A Weekend in Appin

Last weekend I was lucky enough to be invited to give a paper to the Appin Historical Society on behalf of the Carmichael Watson Project. The drive up was rather eventful, with a caravan crash (luckily, nobody was hurt) a few seconds ahead of us at the Brander Pass necessitating a lengthy detour via Rannoch Moor and Glencoe. Nevertheless, we arrived at Port Appin Hall only five minutes late!

The subject of the paper was the lore and traditions of Appin which Alexander Carmichael gathered in the district during three days of intensive collecting in the late summer of 1883. Most of the paper was devoted to the wonderful material he scribbled down from the recitation of Donald MacColl (c. 1793–1886), ‘Domhnall Brocair’, the foxhunter then living at Fasnacloich up in Glen Creran. In his younger days Donald had met both Sir Walter Scott and Duncan Bàn Macintyre, Donnchadh Bàn nan Òran. He reminisced about both these literary giants to Carmichael, as well as about his own experiences during over fifty years of gamekeeping. Other stories Carmichael recorded relate to the Battle of Culloden, at which Donald’s paternal grandfather had been badly wounded and was lucky to escape with his life; to Colin Campbell of Glenure and the notorious Appin Murder; to the local hero Domhnall nan Òrd, the ‘Donald the Hammerer’ whose picaresque adventures so fascinated the youthful Walter Scott; and especially to the local MacColl burial ground Cladh Churalain, perched half-way up Beinn Churalain on the north side of Loch Creran. The ninety-year old Domhnall Brocair, clearly hale and hearty despite his great age, took Carmichael on a visit to the graveyard and its associated healing springs. One story he told particularly caught Carmichael’s imagination: the burning in the late eighteenth century of what appear to have been wooden images of saints Columba, Moluag, and the local holy man Curalan by three ‘scamps’ – sons of the gentry of the district, who all suffered divine retribution as a result.

The great thing about researching a paper on very local subjects is that you have to read the relevant manuscripts extremely closely. The field notebook in which Donald MacColl’s lore was recorded – CW120 – is horrendously difficult to read and leaps seemingly at random from subject to subject. Here I’d like to pay tribute to the transcribing abilities of our erstwhile colleague Dr Andrew Wiseman and the tireless and patient cataloguing of Kirsty Stewart.

The great thing about giving a paper on very local subjects is the feedback – and also corrections! – I always receive from people much more knowledgeable about the area than I am myself. I’d like to thank all those who attended, from Appin and further afield (including Lismore, Ardchattan, Oban, Taynuilt, Morvern, and the Isle of Luing) who kindly took the trouble to chat to me, to enlighten me, and to put me right! Especial thanks to Ronald and Sylvia Laing of the Appin Historical Society for their generous hospitality, and also for showing me two photographs of yet another ‘Carmichael informant’ – Janet MacColl the dairymaid, whom Carmichael met when hiking to Cladh Churalain with Domhnall Brocair:

‘Mòran taing a Chrìosdaidh chneasda’ said [supra: old] Seonaid Nic Colla, Glasdruim, when I helped her up the bank. [CW120/90; see also CW120/178]

Ronnie also told me the intriguing fact that the photographer Erskine Beveridge was taking landscape photographs in Lismore and Appin at exactly the same time as Carmichael was collecting lore there – surely they must at least have met?

Saturday morning was spent rambling in Carmichael’s footsteps up through scrub birch, old oak, and bracken to reach (thanks, GPS!) the graveyard of Cladh Churalain. Despite a couple of soakings, we had wonderful views and thoroughly recommend this fascinating site to our readers.

Images: Cladh Churalain

An Appin Fairy Story

Glencreran, Appin

A fairy story, collected in 1883 by Alexander Carmichael probably from his namesake, Mary, who was then aged around seventy-one and who resided in and probably belonged to Druim a’ Bhuic in Glencreran, has all the classical ingredients of this genre. In the story, the man, from Blar nan Laogh, Ach-nan-Con, Appin drags his wife by the ankle through a fire and discovers the fairies had replaced her with the trunk of an oak tree ‘black stoc daraich’. The story states that the fairies are keen to take women for their milk in order to feed their fairy children. A summary of this story may be given as follows as a foiled abduction of a woman. The fairies are forestalled in their attempt to steal her (usually she is heavy with child and, of course, indicating a liminal status) and they leave a wooden image of her behind which would have been put in her place. It may also be of interest to note that urine or in Gaelic maistir – presumably human as well as animal – has apotropaic qualities and which could be used to avert any danger that fairies posed for they are said to take great offence at strong smells. Presumably, then, a fairy waulking or luadhadh would be out of the question!

The fairies carried her away from her
lea[baidh]-shiula. There was a man in Blar
nan laogh Ach-nan-con, Appin.
He went to Duror for whisky. In ret[urn]ing he
laid down the jar & made water. This
Chuala e “ocaid” eir sgioblachadh
a bhreacain. He looked down & saw his own
wife whom he carried home – & plac[ed]
in the barn. When he went in his
own mother & his wife[’s] moth[er] were
in great distress about his un-returned
wife. He cau[gh]t her by caol nan cas
& dragged her thro[ugh] a large fire & she was
a black stoc daraich in the door.
This was what the sith plac[ed] in his
wife[’]s bed when they carried her away.
He placed his wife in her bed. She
was deliv[ered] before he left. That is why they
are so keen to take women for their
milk to feed the clann nan sith.
Urine stops fairy cantrips.
‘Is meirg a leigeadh uc[hd] ri tailean.’
When the old black fairy was thrown in the
glumag was by the woman. When
the tailor told her he was a fairy
when he made the fuarag.

References:

Black, Ronald (ed.), The Gaelic Otherworld (Edinburgh, 2005), pp. 19–20.

CW120/82, ff. 28r–29r.

Image: Glencreran, Appin © Copyright Alan Partridge and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

Sir Walter Scott in Appin

Between notes about his own family and general genealogical notes about the Carmichaels, Alexander Carmichael wrote down an anecdote regarding the time that Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832) visited Appin. The date of Scott’s visit is not known but it must have been prior to the publication of his first historical novel Waverley which took the literary world by storm in 1814. Scott may be given credit for the creation of the modern historical novel and some of his writings, such as Rob Roy (1817), were deeply influenced by Highland history. It must be said that Scott’s views of the Highlands were not detached from romanticism, such was the lingering influence of James Macpherson’s Ossian, but at the beginning of the nineteenth century his writings proved to be immensely popular. This anecdote begins with two Appin men who may have been escaping from Culloden, before the connection is then made with Sir Walter Scott.

Maccoll and a Carmichael were
pursued by horsemen and wishing
to preserve their swords they drove them
into the moss over which they were
pursued. They were imprisoned in
Castle Stalker Appin and when
liberated they went back in search
of their swords and found them.
When Sir Walter Scott was in
Appin he taught Archibald the son of this
Maccoll the rudiments of English [and] Latin
grammar along with the boys of his host
Stewart of Invernaoile
It was here that Scott heard mostly from the
miller of Inverfolla adjoining the episodes
of the 45–46 woven into the web of
Waverly. He took jottings
in house a bit of which is still up and
used as a milk-house and then went
to a cave up the hill side and then
extended his notes. This was his habit and
when at a subsequent period when he
became famous Scott visited Appin
he went to see the cave by the river on the hillside
where as he pathetically said he spent
some of his happiest hours.
This cave is notable from its having
been the place where his muime hid
Domhnull nan Ord Donald
the Hammerer when an infant
The history of Donald the Hammerer
is given by Sir Walter Scott in Jamieson’s
edition of Burts Letters from the Highlands.

Reference: CW 383, fos. 179r–180r
Image: Sir Walter Scott by Henry Raeburn (1822)

Captain Dugald Carmichael FLS

Another famous Carmichael from Lismore was Dugald Carmichael (1772-1827). He was born in Stronacraoibh and educated on the island. At a very young age he took an interest in the island’s flora and fauna which subsequently became his life-long passion. Alexander Carmichael, amongst historical notes about the Carmichaels in Lismore and Appin, gives the captain a brief biographical sketch:

Capt[ain] Dugald Carmichael was a native of Lismore.
His knowledge of Natural History in general was
very extensive. After serving for some time
as Surgeon in the 76d. Regt. he accepted a com=
=mission in the same Regiment, where the he con=
=tinued to distinguish himself until the Conclusion
of the late war (i.e. the Peninsular War). He then re=
turned to his Native Parish, & spent the remain
=der of his Life in the prosecution of his favourite
studies. He died in Appin, and was buried in the
Churchyard of Lismore.

Carmichael notes elsewhere that the original progenitor of the Lismore Carmichaels, from whom both Alexander and Dugald Carmichael were descended, was Am Baran Bàn [the Fair Baron] or Baran Taigh Sgurain [the Baron of Sgurain House] and from whom came the Bishop of Lismore, An t-Easbaig Bàn [The Fair-haired Bishop]. At any rate, Dr Dugald Carmichael was referred to as either Dùghall Bàn or an Dotar Bàn. Carmichael writes that he was known to science as the ‘Father of Marine Botany', and was the intimate friend and correspondent of Sir William Hooker (1785-1865), who called many marine plants after him. One of these plants was Carmichaeliana or New Zealand Broom which is a genus of 24 plant species belonging to Fabaceae or legume family. Further, his nephew, the accomplished Gaelic scholar, the Rev Dr Alexander Clerk of Killmallie (1813-1887), went under the name of Gilleasbaig Bàn [Archibald the Fair]. Although Duglald Carmichael successfully studied classics at the University of Glasgow his real passion lay in science and he went to the University of Edinburgh to study medicine. He then became a qualified surgeon and gained a commission as an ensign with the 72nd Highlanders which offered him the opportunity to travel to foreign climes. He was able to make pioneering botanical collections as far afield as South Africa, Mauritius, India, New Zealand as well as Tristan de Cunha. Dugald Carmichael retired to Appin and took the tenancy of Ardtur Farm at Port Appin lying opposite to Lismore where he continued his research and published his last study Mosses of Lorn. Despite not being in good health, he still managed to make his last field trip to St Kilda. At the age of fifty-five Carmichael passed away and was interred at Clachlan near St Moluag’s cathedral. Despite being relatively unknown today due to his retiring nature, his friendship with the leading botanists of his day, Sir William Hooker and Robert Brown, made sure that his scientific discoveries did not go unnoticed by Charles Darwin.

References:
CW 113, fos. 3v-4r.
Alexander Carmichael, ‘The Barons of Bachuill’, The Celtic Review, vol. 5 (1909), pp. 356-75.
Dugald Carmichael. ‘Some Account of the Island of Tristan da Cunha and of its Natural Productions. By Captain Dugald Carmichael, F.L.S’ Transactions of the Linnean Society, vol. 12, no. 29 (1818), pp. 483-513.
Robert Hay, Lismore: The Great Garden (Edinburgh: Birlinn, 2009), pp. 166-67
Dòmhnall MacilleDhuibh, Sgeul no Dhà às an Lios / A Tale or Two from Lismore (Glasgow: CADIPSA at the University of Strathclyde for Comann Eachraidh Lios Mòr, 2006), pp. 116-17.
Rev Colin Smith, ‘Biography of the late Dugald Carmichael, Esq. Captain 72d Regiment, Fellow of the Linnean Society’, in The Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, vol. 11 (1831), pp. 90-103; vol. 12 (1831-32), pp. 113-22 [This is an extracted biography that originally appeared in William Hooker’s Botanical Miscellany, vol. 2 (1831), pp. 1-59; 258-343.
Image:
Carmichaeliana or New Zealand Broom.