Prayers, blessings, charms, and incantations: What Carmichael did and didn't print before Carmina Gadelica - II

In this blog and the next one we’d like to take a look at how Alexander Carmichael was first inspired to publish charms he had collected, in the ‘Nether-Lochaber’ column of the Inverness Courier, compiled by his friend the Rev. Alexander Stewart (1829–1901).

Stewart was always looking for fresh material for his newspaper column, a compendium of local anecdotes and observations, mainly concerning natural history and folklore, whose lively conversational style and curious subject matter had won a wide readership throughout the country. For many readers, ‘Nether-Lochaber’ was the Inverness Courier. Among the myriad topics broached by Stewart were proverbs, riddles, songs, and charms: short, unusual items which could fill a column and were almost guaranteed to elicit a response from readers, encouraging them to send in examples of their own.

From September 1871 ‘Nether-Lochaber’ began to mine a productive lode, printing a series of Gaelic riddles and other linguistic curiosities together with English translations. Among them was a healing charm, ‘taken down for us a short time ago by a gentleman in a neighbouring district from the recitation of an old woman on his property. It bears internal evidence of being intended for use only in the case of sprains, bruises, and dislocations.’ This was printed, together with a translation, in the Inverness Courier for 9 November 1871:

Esan a mharcaich gu stòld’,

Air an asail dheas òg a bha grinn;

A leighis gach creuchd ’s gach plàigh,

’S a dh-aisig gu slaint’ na bha tinn;

Leighis E sùilean an doill,

Do’n bhacach rinn rathad réidh;

Le Peadair ’s le Pàl, ’s le Muire bean àigh,

Biodh dlu an drasd’, a leigh[e]as nan cnamh ’s nam féith’.

Suathadh a’s sile a’s luibh Challam-chille

   (’An ainm an Athair),

Suathadh a’s sile a’s luibh Challam-chille

   (’An ainm a Mhic),

Suathadh a’s sile a’s luibh Challam-chille

   (’An ainm an Spioraid Naoimh),

Suathadh a’s sile a’s pòg ’o bhilibh –

      Amen!

He that rode with dignity

On the fine young ass that was handsome;

Who healed every wound and plague,

And restored the sick to health;

He healed the blind man’s eyes,

And made a level path for the crippled man;

With Peter and Paul, with Mary, blessed woman,

May [He] be near now, to heal the bones and sinews.

Rubbing and spittle and Saint Columba’s wort

   (In the name of the Father),

Rubbing and spittle and Saint Columba’s wort

   (In the name of the Son),

Rubbing and spittle and Saint Columba’s wort

   (In the name of the Holy Ghost),

Rubbing and spittle and a kiss from the lips –

      Amen!

On 20 June 1872, after the interest in riddles had run its course, Stewart published another four charms, including the two taken from Caraid nan Gàidheal. These were Rann Galar nan Sùl (‘A Rhyme for Sore Eyes’); Eòlas air a’ Ghréim-Mhionaich (‘A Charm for the Colic’); Eòlas an t-Snìomh (‘A Charm for a Sprain’); and Eòlas an Tairbhein (‘A Charm for the Tairbhean’). One reader in particular was inspired by the column to send in some charms from his own collection: Alexander Carmichael.

References:

‘Nether-Lochaber’, Inverness Courier, 9 November 1871 & 20 June 1872.

Image:

Rev. Alexander Stewart, ‘Nether-Lochaber’, Celtic Monthly, ix (1901), 19.

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

Nether Lochaber: The Rev. Alexander Stewart – III

Here is the third and final excerpt of the appreciation of the Rev. Alexander Stewart contributed by Donald Ross to the Inverness Courier where the minister’s interest in the natural world is highlighted, some background to his character, his interests in literary criticism and his final fortnightly column preceding his death. There can be little doubt that he achieved a great deal during his lifetime and his literary efforts were recognised by the University of St Andrews, his alma mater, with the award of the degree of LL.D. in 1884. Previously in 1876 he had been elected, just as Alexander Carmichael had been, a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, and he was also made a Fellow of the Royal Physical Society of Edinburgh, and of the Geographical and Natural History Societies of Glasgow. He was also a corresponding member of several learned Societies on the Continent. In addition to all of this he also managed to find time to devote his attention to editing Logan’s Scottish Gael, a two-volume tome of substantial portions. Perhaps the inscription on his memorial best sums up the man and his achievements: “In memory of Rev. Alexander Stewart, LL.D., F.S.A. Scot. For fifty years minister of Ballachulish and Ardgour. Died 17th January, 1901, in the 72nd year of his age. Scholar, naturalist, seanachie, and bard. Distinguished for the variety and charm of his writings; dear to all how knew him, and most dear to those who knew him best.”

A LOVER OF BIRDS

Perhaps Stewart was at his best and happiest when discoursing on the habits, trials, and charms of the songsters in his glebe. Not only were his descriptions accurate; they were often amusing, provoking a smile or outright laughter. One of the most hilarious letters to the “Courier” in 1890 (alas printed in no book) is about an inveterate tearer-up of books, Jack the Ripper, his pet jackdaw, who was excused the complete destruction of a Book of Common Prayer in an Episcopalian home in Onich because “he had been brought up a Presbyterian.” He was equally at home with fishes and people brought to his manse all the odd infrequent creatures of the deep, caught or cast ashore, for his learned identification.

He was in other ways a curious mixture of convention and unconvention. He had no Victorian inhibition about stripping in a boat and enjoying a swim in Loch Leven. He writes without embarrassment or apology about sly allusions in a Gaelic poem to the significance of the loss of the maidenly snood. Yet he was against “innovation.” He would not tolerate any interference with the established texts of his Church. He protested against the new translation of the Scriptures, and he would have no truck with the replacement of the Paraphrases by hymns. As for the emancipation of the fair sex, he was convinced that women’s supremacy should be limited to the nursery or the kitchen!

A WELL-LOVED MINISTER

In his pastoral life he had the full confidence and warm affection of the people: not only the established of his own flock, but also the adherents of all the many other sects in the district. They all called him “Nether.” He was a popular preacher, equally fluent in Gaelic and English, but happier and freerer in his mother tongue. He had no clerical starchiness, and said that on occasions a song with a moral was better to be used than a sermon.

Men and women living to-day in Onich were christened by “Nether”; those who cannot remember him a vivid picture of his personality handed down on by their parents. His memory is green — a memory of a vigorous, eager and buoyant character. If he had never written anything, he would be remembered as a first-class sailor, a good swimmer and horseman, a successful fisherman with a rod and line, a hill-walker. As pater-familias, he instructed his three children in the natural history of the sea, shore and land. He was a farmer, like many country ministers, busy tilling, sowing, and harvesting his glebe, managing the byre and poultry-house.

KEEN LITERARY CRITICISM

For all his love of the classics, Stewart was a keen critic of modern literature. And in the field of Gaelic song, original and translated, he has a right to be classed with Pattison of Islay, Sheriff Nicolson of Skye, and his friend John Stuart Blackie. If he contributed less than these, he had the gift of introducing the Gaelic bards to English readers. Fourteen of his songs, favourites at mods, are preserved for posterity in Malcolm C. Macleods’ “Modern Gaelic Bards, Second Series” (1913): they include a translation of Robert Tannahill’s “Gloomy winter’s noo awa’.”

Nether’s final contribution to the “Courier” appeared in the issue which briefly announced his unexpected death on 17th January, 1901, suddenly after an illness brought about by an accident a year before. It was a typical letter on folk-lore and Highland custom, about the Black Art and the playing of the trump or Jew’s harp at ceilidhs.

THE MEMORIAL CROSS

Two-and-a-half years after the say day of his burial another great concourse assembled on the 18th July, 1903, by the lochside road at Onich, again to pay homage to the beloved pastor and man of letters. A public subscription organised by the Stewart Society had provided a memorial in the form of a 20-feet high Celtic cross. It was unveiled by Stewart of Achnacone, and Stewart of Ardvorlich pronounced the address to the memory of a great clansman, “venerable divine, a learned doctor, a great Celtic scholar, a lover of nature, a true Highlander well versed in the lore of his country.”

The cross was removed for safety from quarrying operations in 1955 to the new village cemetery at Innis a’ Bhiorlinn, secluded on the sloping hillside near Corran Ferry. Facing towards the gates of Ardgour, the inscription is from 1st Kings IV, 33, in Gaelic and English, aptly from the record of one other who, too, was a singer of songs and the embodiment of wisdom—“and he spake of trees, from the cedar tree that is in Lebanon even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall: he spake also of beats, and of fowl, and of creeping things, and of fishes.”

Reference:
Ross, Donald ‘Nether Lochaber: Memories of a Well-known Highlander’, The Inverness Courier, no. 11943 (20 Jan., 1961), p. 3
Image: Portrait of Nether Lochaber from The Celtic Magazine, vol. IX, no. 5 (1901), p. 19

Nether Lochaber: The Rev. Alexander Stewart – II

Continuing with the second excerpt from the appreciation of the Rev. Alexander Stewart contributed by Donald Ross to the Inverness Courier, more detail emerges of Nether Lochaber’s fortnightly literary columns. The two books, which were the fruition of such literary labours, are also name-checked. It may also be added at this juncture that the Rev. Alexander Stewart was also a notable poet – much of his output was posthumously edited by Malcolm C. Macleod and appeared in Modern Gaelic Bards (1913) – as well as a founder member of An Comunn Gàidhealach (or the Highland Society), founded in Oban in 1891, and the Gaelic Mòd, an annual festival held for over one hundred years now and celebrated recently in Caithness.

FIRST CONTRIBUTION TO THE “COURIER”

During the first ten years of his ministry, Stewart must have developed into an assiduous student of nature in all its moods, for he became a district correspondent to the “Inverness Courier,” then edited by Dr Robert Carruthers. Carruthers had earlier been the literary godfather of another of his country contributors, the Cromarty stonemason-geologist, Hugh Miller. His first article appeared on 21st April 1859, entitled “Lochaber—A Chapter for Ornithologists.” It contained 1,100 words, unsigned, on birds and meteorology, and started with a note on recent weather “with us in Nether Lochaber” and dealt with a weather forecast and a find of old coins. On 19th May it was about potatoes and grampuses. The fourth letter, a fortnight later, appeared under “The Weather, etc.” discussing peat; and dogfish at Corran. In June there was more of weather, a dissertation on the cuckoo, and a report of the drowning of a village child in the peat moss at Cuilchenna.

Later contributions demonstrated and consolidated the evidence of his intimate knowledge of folk-lore, and Gaelic poetry, tradition and legend. They grew under the influence of his mentor Carruthers into a familiar and characteristic form. Stewart applied to this writing his experience and the imagination which flourished on experience and the deductions of his enquiring mind. His greatest quality was his ability to write in an unaffected, graceful literary style, unpatronising, apparently artless, yet full of art. He talked about archaeology, natural history, the habits of birds, beasts and fishes, and he could communicate to his readers the wonders of science in a manner painless and pleasant.

The heading of his articles, “Nether Lochaber”, soon became his pen-name, and ultimately a second, informal everyday name. Long before 1881, when Alexander Mackenzie, historian of the clans, champion of the oppressed, and editor of the “Celtic Magazine”, named him the “Prince of Provincial newspaper correspondents,” his column was established as one of the most attractive features of the “Courier.”

BOOKS WIDELY WELCOMED

It is not surprising that public acclaim demanded book publication, and the first Stewart collection came on in 1883, aptly titled “Nether Lochaber: the Natural History, Legends, and Folk-lore of the West Highlands.” The book contained a selection from the records of the years 1868 to 1878. Chapter I is a good introductory example of “Nether Lochaber” in all his exuberance and diversity—primroses and daisies of early March, a weather forecast embellished with a Latin tag, quotations from Burns and Coleridge, the translation of a Gaelic poem, and the explanation of the Hebridean customs it described. The book was highly praised by the press. Among the many journals, Scottish and English, that welcomed it was the “Spectator,” whose review, a model of perspicacity and concise summing-up, said that it was “written…with that entrain with which a busy man throws himself into the favourite occupation of his leisure hours.”

The publishers must have been encouraged by the success of the book, for in 1885 appeared a second selection, “’Twixt Ben Nevis and Glencoe,” covering the years 1878 to 1883. This book continued to exhibit the author’s versatility and literary gifts as well as his accurate knowledge of scientific advance natural history, and Celtic folk-lore. Writing in 1881, Alexander Mackenzie has expressed astonishment of readers of the “Courier” that such a flow of science in popular form, and prose-poetry, could emanate form the “literary desert” of Lochaber. Yet we know that Stewart’s seclusion was pleasantly broken by visits from eminent men and women, and that correspondence linked him with people far and near. His memory was well stored with his youthful reading, and in the press of a busy pastoral life he kept abreast of the literature of the day. His material, too, was everywhere around him, the lore which he picked up in his rambles among the hills or along the shore, and in his talks with men and women at their daily lives.

Reference:
Ross, Donald ‘Nether Lochaber: Memories of a Well-known Highlander’, The Inverness Courier, no. 11943 (20 Jan., 1961), p. 3
Image: Portrait of Nether Lochaber from The Celtic Magazine, vol. IX, no. 5 (1901), p. 19

Nether Lochaber: The Rev. Alexander Stewart

A name to be reckoned with which has cropped up in this blog on more than once occasion is Nether Lochaber, the pen-name of the Rev. Alexander Stewart (1829–1901). Over more than four decades of contributing a more or less fortnightly column to the Inverness Courier resulted in two publications: Nether Lochaber: The Natural History, Legends and Folk-lore of the West Highlands (1883) and ’Twixt Ben Nevis and Glencoe: The Natural History, Legends, and Folk-lore of the West Highlands (1885). His namesake Alexander Carmichael may have got to know him from these very columns but it is likely that they may have come across one another earlier than 1859, the date on which Nether Lochaber penned his first of many contributions on wide-ranging topics such as folklore, poetry, meteorology and ornithology. An occasional contribution, as we have seen already, would wend its way from Carmichael when he was resident in Benbecula. This was the very island of Nether Lochaber’s birth for his father had been on the island working for the excise at that time. The well-respected minister passed away in early 1901, only a few months after the publication of Carmina Gadelica. It might well have been one of the last books that the Rev. Alexander Stewart was to read. Although we have yet to find evidence to the contrary, it is likely that Carmichael would have been present at his friend’s funeral. The following is the first excerpt of an appreciation of Nether Lochaber written by Donald Ross.

The “Inverness Courier,” in the issue of 25th January 1901, reported the death and funeral of a Highland scholar, “a patriot who name would be handed down to posterity as the revered and honoured of Celts all over the world.” Three days earlier the largest gathering possibly ever to assemble by Loch Leven in Nether Lochaber had witnessed the burial of Dr Alexander Stewart, minister of the Established Church at North Ballachulish, a man who had become a legend in his own time. For almost fifty years he had been respected, indeed revered, for his scholarship, love of nature and homeland, and, above all, for his humanity. It was a day of lowering and overcastting sky and mist driving over a background of sea and snow-clad mountains. Pipers of Ballachulish Volunteer Company of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders preceded the procession from the manse at Onich, playing “MacCrimmon’s Lament,” “Lochaber no More,” and “The Land o’ the Leal.” Then came representatives of the clans, learned societies, the Presbyter of Abertarff, the Stewart Society; and Cameron of Lochiel. Nearly every man and boy in the locality followed, and women and girls stood on the mile-long route, or watched from the hillside above the churchyard. It is clear from the account of the day that all were filled with emotion to a degree that could have come only from a sense of irreparable loss and identity with a great heart that has been lost to the Highlands. It is fitting, sixty years later, that we should recall with pride the name and work of Alexander Stewart, “Nether Lochaber”.

He was born in 1829 in Benbecula, where his father was an officer of the Inland Revenue. When Alexander was young his family moved to Oban. He went to school there, and later at Kilmichael in Perthshire, and had ample opportunity to acquire much of his early knowledge of the lore of the Highlands before he entered St Andrews University in 1843. He obtained his M.A., distinguishing himself especially in literature and the classics.

Stewart was ordained in 1851, after service as a missionary in Oban and assistant in Paisley. He started his ministry in Nether Lochaber, being presented by the Crown to the combined parish of North Ballachulish and Ardgour. He had charge of 1,100 souls, and two churches, and preached in Nether Lochaber and over Corran Ferry in Ardgour on alternate Sabbaths. He received “Royal Bounty” stipends totalling £120 supplemented by sums from the heritors, and a glebe of 3 to 4 acres. In 1852 he married Janet Morrison, eldest daughter of one of his Argyll parishioners, Lieutenant Morrison, R.N., of Sallachan House, and brought her to the manse in Onich to be his trusted helper for nearly fifty years.

Reference:

Ross, Donald, ‘Nether Lochaber: Memories of a Well-known Highlander’, The Inverness Courier, no. 11943 (20 Jan., 1961), p. 3

Image: Portrait of Nether Lochaber from The Celtic Magazine, vol. IX, no. 5 (1901), p. 19

Carmichael and the Editor of Punch’s Gaelic Lesson

Alexander Carmichael, addressing the Rev. Alexander Stewart, opened his long epistle, after congratulating his friend on receiving his honorary doctorate and on his literary achievements, with a short, but rather amusing, anecdote about a man to whom he became an unlikely Gaelic tutor. The man in question was  the editor of the well-known, but now sadly defunct, satirical magazine Punch. It would be quite something if the sketch of the two sleepyheads engaged - or rather not as the case might be - in Gaelic conversation could ever be found (as it may well survive among either of their family papers) as this reflects a more personable and lighter side of Carmichael’s occasionally stern character:

“Rev. and Dear Dr Stewart,–If my silence would indicate indifference to the honour conferred upon you by your University, let me assure you that I do not feel indifferent. If with unpardonable delay, let me at least with warmest cordiality congratulate you on your doctorate, and wish you long life with increased fame and honours.

“In no other Presbytery in the Highlands are there two clergymen who have at all accomplished the literary work which you and your learned neighbour, Dr Clerk, Kilmallie, have accomplished; each work different in kind certainly, but each excellent in its way.

“I believe I had the pleasure of introducing to one another yourself and Mr Tom Taylor, the scholarly editor of Punch, as warm and generous-hearted a friend as ever man possessed, and whom death shortly thereafter was to me and mine a very sincere sorrow.

“During the visit to us Mr Taylor read Dr Clerk’s ‘Introduction’ to the Bute edition of the Poems of Ossian, kindly sent to me by the noble Marquis. Mr Taylor said that the ‘Introduction’ was scholarly and judicial, and the translation evidently the work of a scholar. I was pleased to hear this from Mr Taylor himself the ablest Latin scholar of his day at Glasgow University, and a man of European reputation as an art and literary critic.

“During his short stay with us, Mr Taylor constituted me what he was pleased to term his Gaelic tutor. He and I read Gaelic together from the Bute edition of Ossian’s poems; and during out last evening together we sat down after dinner to read Gaelic as usual. But whether it was in consequence of rambling over moor and moss and mountain in the earlier part of the day; or of dinner; or of Ossian, or of all these combined, I know not, but certain it is that both pupil and teacher fell fast asleep, head to head, and shoulder to shoulder, on our chairs. A lady artist who caught us thus, made a clever sketch of the two of us fast asleep, and cruelly called her picture ‘The Gaelic Lesson!’

“Early on the following morning Mr Taylor and I parted with warm mutual regrets, never to meet again; for though then in excellent health, he died soon after going home, to my great grief. ‘The Gaelic Lesson,’ a small water colour sketch, and the gift of the accomplished artist to me, I need hardly say, very fondly prized by the widow of the dead, and the wife of the living originals.

The Mr. Taylor referred to by Carmichael was none other than Tom Taylor (1817–1880), dramatist and editor of Punch. He was born at Bishopwearmouth, near Sunderland, in north-east England. After attending school there, and studying for two sessions at the University of Glasgow, he entered Trinity College at Cambridge University in 1837. Taylor began his working life as a journalist. Soon after moving to London, Taylor wrote for the Morning Chronicle and the Daily News. He was on the staff of Punch until 1874, when he succeeded Charles William Shirley Brooks as editor. For two years Taylor was Professor of English Literature at University College, London. He was called to the bar at Middle Temple in November 1846, and went on the Northern Circuit until he became Assistant Secretary of the Board of Health in 1850. On the reconstruction of the Board in 1854 he was made Secretary, and on its abolition his services were transferred to a department of the Home Office, from where he retired on a pension in 1876. He died at Wandsworth, London.

References:

Nether-Lochaber, ‘Nether-Lochaber’, The Inverness Courier, no. 4048 (06 Aug., 1885), p. 2, c. 6–7

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Taylor

Image: Photograph of Tom Taylor by Lewis Carroll

Black Grouse Reel - II

Some six months ago we published a blog giving Alexander Carmichael’s nature notes concerning Black Grouse or Coilich Dhubha. In a long, and somewhat rambling, letter that he sent in 1885 to the Rev. Alexander Stewart (1829–1901), or Nether-Lochaber as he was better known to his readers, Carmichael raises the topic once again. Stewart had been  resident in Onich in Nether Lochaber (Bun Loch Abar) since 1851, but he had been born in Benbecula where his father David had been an exciseman, just like Alexander Carmichael himself. The minister wrote a celebrated, more or less fortnightly column for the Inverness Courier which reflected interests just as eclectic as those of Carmichael. Indeed, Stewart’s columns proved so popular that some were subsequently published as the books Nether Lochaber: The Natural History, Legends and Folk-lore of the West Highlands (1883) and ’Twixt Ben Nevis and Glencoe: The Natural History, Legends, and Folk-lore of the West Highlands (1885). The excerpt concerning the Black Grouse Reel is as follows:

“I meant to have asked you long ago if you lived in a blackcock country, or if you are personally acquainted with the habits of black game? My reason for asking is this: you know the glorious old dance tune, or porst, sometimes post-a-bial [sic] called Ruidhleadh nan Caoileach Dubha–The Reeling of the Black Cocks. The tune proceeds thus:–

“Ruidhleadh na coilich-dhubha,

Dhannsadh an tunnagan,

Ruidhleadh na coilich-dhubha,

Air an tulaich bhoidheich.

“Air an tulaich, air an tulaich,

Air an tulaich, urrad ud,

Air an tulaich, air an tulaich,

Air an tulaich bhoidheich, &c.’

All this ‘reeling’ of the black cocks, and ‘dancing’ of the ducks, may probably seem foolish, if not absurd, to most men; but that the description is founded on the close observation of the characteristics of these birds, I am very sure. The old Highlanders were born naturalists. There were then close observers of nature–of birds and beasts, and of earth and sea, and sky. To that I can testify from having written down a good deal of their oral literature–Gaelic, Eachdraidh Chluais.

References:

Nether-Lochaber, ‘Nether-Lochaber’, The Inverness Courier, no. 4048 (06 Aug., 1885), p. 2, c. 6–7

Image: Black Grouse, Coilich Dhubha