Morag, the monster of Loch Morar - 3

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)

Morag, the monster of Loch Morar - 2

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

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’.