of the death of the Rev. George Rigg, priest at St. Peter’s, Dalibrog, in South Uist, one of the Outer Hebrides, in the diocese of Argyll and the Isles. Father Rigg met his death owing to a devotion not less that that of Pere Damien. The family of one of his parishioners, a Hebridean cottar, consisting of a man, his wife and child, were all attacked by typhus fever at one and the same time. The neighbours were loathe to approach the cottage in which the stricken family lay ill, and for weeks, with the exception of the doctor, who paid his daily visit, the priests unassisted nursed the sick household, cooking for them, and performing all the necessary and unpleasant menial offices attached to this self-imposed task. As a result he contracted the fever in its worst form, and died, after terrible sufferings, a few days ago, in the presence of his sister and the priest of the other South Uist parish, who had nursed him devotedly.

Such was impact of such a loss that not only did Fr. Allan compose a Gaelic elegy for him but so did Donald MacCormick and Donald Patterson.

During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries syphilis was common throughout Europe but with the advent of modern antibiotics such as penicillin has subsequently seen the rate decline rapidly. If left untreated syphilis in its tertiary stage of development is severe and may result in syphilitic insanity as well as death.

References:

CW120/303, ff. 84 v–85r.

Laments composed for George Rigg can be heard here:

http://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk/fullrecord/93108/1.

http://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk/fullrecord/26582/1.

http://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk/fullrecord/79600/1.

Image: Fr. George Rigg (1860–1897).

A Typhus Outbreak in Lismore

2011-06-30T12:49:00.005+01:00

Tirefour/Lismore, Tìr Phuir/Lios Mòr

Given that modern medicine has advanced so much in the last decade not to mention the last few hundred years then it is sometimes easy to forget that diseases such as typhus, cholera, tuberculosis, measles, scarlet fever and so on, that are now to a very great extent completely eradicated throughout Scotland as well as elsewhere, were once the scourge of in particular urban but also rural populations. This particularly moving and personal testimony was taken down in August 1883 by Alexander Carmichael – who himself may have witnessed similar outbreaks of such a disease in his youth in Lismore – from Christina or Christy Campbell née Macintyre (1822–1896). Perhaps the most heartbreaking aspect of her story, apart from the fact that the typhus outbreak ravaged her loved ones, was the consequence of debt that she carried for many years afterwards. It is interesting to note that when she regained her health she stated, ‘When I got well all I had left were a few hens – neither of stock nor of crop.’ She further describes how she and her neighbours Dugald Buchanan, who was in arrears, and Donald and Maol-Moire Black, who were not in arrears, were put out of their farms and one single farm at Tirefour was created for Captain Campbell in Oban. It may be argued that the social dimension of such outbreaks had a far greater detrimental impact on rural populations and they could in fact suffer even more their urban equivalent especially with the added consequence of a looming threat of clearance.

About 1918 years ago this
Aut[umn], my brother Dugald
Macintire aged 44(?) took
typhus fever & in eight
days he was dead. My
husband Dun[can] Campbell
took fever & in as short
a time died. Each went out on a Tuesday –
3 weeks between. I drag-
ged both their bodies out
& put them in the coffin
on the field. & I weak
watching them & fighting
with them for they came
strong & feverish. My
nephew Don[ald] Mac
corquodale aged ab[ou]t 13
was down & pulled thro[ugh]
brothers & sister’s boy Dun[can]
Macintire aged 4 y[ea]rs was
down – but pulled thro[ugh].
Mary Carmichael aged
30 30 ab[ou]t 30 was down – A
cousin of weak[mind] I
then lay in fear & lay
unconscious for 3 weeks
& till beg[inning]of spring was weak.
I crept on my magain
to eadar da bhi an doruis
The carts carrying away
our corn were passing
our door but I could not
see them being weak. The
cattle then were all away
– driven away by Do[mh]n[al]l
Iain bhain. We had
4 cows, 1 horse good 2 queys
2 stirks 1 pet lamb which
I fed from the gogan.
The crop was good.
When I came my service
on the Galldac[hd] my mother
& brother were £31. That I paid.
A few years before my
brother died (3 y[ea]rs ) my
bro[ther] lost the price of a ho[r]se
while ret[urn]ing from market
This threw us about £8 in
arrears. We got no
warning & no sale was
made – either of crop
or stock. When I got
well all I had left were
a few hens – neither of
stock nor of crop. pota
Potatoes & corn gone –
I aft[erwards] got one from
Gregor. I got the byre
of a neigh[bour] Dugald
Bauchann Who had been
similarly served. Our
neigh[bours] Donald & Maol-
Moire Black brothers were
not a penny in arrears.
Their farm ours and
Dugald Buch (Buchanan). were put
out & one farm made
of the whole Tirphuir
now in poss[ession] of Cap[tain] Cam[pbell]
Oban.
Who kept you up there
Bha Ni math fear a
b urrainn – I got paid
relief for my sister[-in-]law[’s]
boy & when Early in Spring
I was delivered of a boy – I was
ab[ou]t 8 mo[months] mar[ried] When
my boy was ab[ou]t 9 y[ea]rs I saw
I could give him no scho[o]l
so I had to app[ly] for relief –
This cont[intued] ab[ou]t 5 y[ea]rs.

Reference:
CW120, ff. 14v–17r.
Image: Tirefour/Lismore, Tìr Phuir/Lios Mòr.

Alexander Carmichael’s Laureation Address

2011-06-28T12:24:00.011+01:00

Dr Alexander Carmichael, 1909

Sir Ludovic Grant (1862–1936) addressed Carmichael in the following terms when he had his degree conferred upon him. It may also be of interest to say something about Sir Ludovic’s style of lecturing who had held the chair of Public Law from 1890 to 1922:

Sir Ludovic Grant held the chair of Jurisprudence and Public International Law. He was the son of a Principal of the university. He was very tall, rubicund, moustached and of an aristocratic personality. He was easy on notetakers, repeating each sentence as he went along and all in a very loud and explosive tone of voice. The names and concepts of his subject were accordingly highly flavoured and memorable. ‘Pumperdink’, ‘Bynkerschoeck’, the ‘mare clausum’ and such reverberate still in one’s ears. We heard with pleasure from him that the first essay in English on the law of warfare at sea was the work of a Scotsman, the notable John Clerk of Eldin …

His career, however, was more that of a university administrator than scholar: he was Dean of the Faculty of Law from 1894 to 1910 and it would have been in this role that he addressed Carmichael:

The Western Isles of Scotland have been Mr Carmichael’s happy hunting-grounds, and his learned labours in these picturesque realms, extending over nearly fifty years, have been crowned with fruitful results. He has made many interesting contributions to philology and archaeology, but none of his achievements is more deserving of commemoration than his work in collecting and recording large portions of the Gaelic folklore, which, but for his timely exertions and pious care, must have perished irretrievably. The task of salvage was no light one. It was from the lips of aged cottars and herdsmen, amidst circumstances often of difficulty and sometimes of danger, that the precious harvest of ballad and legend, of rune and incantation had to be slowly and laboriously gathered in. English readers have now been afforded an opportunity of acquiring themselves with the simple dignity, the beauty, and the power of this literature of the unlettered, for Mr Carmichael had translated considerable sections in his “Carmina Gadelica” – an undertaking of unique character, of which we may be permitted to hope for further instalments.

But there is another aspect of his work which must not be lost of sight to-day. Mr Carmichael has been a close student of social conditions in the Outer Hebrides, and it is beyond question that his sympathetic and illuminative papers on the system of holding and working land, and on the grazing customs in these islands, were instrumental in awakening public interest in the condition of the crofters, and in preparing the way for remedial legislation. I present Mr. Carmichael to you as an eminent Gaelic scholar and archaeologist, and as a literary salvor whose services may be fitly recompensed by the Degree of Doctor of Laws.

Image: Dr Alexander Carmichael’s Graduation Photograph from The Oban Times.

Alexander Carmichael’s Letter of Acceptance

2011-06-27T15:40:00.005+01:00

Dr Alexander Carmichael, 1909

Through the advocacy of Professor Donald MacKinnon (1839–1914), the first holder of the Chair of Celtic at the University of Edinburgh, Alexander Carmichael was conferred with the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws in recognition of his fifty year folklore collecting career. The honour was fully justified for if it had not been for his unstinting and selfless work then much tradition would have been irrevocably lost. Carmichael’s letter is perhaps uncharacteristically short but it clearly shows that he was deeply touched and highly appreciative of the honour that the University authorities were to bestow upon him:

15 Barnton Terrace

Edinburgh
11th Feb[ruar]y 1909

Sir Ludovic Grant Bart,

Dear Sir,
I have the honour
to acknowledge the re-
solution of the University
of Edinburgh to confer
upon me the degree
of Doctor of Laws.
May I use the freedom
of asking you to con
vey to the Senatus my
high appreciation
of this honour.
I hope to have the
pleasure of being present
to receive this distinction.

Yours sincerely,
Alexander Carmichael

Reference and Images:
EUA/INI/ADS/STA/15, 1889–1913, Letter of Acceptance.
Alexander Carmichael’s Graduation.

A Stroll in Lochaber

2011-06-22T10:53:00.010+01:00

Inverlochy Castle by Horatio MacCulloch

On occasion Alexander Carmichael would note down short diary entries about something that must have moved in some way or another. On 28 September 1890, Carmichael happened to be in Lochaber and was in the company of John MacCallum, the Baillie. Not a great deal can be said about his short description other than to say Carmichael presumably had enjoyed himself in the company of the Baillie and would also have been delighted with the impressive scenery. The next couple of days Carmichael spent in Brae Lochaber on a collecting trip where he took down material from Archibald MacInnes, Ishbel Mackintosh (both in Inverroy) on 1 October and Ann and Mary MacDonald in Bohuntine in Glenroy on 2 October. Coincidentally, the first item, Rann romh Urnaigh (‘Rune Before Prayer’), to appear in volume 1 of Carmina Gadelica was ascribed to Ann MacDonald née Campbell (1818–1897), described by Carmichael as a crofter’s daughter living at Bohuntineville.

Along with Bail[l]e John Maccallum

went to see old I^[onnor] Lochaidh Castle
after that walked to Banaovi [Banavie]. In the
evening Baile Maccallum drove me
with carriage and pair up Glenevis
to head of Glen One half or more right
round Ben-nevis. Magnificent scenery
The nevis runs level and land on
either bank level for many miles.

Reference:
CW1, f. 9r.
Carmina Gadelica, i, pp. 2–3.
Carmina Gadelica, ii, p. 374.
Image:
Inverlochy Castle painted in 1857 by Horatio MacCulloch (1805–1867).

John Duncan, R. S. A. on Carmina Gadelica

2011-06-20T10:40:00.010+01:00

Deirdre of the Sorrows

In a beautifully produced and lavishly illustrated book, Voices from the Hills / Guthan o na Beanntaibh (1927) edited by John ‘Celtic’ MacDonald and printed by Archibald Sinclair of the Celtic Press, John Duncan (1866–1945), a leading artist of the Scottish Symbolist movement, wrote eulogistically about Alexander Carmichael’s Carmina Gadelica. The review begins thus:

To praise this book duly would be but to print it again in its own words, adding nothing and taking nothing away—it is its own best praise. From its first hymn, an act of adoration, “I am bending my knee in the eye of the Father who created me,” to its last note at the end, “This is what I would ordain to thee, the daughter of a King, with gold and gems,” it is a necklace for a King’s daughter, of spiritual gold and jewels, to be worn like the talisman of Patrick, as a breastplate against all evil.

Carmichael and Duncan were acquainted with one another from at least the mid-1890s probably through their mutual assocation with Patrick Geddes (1854–1932). When Carmichael published his book-length account of Deirdire (1905), Duncan provided an illustration as a frontispiece although this was only given due acknowledgement in the second edition that made its appearance in 1914.

After giving some representative examples, including The Invocation of the Graces, from Carmina, Duncan ends his review with the following rather optimistic and idealistic thoughts:

We have here the richest body of ancient spiritual poetry, given again to us in our own time. About this spiritual inheritance of the Gael will rise, we hope, seanachies, seers, singers, and artists of all kinds, as a strong guard of paladins, to protect it, and to shape it into ever fresh forms to speak to the changing generations, and chief of these paladins stands, and shall stand, Alexander Carmichael, seannachie, seer, singer and artist in one.

This book is the result of much search and much pondering. Alexander Carmichael was a true artist, and had the artist’s hunger for perfection. He went for days, weighing the exact word to render the finest had of the meaning of the original, the word that gave the colour and the quality to it. One may say of him what he said of Catherine Macaulay:—Alexander Carmichael was greatly gifted in speaking, and was marvellously endowed with memory for old tales and hymns, runes and incantations, and for literature and traditions of many kinds. He went from house to house, from townland to townland, warmly welcomed and cordially received wherever he went. May his book travel as he travelled, bringing joy, and beauty, and inspiration wherever it goes.

Reference:

MacDonald, John (ed.), Voices from the Hills / Guthan o na Beanntaibh (Glasgow: An Comunn Gàidhealach (The Highland Association), 1927), pp. 24–30.

Image: Deirdre of the Sorrows by John Duncan, c. 1905.

A Royal Autopsy: Prince Sobieski of Poland

2011-06-17T10:19:00.006+01:00

Tollbooth and Canongate, Edinburgh.

Mentioned in a previous blog was John Stuart Sobieski and here is another mention of a Sobieski, an exiled Prince from Poland. Alexander Carmichael collected this rather unusual anecdote from Dr Aisley, Killiemor House, Mull, which tells of how he dissected a royal subject while at the University of Edinburgh when he was acting as an assistant to a Professor of Anatomy, John Goodsir (1814–1867), who was also a pioneer in the study of the cell. The royal subject was none other than Prince Sobieski of Poland, who had been wounded in battle and had eventually escaped to Edinburgh. He later died in the infirmary of his wounds. The anecdote is rather truncated and eventually trails off which may indicate that Carmichael was interrupted either when he was writing it down at the time or, more likely perhaps, from memory afterwards:

Coillimore house Tuesday
Night 17 Aug[ust] 1886.

Dr. Aisley mar[ried] to niece
of Mrs Colin Maciver here
says he dissected a royal
subject in Edinburgh Uni[versi]ty
when assist[ant] to Professor
G[o]odsir Dr Go[o]dsir came
round and said you will
oblige me much by dis
cont[inuin]g you. Often on that
subject. Young. Subject
was Prince Sob[i]eski
of Poland wounded in the
tibia at the battle of [words omitted]
He found his way as refugee
to Scotland became re-
[?] lived in the Cannon
gate supp[orted] by a 2 or 3 friends
of whom I am I happily
was one. He got ill went
into the infirmary where he
died three days ago unknown
to us. You will find a
bullet wound in [words omitted]
I wish to bury him &c
All the wounds were as described

Reference:
CW122, fos. 10v–11r.
Image:
Tollbooth and Canongate, Edinburgh.

How to Cure a Cow: Silver Water

2011-06-15T08:48:00.003+01:00

Silver Water

A well-known cure for any ailing cow was picked up by Alexander Carmichael from John Cameron (1805–1889) in Borve, Barra. This practice, it seems, would have been widespread throughout the Highlands and Islands as well as in other parts of Scotland. Such a method was usually referred to traditionally as uisge-airgid and the silver agent was used for its apotropaic qualities in order to avert the evil-eye or droch-shùil (usually the agency to have caused the cow to fall into ill-health in the first place):

Cattle Cure – An old dairy
maid request[ed] John Cameron
Borve to go to a tobar fior
uisg nach tra'adh [traghadh] or to a
stream forming a march &
to take home water from that –
To go ere sun rise or sun
set with an eye of man
or woman to see Place
silver in the dish & sprinkle
this 3 times on the cow.

The remarkable ability of people to remember such folk-cures is demonstrated by the following example which was taken down in Easter Ross by Prof. Seosamh Watson some three decades ago:

Bha bobhla mor fiodh aca agus bhitheadh leth-chrun anns am bobhla agus, reist, bhitheadh sia sgilling anns am bobhla agus bonnan tì sgilling anns am bobhla. Bheireadh iad sin dut a dh'ol agus nan fhastadh an t-airgead ri toin am bobhla se buidsidheachd a bha ann, buidsidheachd. Nan fhastadh an t-airgead gu toin am bobhla bhitheadh fhios aca, reist, gur buidsidheachd bha deis dut. A bheil thu tuigeil? Agus nis, rachadh e tron aite.

This above narrative is given in translation as follows:

They had a big wooden bowl and there would be a half-crown in the bowl and then there would be sixpence in the bowl and a little threepenny piece in the bowl. They would give you that to drink and if the money stuck to the bottom of the bowl it would be witchcraft, witchcraft. If the money stuck to the bottom of the bowl then that witchcraft had been done on you. Do you see? Now that news would go trough the locality.

References:

CW90, f. 59v.

Watson, Seosamh, ‘Saoghal Bana-Mharaiche: Oral Accounts of Life in an Easter Ross Community’ (Part II), Béaloideas, vol. 72 (2004), pp. 99–218.

Image: Silver Water.

John Sobieski Stuart’s Headstone Inscription

2011-06-13T10:55:00.007+01:00

John Sobieski Stuart

While on a visit to Eskadale Church in Strathglass, near Eilean Aigas on the River Beauly in Inverness-shire, Alexander Carmichael took the opportunity to write down the inscription on John Sobieski Stuart’s headstone. John, and his brother Charles, were both rather eccentric gentlemen who claimed to be direct descendants of the Stuart monarchy. Both brothers had been born in Wales under the respective names of John Carter Allen and Charles Manning Allen and are chiefly remembered today for their role in Scottish cultural history. Perhaps their lasting if dubious legacy was their sumptuously published limited edition book on Scottish tartans and Highland dress, the Vestiarium Scoticum (1842). John Telfer Dunbar, in his seminal work History of Highland Dress referred to it as “probably the most controversial costume book ever written.” An obituary notice appeared in The Inverness Courier on 22 February 1872: ‘The Chevalier John Stuart Sobieski: the papers announce the death, at the age of 73 or 74, of one of the brothers, reputed descendants of Prince Charles Edward, who were known in the North thirty years since ... The gentlemen dress in Highland costume, which they wore in an attractive, picturesque manner, and had long flowing black hair... Their assumption of royalty was believed by some, though it was well known to readers of history and geneology that Charles Edward (the Young Pretender) left no progeny, but one daughter, by his mistress, Jane Walkinshaw.’ Being as he was an inveterate wearer of the kilt and also having rather a romantic trait in his persona it is little wonder that Carmichael not only took time to visit the spot but also that he took the trouble to write down the inscription carved upon the headstone.

†

In the holy name of

Jesus

Pray for the soul of

John Sobieski Stuart

Count D’ Albanie

Who died 13 February 1872

Aged 74 years

Eternal Rest Give Unto Him

O Lord

R[equiescat] I[n] P[ace]

Eskadale Church

Reference:
CW117, f. 9r.
Images:
John Sobieski Stuart and Eskadale Church.

Trawling for Mullet in North Uist

2011-06-12T12:52:00.005+01:00

Timetable issued by Martin Orme

Scraps of paper were often difficult to come by and so Alexander Carmichael would use anything that he could lay his hands on. Here, for example, is a wonderful piece of ephemera for the July sailings between Glasgow and the Highlands and Islands on the steamers “Dunara Castle” and the “Aros Castle” by Martin Orme, 20 Robertson Street, Glasgow. The timetable is dated 21st of June, 1880. On the reverse of this piece of paper Carmichael wrote an account in an execrable hand, it must be said, about trawling for mullet in North Uist where he describes how the mud was ‘tenacious’ and it was easy to sink down into it and where he also recollected an episode in which ‘the gaffer’ got stuck in the mud and after an hour and fifteen minutes was dragged out using heather.

Left aft[er] breakf[a]st with
Stoddart Ranald Rob[er]t[son]
Seoras Beag & Willie Davidson
across hill to [words omitted]
Telegram for Lord Dunmore
com[in]g to Newton to shoot seals.
Newton rem[ain]ing behind to go with
him.
Reach[e]d the place trawl[e]d
two ^two pools – got only a few
small flounders – No mullet
up to knees in tenacious
mud – on sea side of pools,
for many score y[a]rds. Dragged
ourselves & net to land as best we
could – we
raised the net thro[ugh] water & one
of men [sent] to up[per] pool –
Lower end of this full of stones.
We stone the fish to up[per] fr[om] this
& then throw the net across – 1 went
at each end – two to drag & one
to keep net in order & keep in fish.
But fish w[ou]ld not be kept in
& they flew over the top of
net like pheasants over
over battue net with a
spring & ^a whirr like a grouse
A young shep[herd] laid this
4 off these with stones as they
rushed down to lower end
Aft[er] much man[ou]vering we
got net ashore it cont[ained] 12
mullets and 2 flounders.
Those on my side narr[owly]
escaped stick[in]g in mud. [It]
was soft & nasty as mud c[ou]ld
be the accounts of those
of years & to the depth of many
feet – To stop was to go sink down
to the hip – I went down &
I could not come till our
gaffer stretch[e]d me his hand.
To stay myself out was very
diff[icult] – The mud was tena[cious] as strong
glue & my f[oo]t felt as if a ton
weight w[a]s hold[in]g it down
But what bet[ter] the gaffer[’]s
scold[in]g & help I got out
& dragged myself to shore
sat on a stone exhausted
to rest. And now it was
gaffers turn. He was going
fast along to keep from
sinking but down deeper
& deeper he sank in both
legs bey[on]d knee & then he stuck
He laughed as he struggled
floundered scolded & cajoled
all by turns. But what
between craw[l]ing & dragging
he got out. But 2 on the
other side were in stuck tho[ugh]
one with great exertion
struggled out. But the other
struck fast on only up to
hip – We could not app[roach] him
for if we did we too were down.
We decided then to exort him
& our gaffer fumed and
cautioned him with his
scathing tongue but to no
effect. He comp[lained] that cramp
was in his leg – gaffer ask[ed]
him to whom he was was leav[in]g his
property incl[udin]g his watch! After
vain sugg[estions] we fell upon
mak[in]g a foot path of long
heather over the mud to
where he was – We hailed
men who were pul[ling] heath[er]
for ropes & they came & help[ed]
We made a road way
some 50 or 60 y[a]r[d]s long to where
he was – A bundle of heath[er] was
pla[ce]d upon he pla[ce]d his chest
& so extract[ed] himself out after
being 1 hour & 15 min[utes] in.
It was not too soon for
the tide was rushing in
to the pool. The man sunk?
the foot path of heath[er] had
nothin[g] on but his shirt & cap
We all cramed [sic]
to the water & going in up to
our hips washed off the mud.
After which we dried ourselves
In the sun in walk[in]g home.
weary & worn over the hills.
The heavy [heaviest] got fish was
7 lbs.

Reference:
CW109, f. 80r.
Image:
Timetable issued by Martin Orme.

Cumha Mhic an Tòisich – Mackintosh’s Lament III

2011-06-09T14:46:00.004+01:00

Black Steed

Around this time last year two blogs were published with regard to Cumha Mhic an Tòisich, or Mackintosh’s Lament. This short anecdote was collected by Alexander Carmichael probably from the recitation of Marion MacNeil, styled Mòr nighean Alasdair ’ic Ruaraidh Bhàin (1843–1927), Kentangaval, Barra. She tells the background to how it was composed by a lady whose husband was killed on his return from being married. His death by a black horse had been predicted so he struck the black horse with his pistol and took a white horse instead but he was careless and his feet got tangled in the stirrups and he was dragged along the ground by the horse and was killed. Carmichael was later to publish a long article about this lament in The Highlander and the version given there is based upon this short note:

This cumha was comp[osed] by a

lady whose affianced was kil[led]

in riding home from being

married. He had a spl[e]nd[id] black

horse wild to a degree

and it was faisneac[hd] that the

black horse would kill him.

That morn[in]g the black [horse] was so restive

that he leapt off his back & struck

him with his pistol. He then

took a white horse & in set[tin]g home

the white horse saw the dead

horse lying. He start[ed] & the

young man riding gayly un

guarded lost his seat & his

feet get[tin]g entang[led] in the strirrips

he was dragged aft[er] the horse

& kil[led] ere he could be rescued.

The bride was riding on before

& some turn in the road took him

out of her sight till he was

bro[ugh]t home dead & thus taigh

solais was turn[ed] into tai[gh]

dolais.

References:

CW90, fos. 50v–51r.

Carmichael, Alexander, ‘Cumha Mhic-an-Toisich’, The Highlander, vol. IV, no. 165 (8 Jul., 1876), p. 3., cc. 3 –5.

Image: Black Steed.

The Burial Ground of Clanranald

2011-06-08T10:25:00.005+01:00

Angus MacLellan, South Uist storyteller

According to a short account noted down by Alexander Carmichael there were only three Clanranald chiefs thought to have been buried at Howmore in South Uist. The last of them is said to have been Dòmhnall mac ’ic Ailein, a man who had an extremely evil reputation and who managed to earn himself the sobriquet Dòmhnall Dubh na Cuthaige (‘Black Donald of the Cuckoo’). This, on first appearance, may seem like a harmless enough nick-name until it is realised that the ‘Cuckoo’ refers to his gun and every time it sang somebody was murdered:

Only 3 of the Clanran[ald] bur[ied] in How[more].
Do[mh]nu[l]l mac ic Ail[ein]. was the last of
bur[ied] in the turn[in]g at Hough. Do[mh]nu[l]l
was fath[er] to Allan of Sherri[fmuir]
& son to Iain Muid[eartach]. He m[arried] da[ugh]t[er]. of heir
of Harris. Bha fear eile ga toirst
a mach he built a pla[ce] for her
in Canna & left 6 men to guard her
while away in the wars. She tied on
the blanket & let herself down & went
with her parmo[u]r. Her
pl[ace] is call[ed] [Blank in MS]
built by him. Do[mhn]u[l]l died in Can[na]
& 12 boatsmen went to fetch home
his corpse. The wind drove them
into Tearmatrai[gh] S[outh] Harris fr[om] where
they travel[led] thro[ugh] N[orth] Uist to Hough.
When teo[gh]l[ach] an taotari got
the oi[gh]reac[hd] they bur[ied them] at Nunton

The story of Dòmhnall Dubh mac ’ic Ailein and his eventual burial is given at great length by Fr. Charles MacDonald in his Moidart or Among the Clanranalds and such was this chief’s reputation that it continued to be a topic for the ceilidh house. John Lorne Campbell recorded a version of this tale from the recitation of the great storyteller Angus ‘Beag’ MacLellan (1869–1966), styled Aonghas Beag mac Aonghais ’ic Eachainn ’ic Dhòmhnaill ’ic Chaluim ’ic Dhòmhnaill, from Loch Eynort, South Uist, on 1 November 1950, and here given in translation:

This Black Donald of the ‘Cuckoo’, one of the Clanranalds, lived at Caisteal Tioram; and I understand that he was not a very good man. He had a gun, which he himself called the ‘Cuckoo’; and he would say to anyone who did anything to him ‘I’ll put the “Cuckoo” to you’. That’s how he was called ‘Black Donald of the “Cuckoo”.’ He hanged an old woman at Caisteal Tioram for stealing a snuff-box; and the spot had been called Tom na Caillich, ‘the Old Woman’s Mound’, every since.

Once Black Donald heard that there was a priest on Canna who wanted to go to Uist. Black Donald went with his boat to Canna. It seems there was an animal that followed the Clanranalds – it followed him, Black Donald, anyway – its picture is on the stone on their grave at Howmore. The animal was following the boat, and the day became very bad. The animal was on top of each wave that followed the boat. One of the crew said it looked as if they wouldn’t manage, that they would be lost. Black Donald himself was steering, and the animal came alongside the boat. At last Black Donald beckoned to it, and it came on board. The sea improved then, and they got to Canna.

Black Donald made a plan to remove a plank from every boat on Canna, so that the priest could not get away to Uist. He kept the priest seven weeks on Canna. One day, when the priest was down on the shore, he saw a boat going past, and he began to beckon to it. The boat kept in to the shore, and the priest got into it, and where it was going to but Loch Eynort! When the boat took off from the land, the priest turned and looked back and said:

‘I am not asking torment for your soul, but that your body may be kept here unburied as long as you’ve kept me.’

When Black Donald was dying on Canna, he was in terrible distress. People were going in to see him. There was a widow’s son there, a brave, strong fellow. A whistle was heard outside the house, and the man who was in the death-throes on the bed got up to go out. Everyone who was there cleared out but the widow’s son, who caught hold of Black Donald and put him back on the bed. Then they heard another whistle, and he tried to get out. The widow’s son caught him at the door, and put him back on the bed. There was someone standing on a knoll opposite the house, and he was so tall that the could see the island of Rum between his legs. This person went away, and they saw him walking on the surface of the sea over to Rum. This has been the worst piece of sea ever since, the sea between Rum and Canna.

As long as Black Donald was alive, he was thanking God and the widow’s son that the widow’s son had kept him in the house; and when he died, there came bad weather; and his body was seven weeks on Canna, before they got away with it to Howmore and the day they went with it, there came such a gale that they had to land at Peterport in Benbecula, and take the body from there overland to Howmore. Black Donald is buried there along with the other Clanranalds, and I understand that he was not the best of them.

References:

CW 90, fos. 34r–34v.

Campbell, J. L., Canna: The Story of a Hebridean Island (Edinburgh: Birlinn, 2002), pp. 87–88.

MacDonald, Fr. Charles, Moidart or Among the Clanranalds (Oban: Duncan Cameron, 1889), pp. 82–99.

Image:

Angus MacLellan, South Uist storyteller.

Exhibition open: “Unlocking the Celtic Collector”

2011-06-07T10:04:00.011+01:00

Well, things are really getting hectic here in Carmichael corner. We are less than three weeks away from the conference (have you registered yet?) and concert (got your tickets?), there is tagging and cataloguing to finish, a website to complete, biographical records to write amongst other things and so it’s all systems go. At least we have now managed to tick one thing off our list. Our small exhibition on the life and work of Alexander Carmichael was installed on Tuesday 31 May and we are delighted to see it all in place in Special Collections’ display wall. It’s also good to see people taking time to look at the notebooks and pictures and read a bit about who Carmichael was.

As anyone who has ever curated an exhibition would tell you, there’s a lot more to getting it from idea to display case than meets the eye. Our captions and text panels were drafted by Domhnall Uilleam and Andrew; a large amount of practical expertise was given by Andrew Grout, Joe Marshall and Caroline Scharfenberg; the artwork and layout was designed by Iain Coates and David Roberts of Studio SP; the notebooks were conserved and made presentable with the combination of a National Manuscripts Conservation Trust Grant and Carronvale Bindery; and the exhibition was installed by Jenny Gypaki, Iain, David and Kirsty. Below are some photographs of the process of installation and in due course we will have impressive, official photographs, not my lowly attempts!

Of course, the best way to see the exhibition is to be there in person, which everyone is welcome to do. It is open from 1 June to 22 July 2011 and can be found in Special Collections, on the 6th Floor of Edinburgh University Library, George Square, Edinburgh, EH8 9LJ. The Library is open seven days a week but times vary, so please check the website for details:

http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/information-services/services/library-museum-gallery/using-library/library-opening/main-library

There is also a café on the ground floor so you can add a tea, coffee or even a bun into your itinerary for the day.

Sincerest thanks to everyone who helped to put this exhibition together – we do hope that all our visitors enjoy it.

The trolley loaded up with exhibits, exhibition paraphernalia, and ready to go

Empty cases waiting for decoration

The first exhibits in place and ready for captions, text panels and banners.

David and Jenny construct caption holders.

The printed banners are revealed - so much more impressive than on A4!

All in a day's work for Jenny, Iain and David.

The finished product as viewed by a phone snap.

Images: All photographs were taken by Kirsty Stewart, archivist,and belong to the Carmichael Watson Project.

Plague in Mingulay III

2011-06-05T15:52:00.013+01:00

Neil Gillies, Niall Mhìcheil Nìll

Gus crìoch a chur air an naidheachd mun phlàigh a bha uaireigin ann am Miughalaigh, seo agaibh an còrr dheth a chlàraich agus a sgrìobh Calum Iain MacGilleathain bhon t-seanchas Nèil MhicGillÌosa. Cha mhòr nach e an aon naidheachd th’ ann a thog MacGilleMhìcheil agus MacGilleathain bho dhiofar dhaoine agus mu thrì fichead bliadhna eadarra:

“Well, on a tha thusa air tìr, gun fhios nach e plàigh air choreigin a bh’ air na daoine, nuair a tha iad marbh air fad, chan fhaigh thu dhan sgothaidh idir.”

Agus dh’fhàgadh an duine ann am Miughalaigh agus thill an sgoth gu ruige Bàgh a’ Chaisteil, agus cha robh aig an duine ach a bhith ann am Miughalaigh leis fhèin, agus cha leigeadh an t-eagal dà fuireach as na taighean. Ach cò-dhiù bha e a’ gabhail beagan dhen bhiadh a bha sna taighean. Dh’fheumadh e. Cha robh an còrr ann agus ’s ann shuas as a’ bheinn a bhiodh e a’ cadal air an oidhche, agus tha a’ bheinn ann am Miughalaigh fhathast, beinn ris an can iad Beinn Mhic a’ Phì. Sin far am biodh e a’ cadal. Co-dhiù bha e cola-deug ann, agus an ceann a’ chola-deug chuir MacNèill a-null an sgoth air n-ais feuch am faiceadh e a robh duine beò, ma bha iad a dhol air, tìr agus feuch gu dè mar a bha an gnothach.

Seo mar a bha.

Dh’fhalbh an sgoth à Bàgh a’ Chaisteil air n-ais an ceann a’ chola-deug agus nuair a ràinig iad Miughalaigh, bha Mac a’ Phì rompa gun bhàn, gun dearg agus e pailt cho beò is cho fallain is a bha iad fhèin. Cha robh ach dh’iarr iad air tighinn dhan sgothaidh, agus thàinig e a Bhàgh a’ Chaisteil, agus ghabh iad leis do chaisteal MhicNèill agus sin nuair a rinn e an naidheachd air n-ais do MhacNèill:

“Agus gheibh thusa a-nist Miughalaigh dhut fhèin, ma thèid thu ann, agus sgrìobhaidh mise dhut i, gum bidh i agad fhad ’s is beò thu, agus nach urrainn duine eile dragh a chur ort.”

Well ’s e seo a rinneadh. Thill Mac a’ Phì a-null gu ruige Miughalaigh, agus thìodhlaic e na daoine a bha marbh. Chuir e ’n a’ chladh a h-uile duine aca, agus thug e a-null feadhainn eile còmh’ ris, an fheadhainn a thogair e fhèin, agus bha iad all right dheth ann am Miughalaigh, agus cha robh sgàth air dìth orra.

Siud agad mar a chuala mise e.

Here is the rest of the anecdote about the plague that once visited Mingulay that was recorded and written out by Calum Iain Maclean from the recitation of Neil Gillies. Comparing this anecdote transcribed by Maclean and that by Carmichael even though collected from different people and with a gap of around sixty years intervening, it is practically the same with only minor variations:

“Well, since you are on land, and seeing that it might be some sort of plague or another that killed them all, you can’t get back into the boat at all.”

And the lad was left stranded on Mingulay. The boat then returned to Castlebay and he was the only person remaining on Mingulay. He was so afraid he wouldn’t venture near the houses. But, in any case, he managed to pilfer some food within the homesteads. He had no other option. There was nothing else for it but the go up the hill where he would sleep at night, and that hill is still there on Mingulay which is called Beinn Mhic a’ Phì (MacPhee’s Mountain). That’s where he would go to sleep. He spent a fortnight there and at the end of this period MacNeil of Barra sent a boat back to find out if he was still alive and as they were going to land to find out how things were.

This is how things turned out.

The boat left Castlebay and went back to Mingulay after a fortnight and they found MacPhee in as rude health as they were themselves. They merely then asked him to board the boat and so he returned to Castlebay and they took him to MacNeil’s castle [Kisimul] where he told MacNeil his news:

“And you’ll get Mingulay to yourself, if you are prepared to return, and I’ll grant this to you, and you’ll own it so long as you live, and no one will trouble you.”

Well, this was done. MacPhee returned to Mingulay. He then buried the dead in the cemetery, and he also brought along with him others who he had picked out and they were well off in Mingulay as they were never in any want.

That’s how I heard it.

Reference:
IFC MS 1029, pp. 413–16, Am Plàigh ann am Miùlaidh.
Image: Neil Gillies.

Plague in Mingulay II

2011-06-03T10:14:00.013+01:00

Neil Gillies, Niall Mhìcheil Nìll

Chan eil e idir na iongnadh nach do leig cuid de na seanchaidhean Bharrach air dìochuimhne na thachair ann am Miughalaigh. Mu thrì fichead bliadhna as deaghaidh do MhacGilleMhìcheil an naidheachd fhaotainn bho Ruairidh an Rùma mun phlàigh ann am Miughalaigh (anns a’ bhlog mu dheireadh), fhuair Calum Iain MacGilleathain an dearbh rud ann an 1947 bho Niall MacGillÌosa, no mar a theirear ris Niall Mhìcheil Nìll (1887–1965), iasgair agus croitear a bha uaireigin ann an Gearraidh Gadhal faisg air Bàgh a’ Chàisteil, Barraigh. A rèir teist an t-seanchaidh fhèin, bhuineadh a phàrantan do Mhiughalaigh agus phos iad ann an sin. Chuir iad an cùl ri Miughalaigh mun bhliadhna 1912 dar a dh’fhàg na daoine air fad an t-eilean agus chaidh iad a-null a Bharraigh. B’ ann bho athair fhèin agus Ruairidh Ruairidh Mhòir a chuala Niall a chuid sheanchais agus naidheachdan. A rèir Chaluim Iain, rachadh Niall gu taigh Ruairidh Ruairidh Mhòir a h-uile h-oidhche gheamhraidh thar air barrachd na dusan bliadhna gus a sheanchas a chluinntinn agus gur gann a chualadh e an aon naidheachd!

Well, tha naidheachd eile ann an seoachd air a dhèanamh mun àm a bha MacNèill ann am Barraigh, MacNèill Bharraigh mar a bh’ air a ghràdha ris: agus bha daoine a’ fuireach ann a Miughalaigh an uair sin, mar a bha iad as a dheoghaidh; agus trup a bha seoachd bha iad a’ gabhail fadachd nach robh eathair a’ tighinn a-nall à Miughalaigh idir, MacNèill, agus dheònaich e sgoth agus sgiobadh a chur a-null gu ruige Miughalaigh feuch am faiceadh iad gu dè bha ceàrr, agus rinn e seoachd. Fhuair e sgoth agus sgiobadh agus chuireadh a-null a Mhiughalaigh iad agus ràinig iad thall Miughalaigh agus cha robh duine beò ri fhaicinn ann am Miughalaigh. Cha robh duine rompa air creig, ach nuair a chunnaic iad sineachd chuir iad air tìr fear dheth na gillean a bha san sgothaidh, fear Mac a’ Phì, agus dh’iarr iad air a dhol suas feuch am faiceadh e gu dè bha ceàrr nach robh duine ri fhaicinn; agus dh’fhalbh am fear sa suas, agus chaidh e dhan chiad taigh a thachair ris, agus nuair a chaidh e a-staigh cha robh duine beò a bha san taigh nach robh marbh a-staigh. Chaidh e an seo a thaigh eile, agus bha iad sin air an nòs cianda – o thaigh gu taigh gus na chuir e cuairt air a h-uile taigh a bh’ ann a Miughalaigh, is cha robh duine beò ann am Miughalaigh nach robh marbh a-staigh. Nuair a chunnaic e seoachd dh’fhalbh e agus thill e sìos a dh’ ionnsaigh na sgothadh, agus dh’innis e dhaibh mar a bha an grothach, nach robh duine beò ann am Miughalaigh nach robh marbh as na taighean: agus thuirt iad sin ris: (ri leanntainn…)

It comes as no surprise that some of the Barra storytellers did not forget about what had happened in Mingulay. Some sixty years after Alexander Carmichael collected the story from Roderick MacNeil about the plague visiting Mingulay (posted in a previous blog), Calum Iain Maclean recorded the very same story in 1947 from Neil Gillies (1887–1965), styled Niall Mhìcheil Nìll, a crofter fisherman from Garrygall near Castlebay, Barra. According to the storyteller’s own testimony, his parents belonged to Mingulay where they were married. They left the island around 1912 along with everyone else and settled in Barra. Neil heard all his stories and anecdotes from his father and Roderick Mòr MacNeil. According to Calum Maclean, Neil would go to listen to the latter’s storytelling almost every winter’s night for a space of fifteen years and maintained that he hardly ever heard the same tale told twice!

Well, there’s another story here that happened in the time of MacNeil of Barra as he was called: people stayed in Mingulay then just as they did after that; and one of these times they were getting anxious that there was no sign at all of a boat coming over from Mingulay and so MacNeil of Barra was willing enough to send over a boat and crew to Mingulay to try and find out what has gone wrong. This was done. A boat and crew were found and sent over to Mingulay and when they reached Mingulay they found that there was no one alive there. No one was standing before them on the rock [to greet them] and when they saw this they put one of the lads from the boat on land – a MacPhee – and they asked him to go up and to see what was wrong as there was no one to be seen; the lad went up and he entered the first house he encountered and saw that no one was alive in the house: they were all dead. He then went to another house and met with the same sight – from house to house he went until he had been in all the houses in Mingulay; there was not one left alive in Mingulay as they were all dead. When he saw all of this he returned to the boat and told them what he had seen: that no one was left alive in Mingulay – they were all dead and they then said to him: (to be continued…)

Reference:
IFC MS 1029, pp. 413–16, Am Plàigh ann am Miùlaidh.
Image: Neil Gillies.