Snakes On A Plain

In June 1877, Alexander Carmichael was spending time with Donald MacMhuirich, an Islay crofter, gathering information about birds. Donald was a fund of information on seabirds, shore-birds and land birds, their habitats, breeding seasons and migration patterns. Indeed, from the notes we find in notebook CW89, he was fond of imitating bird calls – ‘Hing hingadale, drig drig hingadale’ says the bru-dearg [robin] – and he was able to give Carmichael the Islay Gaelic names for many birds. However, amidst this wealth of Islay birdlore, he tells a story about his grandfather and snakes.

One summer, while away with the milking cows at the sheiling in Bolsa on the north of Islay, Donald’s grandfather noticed that there was something wrong with the milk. He ‘watched and saw a serpent’s trail’ and then ‘saw a serpent coiled on a hillock’*. When the serpent ‘heard some noise she raised her head, he fired two bullets in his gun and killed her’. According to Donald ‘They never saw a [snake] so big as she was 9 ft long.’ Presumably with the snake dead, the milk improved although this is not recorded. Donald then describes how in the last year (1876) seven score snakes had been killed while the year before that, the total had been nearly 180.

I’m not sure I’ve done the story justice as amongst all the ornithological information, it did seem quite dramatic. I had no idea that Islay had so many snakes although if as many were killed every year as Donald said, it’s possible that numbers have declined considerably since then.

References: CW89/23 (folio 7r)
Image: An adder on Jura, taken by Armin Grewe, 2007.
*Technically not a plain but needs must when puns are required. Ed.

Memorial to John Francis Campbell (2 June 1887)

Leaving Edinburgh on 31 May 1887, Carmichael made his way to Greenock to catch the ferry over to Islay. On the steamer he met Lord Lorne (Lord Archibald Campbell) and found him to be ‘pleasant & friendly’. Carmichael had been invited to the unveiling of a memorial to commemorate John Francis Campbell of Islay, or Iain Òg Ìle, who had passed away in Cannes some two years previously at the age of sixty-four. With characteristic modesty Carmichael wrote: ‘The inauguration of the monument to Iain Og Ile went off yesterday most splendidly. Great concourses of people. Fine dinner handsomely done and good speaking afterwards except by myself. Mine – Celtic Literature – was a bungled affair.’ The other speakers at this event were Lord Lorne, Hector Maclean and a Captain Campbell.
Since volunteering to work on a project that would later see the light of day as Popular Tales of the West Highlands (1860–62), Carmichael had known the late John Francis Campbell for over twenty years.
A subscription by the Islay association raised £300 (worth around £158500 in 2009) and a D. Haggart, a Glasgow sculptor, was commissioned to design the memorial in the form of an obelisk.
On that day the monument was inaugurated on the summit of Cnoc na Dàl, near to Islay House, in Bridgend. Two inscriptions, one in English and the other in Gaelic read:

John Francis Campbell
of Islay
an Eminent Celtic Scholar, Linguist, Scientist and Traveller.
A true and patriotic Highlander.
Loved alike by Peer and Peasant.
By his “Popular Tales of the West Highlands,”
“Leabhar na Feinne,”
and other literary works,
he preserved and rendered classic the
Folk-lore of the Scottish Highlands
He lies buried at Cannes, in France:
his memory lives in the hearts of his countrymen
Born 1821 Died 1885

Iain Og Ile, fìor Ghàidheal, sàr-dhuin’-uasal, agus àrd sgoileir, a choisinn urram agus cliù anns gach cearn. Ged nach do shealbhaich e oighreachd aithrichean, shealbhaich e gràdh nan Ileach, agus bithidh a chuimhne buan-mhaireann am measg Chlanna nan Gàidheal.

“An sòlas togar suas an càrn
Gun deòir gu làr mu chloich nan treun,
Sona an t-òg treun a thriall,
Mu’n cluinnear cliù fo chiar a’ Bhàis.”—Ossian.

A translation of which may be rendered:

Young John of Islay, a true Gael, a real gentleman, and a gifted scholar, who won honour and fame in very clime. Although he did not inherit the estate of his forefathers, he inherited the love of Islaymen, and his memory will be long-lasting among the Gaels.

“With gladness let the cairn be raised,
No tears upon its stone will fall
For happy is the brave now gone,
Whose virtues shine through Death’s dark pall.”

A fitting memorial and dedication for a man who loomed so large not only in Carmichael’s career but also in those of many others.

References: 

CW 89, fos. 1r –2r.
The Scotsman (02/06/1887), p. 7.
Image: John Francis Campbell’s Memorial, Islay.