The Burial Ground of Clanranald

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.

A Curious Old Song – II

Following on from the previous blog, the rest of the chapter offers not only a translation of the Gaelic song but also some musings about the piece from the pen of the Rev. Alexander Stewart. It may be assumed that the translation was undertaken by the minister who was no mean poet himself. Alexander Carmichael, not the least in the songs or poems that he offered for publication in newspapers and the like, tended to translate in a more literal manner.

It is impossible, perhaps, to give the full aroma of the quiet satire and humour of these verses in an English translation, even the most literal. One must be “to the manner born,” a Celt brought up amongst Celts, familiar with their domestic avocations, as well as with their speech and modes of thought, thoroughly to appreciate all that the poor wife-tormented wight suffered from the thrawn temper and stiff-neckedness of his uncompromising, termagant spouse. In the following jingle, however, the outsider has a tolerably fair rendering of a song that is certainly old and in many respects curious.

“THE THREE BROWN-BACKED BIRDS;” OR THE “WIFE THAT NOTHING COULD PLEASE.”


Chorus— “O, the three brown-backed birds,
The brown-backed birds, the brown-backed birds;
O, the three brown-backed birds,
The wale of birds I trow are the they!”


I.
“Black is white, and white is black,
(A quarrelsome wife is of woes the woe!)
If I assert that the raven is black,
She’ll swear it’s as white as the driven snow!


II.
“My wife she stings like a nettle top,
Crosser in grain than bramble or thorn;
Hotter than seven times heated fire,
With her loud bad tongue I’m shattered and torn.


III.
“If I build her a house on a good dry stance,
“With rafters and roof all tight and trig,
She says, with provoking gesture and sneer.
‘Was there e'er such a hovel—not fit for the pig!


IV.
“Well can I plough, and sow, and reap,
And build a corn-stack without bulge or hump,
But she'll vow and declare, ‘by her blameless life,’
That ‘’tis never a stack, but a shapeless lump!#


V.
“Well can I fish with hook and line,
Fish round and long, fish broad and flat,
When, hark ! from her lips, with her hands on her hips,
‘Such fish to be sure! give it all to the cat!’


VI.
“If I make a milk-cog of good hard wood,
That will stand on its bottom all steady and stieve,
She will swear by her soul, and by all she’s worth,
That the poor cog leaks like a very sieve!


VII.
“As well light a fire on the brown-ribbed sand,
For to dry a rock that is washed by the sea;
As well may you hammer a cold-iron bar,
As to make a bad wife all she ought to be.


VIII.
“Nought to the lake is the mallard's weight;
To the generous steed nought the weight of his rein;
Not worse is the sheep for its coat of wool
Nor can sense give any one trouble or pain.


Chorus—“O, the three brown-backed birds,
The brown-backed birds, the brown-backed birds;
O, the three brown-backed birds,
The wale of birds I trow are they!”

For very obvious reasons, no kind of poetry is so difficult to translate from one language into another as the comic or humorous and the satiric, and hence it is that literal renderings of such compositions are but rarely attempted, the loosest paraphrase being preferred even in justice to the original itself. The chorus or burden of the foregoing song seems to be only accidentally connected with the accompanying verses, probably, as is often the case, merely as the key-note to the air to which they are to be sung. It is manifestly the chorus of an older composition, probably also of the comic order, which, opportunely ringing in the ears of the hen-pecked bard, as he resolved to give vent to his grievances in song, he laid hold of and pressed for the nonce into his own service.

References:

CW107/18, fols. 23v–24v
Stewart, Rev. Alexander [Nether-Lochaber], ’Twixt Ben Nevis and Glencoe: The Natural History, Legends, and Folk-lore of the West Highlands (1885), pp. 119–23.
Image: A Couple Arguing

A Curious Old Song – I

As has been mentioned before in this blog Nether-Lochaber, or the Rev. Alexander Stewart (1829–1901) and Alexander Carmichael were old friends and corresponded with one another on a regular basis. Not a few of the traditions collected by Carmichael made there way into print via the astute eye of Nether as can be seen from Chapter XVII of Stewart’s book ’Twixt Ben Nevis and Glencoe: The Natural History, Legends, and Folk-lore of the West Highlands (1885). Although not mentioned by name, the woman from whom Carmichael recorded the song was Peigi Robasdan nighean Alasdair ’ic Amhlaidh (Margaret MacAulay née Robertson) also known as Peigi Sgitheanach (1821–1881):

From the Outer Hebrides our friend Mr. Carmichael sends us a song which he took down on the 10th March 1869 from the dictation of a cottar woman at Howmore, South Uist, a woman who, though in a lonely position, has a keen sense of the humorous and ludicrous.

The following is the song; we retain Mr. Carmichael’s orthography as being more in keeping with the Outer Hebrides pronunciation of many of the words :

“NA TRI EOIN CHRUINNE-GHEALA DHONN.”

Fann—“Na tri Eoin chruinne-gheala dhonn,
Chruinne-gheala dhonn, chruinne-gheala dhonn,
Na tri Eoin chruinne-gheala dhonn,
’S b’ iad sid na tri Eoin!

I.
“Is dubh am fionn sin, ’s dubh am fionn
Chaidh mi butarscionn mo bhean;
Ma their mise, ’s dubh am fitheach,
Their is' gum beil am fitheach geal


II.
“Tha bean agam mar an deantag,
Bean is crainnte na tom druis;
Bean is teogha na seachd teinteann
Bean chruaidh chainntidh mharbh i mis!


III.
“Thogain tigh air laraich luim,
Chairinn bonn ri maide cas,
Thigeadh ise 's car na ceann,
‘’S meirig a rachadh ann a steach.’


IV.
“Dhianain treothadh, dhianain buain,
Dhianain cruach mar fhear a chach,
Theireadh i mar bha i beo,
Nach robh ann ach torr air làr.


V.
“Dhianain iasgach leis an doradh,
Mharbhain langa, mharbhain sgat;
Chuireadh ise ’lamh na cliabh,
’S dh-iarradh i sid ’thoirt an chat!


VI.
“Dhianain cuman air fiodh cruaidh,
A shuidheadh gu buan air an làr;
Chuireadh i h-anam an geall,
Gun robh e ’call air a mhàs!


VII.
“Teinne ga fhadadh mu loch
Gu tiormachadh cloich an cuan,
Teagasg ga thoirt do mhnaoi bhuirb,
Mar bhuil’ uird air iarann fuar?


VIII.
“Cha truimeid an loch an lach,
Cha truimeide an t’ each a shrian,
Cha truimeid’ a chaora a h-olainn,
'S cha truimeid’ a choluinn ciall!


Fonn—“Na tri eoin chruinne-gheala dhonn,
Chruinne-gheala dhonn, chruinne-gheala dhonn,
Na tri eoin chruinne-gheala dhonn,
’S b’ iad sid na tri eoin!”

Carmichael appends a note about the song adding some interesting detail from whom and from where the reciter originally heard this piece:

Compos[ed] by a jealous wrangling pair.
Heard only once by the reciter when a girl.
Never heard it again. This was in Morar
at a wedding. Sung by a man.

References:

CW107/18, fols. 23v–24v

Stewart, Rev. Alexander [Nether-Lochaber], ’Twixt Ben Nevis and Glencoe: The Natural History, Legends, and Folk-lore of the West Highlands (1885), pp. 119–23.

Image: A Couple Arguing