Luibh bheag bheag, luibh bheannaichte / A small small plant, a blessed plant

There are numerous accounts of plant lore noted in Carmina Gadelica and within the notebooks at the Centre for Research Collections, and a previous blog highlighted some of the key plants for popular herbal remedies. This blog notes some uses for am mothan / pearlwort including a method for securing a spouse!

The 'mothan' (bog violet?) is one of the most prized plants in the occult science of the people. It is used in promoting and conserving the happiness of the people, in securing love, in ensuring life, in bringing good, and in warding away evil.

When the 'mothan' is used as a love-philtre, the woman who gives it goes upon her left knee and plucks nine roots of the plant and knots them together, forming them into a 'cuach' - ring. The woman places the ring in the mouth of the girl for whom it is made, in the name of the King of the sun, and of the moon, and of the starts, and in name of the Holy Three. When the girl meets her lover or a man whom she loves and whose love she desires to secure, she puts the ring in her mouth. And should the man kiss the girl while the 'mothan' is in her mouth he becomes henceforth her bondsman, bound to her everlastingly in cords infinitely finer than the gossamer net of the spider, and infinitely stronger than the adamant chain of the giant.

The 'mothan' is placed under parturient women to ensure delivery, and it is carried by wayfarers to safeguard them on journeys. It is sewn by women in their bodice, and by men in their vest under the left arm.

 

An old woman in Benbecula said: - 'thug mi am mothan beannaichte do Ruaraidh ruadh mac Roaghail Leothasaich as a Cheann-a-deas agus e air a thuras do Loch-nam-madadh, dol ga fhiachain air bialabh an t-siorram agus fhuair e dheth ge do bha e co ciontach 's a chionta ri mac peachaich' - 'I gave the blessed 'mothan' to red Roderick son of Ranald of Lewis from the South-end (of Uist), and he on his journey to Lochmaddy to be tried before the sheriff, and he got off although he was as guilty of the guilt as the son of a sinner.'  'Ach a Chairistine carson a thug sibh am mothan dh'an duine agus fios agaibh gun robh e ciontach? Saoilidh mi fein nach robh e ceart dhuibh a dhol ga dheanamh' - 'But, Christina, why did you give the 'mothan' to the man when you knew that he was guilty? I think myself it was not right of you to go and do it!'  'O bhidh 's aodaich! a ghraidhean mo chridhe agus a ghaoilean mo dhaoine, cha b' urra dhomh fhein dhol ga dhiultadh. Bhoinich e orm, agus bhochain e orm, agus bhoidich e orm, agus chuir e rud am laimh, agus O! a Righ na gile 's na greine, agus nan corracha ceuta, curra, de b' urra dhomh ghein a gh' radh no dheanamh agus an duine dona na dhubh-eigin na dhear-theinn agus na chruaidh-chas' - 'O food and clothing! thou dear one of my heart, and thou loved one of my people, I could not myself go and refuse him. He beseeched to me, and he swelled to me, and he vowed to me, and he placed a thing in my hand, and oh! King of the moon, and of the sun, and of the beautiful, sublime stars, what could I myself say or do, and the bad man in his black trouble, in his red difficulty, and in his hard plight!' I remembered Bacon and was silent.

To drink the milk of an animal that ate the 'mothan; ensures immunity from harm. If a man makes a miraculous escape it is said of him. 'Dh' ol e bainne na bo ba a dh' ith am motha ' - 'He drank the milk of the guileless cow that ate the "mothan"'. 

Buainidh mi am mothan ,                                                             Pluck will I the ‘mothan,’

Luibh nan naodh alt,                                                                      Plant of the nine joints,

Buainidh agus boinichidh,                                                           Pluck will I and vow me,

Do Bhride bhorr 's dh' a Dalt.                                                      To noble Bride and her Fosterling.

Buainidh mi am mothan,                                                              Pluck will I the ‘mothan,’

A dh’ orduich Righ nam feart,                                                     As ordained of the King of power,

Buainidh agus boinichidh,                                                           Pluck will I and vow me,

Do Mhoire mhor ‘s dh’ a Mhac.                                                   To great Mary and her Son.

Buainidh mi am mothan,                                                              Pluck will I the ‘mothan,’

A dh’ orduich Righ nan dul,                                                         As ordained of the King of life,

Bheir buaidh air gach foirneart,                                                 To overcome all oppression,

Is ob air obi shul.                                                                               And the spell of evil eye. 

Laomachan. 'Little mouldy one', was a rind of cheese used for divination. The cheese must be made on one of the four old festivals of the year: Bealltain, Beltane; Lùnasd, Lùnasdal or Lùnasdain, Lammas; Samhain, Hallowtide; and Fèille Brighde, the Feast of Brigit; but on which of these is now uncertain. The milk used was that of a cow which had eaten the mòthan, pearlwort, for since the plant was sained the cheese was sained also. twelve months after the cheese was made it was used. A small hole was made through the rind, and through this the diviner looked down through the fàrlas, smoke-vent of the house. The name of the first person thus seen through these two orifices was the name of the future spouse. When the loamachan was placed under the pillow, the sleeper would in dreams see his future spouse coming towards him with gifts; were the person seen receding, it indicated a parting. the laomachan safeguarded its wearer from the wiles of the fairies of the mound, from the venom of the hosts of the air, and from the misleading light of the teine mòr or teine sionn, will o' the wisp. For naming, for dreaming and for safeguarding, the laomachan was effective only on the anniversary of the fesitval on which it was made, and only to those who had faith and sincerity of heart; only to those who bowed to them were the names true. Many curious rites and ceremonies connected with the laomachan and its use are now but dimly to be descried through the darkness of ages. 

References

Carmina Gadelica ii, 110-113.

Carmina Gadelica vi, 94-95.

 Image

© Carl Farmer   

Objects in Focus: Winnowing Riddle

Happy New Year to all our blog readers!

© Carsten Flieger

The first object of the year to be presented is the winnowing riddle, also called a criathar. In the Carmichael Collection, West Highland Museum, there is a fine example of a riddle on display in their agricultural section. This tool was used between threshing and grinding corn and was made of a cured and dried sheepskin or calfskin fastened to a wooden frame - nasg criathair. The skin was then punctured with a hot point, occasionally in a concentric pattern, creating a sieve. 

The sieve was held with both hands and the corn was shaken in a circular motion to allow unwanted dirt to filter through, leaving behind the larger and heavier grains. Often this was done outside with the wecht and the corn was tossed in the air allowing the chaff to be blown away by the wind.

©University of Edinburgh: Dept. of Celtic and Scottish Studies, scran.ac.uk

The image above, from the Werner Kissling Collection, portrays a woman using the winnowing sieve on South Uist in 1936. In Carmina Gadelica there is a description of two stages of sieving:

Càthadh. Winnowing corn in the barn – the first operation; the second and final operation was fasgnadh, winnowing on the knoll. The toll-càthaidh, ‘chaff-hole’, was a small hole about three feet square in the back wall of the kiln to admit wind to clean the corn. This hole was on the ground and, when not required, was closed with a board, or a plàt made of straw or bent or rushes. (VI-37)

The corn, now separated from the chaff and extraneous matter, was ready for grinding.

© Carsten Flieger

There were also some divination practices associated with the riddle, the most common was a method of identifying a future spouse. This was carried out by winnowing specific items: silver coins or even winnowing an empty sieve. In the notebooks Carmichael provides another example from Skye of a servant girl foretelling her future husband:

CW7/32 Càthadh an Fhras Lìn. The lint seed was winnowed in the, "comh-ràth, dusk The was done at Draoineach Skye by a servant girl in the house. The wife of Draoineach asked the girl whom did she see and the girl answered that she had no luck that the only saw her master. Well you shall have him yet said her misterss. The mistress died soon after and before the year was out Fear na Draoinich married this young girl!

Grant, Highland Folk Ways, provides an account of a woman in Arran, in 1709, who went before the local Kirk Session for using a riddle to identify a thief!  

A similar sieve was made in Ireland but variations developed: thin strips of wood were laced across the frame to create a mesh (instead of the sheepskin) and the thickness of the mesh would vary according to its purpose. Wire eventually replaced the wood strips.

References
Carmichael, A. Carmina Gadelica vi (Edinburgh: Floris Books, 1900-1972)
CW7/32
Grant, I. F. Highland Folk Ways (Edinburgh: Birlinn, 1961)
Lucas, A. T. "Making Wooden Sieves" The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 81: 2 (1951), 146-155. 

Divination on Latha Samhna

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.

Frìth: A Method of Divination

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.