Who else was collecting Gaelic charms?

Alexander Carmichael was by no means the only Gaelic speaker collecting and publishing charms at the end of the nineteenth century. In the next few blogs we’d like to take a brief look at Carmichael’s contemporaries – all of them men – who took an interest in Gaelic charms and incantations, in order to give readers an idea of what they gathered and how they presented their finds to the public. Carmichael may well have collected the lion’s share of these fascinating items, but there is much more to Gaelic charm collection than Alexander Carmichael alone.

We saw in the previous blog how, in January 1842, the Rev. Norman MacLeod, ‘Caraid nan Gàidheal’, printed a seun or battle charm in the periodical he was then editing, Cuairtear nan Gleann. The article, entitled ‘Saobh-chràbhadh nan Gàidheal anns na lìnntibh a chaidh seachad’ (‘Superstition of the Gaels in ages past’), allowed the minister to have his cake and eat it: both to print an item which he knew would be of great interest to his readers, while at the same time giving him an opportunity to inveigh against the ‘saobh-chràbhadh’ and ‘nithe faoine’ (foolish or vain things) of an earlier generation of supposedly less enlightened Gaels.

‘Caraid nan Gàidheal’ didn’t have long to wait for some feedback. Two issues later he printed a five-page letter from ‘G— C—’, again on ‘Saobh-chràbhadh nan Gàidheal’. I see, stated G. C., that you write that ‘gach ni mu shèun, mu ghisreagan, mu gheasan, agus mu dhruidheachd’ (‘everything about seun, enchantments, spells, and druidism’) has now been forgotten.

Bu ro thaitneach leam so a chluinntinn, nam b’urrainn domh a chreidsinn gu’n robh e fìor; ach tha dearbh-chinnte agam gu’m bheil mòran de na nithean faoin agus peachdach so fathast air an cleachduinn air feadh na Gàidhealtachd, agus gu’m bheil sluagh lionmhor a toirt làn ghéill dhoibh.

I should be very pleased to hear this, if I could believe it were true; but I am absolutely certain that many of these vain and sinful things are still in use throughout the Highlands, and that numerous people believe in them totally.

In his letter, G. C. plays the same game as MacLeod, going into fascinating detail about charms and folk cures for cattle and horses then current – indeed apparently exceptionally common – in the Isle of Skye, as well as giving an example of silver water used to quench bleeding. The final page is devoted to a tirade, not just against practitioners of witchcraft, but against those who pay them:

Tha iadsan, mar an ceudna ag àicheadh freasdail agus maitheas an Tighearna. Tha iad a dol airson còmhnuidh agus dìon chum a nàimhdean. Tha iad a cur an làmh ris gach barail mhearachdaich, bhreugaich, mhì-dhiadhaidh, a tha aig luchd nan gisreagan: agus an aon seadh, ’s iad is coireach ann am peacaidhean na muinntir eile; oir mar biodh iadsan a toirt duais seachad airson upagan a’s eòlais, cha b’fhada gus an sguirte dhaibh. Cha’n eil buidseach ’san dùthaich a bhiodh air an dragh dol troimh cleasan mar faigheadh i pàigheadh air a shon.

They also deny God’s dispensation and mercy. They go to His enemies for help and protection. They add their hand to every mistaken, lying, irreligious opinion held by the charmers: in one way, they are responsible for the sins of the others; for if they didn’t reward charms and incantations, it wouldn’t be long before they’d cease. There isn’t a witch in the country who’d be bothered going through her tricks unless she received payment for it.

G. C. ends the letter by urging MacLeod to continue his campaign in demonstrating the foolishness and sinfulness of these customs.

Who then was G. C.? In a brief but important article in the Review of Scotttish Culture about seuntan entitled ‘Lead hearts and runes of protection’, Professor Hugh Cheape makes the astute suggestion that the writer was Gilleasbaig Cléireach or the Rev. Archibald Clerk (1813–87), none other than the Rev. Norman MacLeod’s son-in-law [Review of Scottish Culture, 18 (2006), 155n.5]. Like MacLeod’s correspondent, Clerk had recently been in the Isle of Skye: he had served as minister of Duirinish between March 1840 and November 1841, and had written a description of the parish for the New Statistical Account. When we compare G. C.’s Gaelic letter in Cuairtear nan Gleann with Clerk’s English report in the NSA about the prevalence of charms in his parish, it’s clear from both tone and subject matter that they were written by the same man.

Yet the people generally are unacquainted both with the letter and the spirit of true religion, and there is much superstition, the sure concomitant of ignorance, still lingering among them. Our limits forbid us to enter at any length on this subject, but we may remark, that while it is now rare, though not unknown, to use charms or incantations for curing the diseases of the human frame, these means are daily resorted to for curing the diseases of cattle. ‘Silver water,’ as it is called, ‘fairy arrows,’ and ‘charmed stones,’ are still held to be possessed of much efficacy, and they who have power to call forth their virtues are held in high estimation. [NSA, 14, 348]

Four months later another ‘Saobh-chràbhadh nan Gàidheal’ article appeared in Cuairtear nan Gleann.

This time two charms were printed, a Eòlas nan Sùil [sic], for sore eyes, and a Eòlas an t-Snìomh to be recited by the practitioner while massaging a sprained ankle. The first one, to be recited over a vessel of water (with which to wash the affected eye) containing a silver coin, was obtained:

o sheann duine còir a chleachd e fad iomadh bliadhna, ’sa tha nis a’ tuigsinn nach ’eil ann ach amaideachd pheacach.

from a decent old man who used it for many years, but who now understands it’s nothing but sinful foolishness.

Eòlas nan Sùil.

Obie nan geur shùl,
An obie ’s feàrr fo’n ghréin;
Obie Dhé, an uile-mhòr.
Féile Mhàiri, féile Dhé,
Féile gach sagairt ’s gach cléir;
Féile Mìchael nam feart,
’Chàirich anns a’ ghréin a neart.

The Charm of the Eyes

Charm of the sharp eyes,
The best charm under the sun;
The charm of God, the great.
Feast of Mary, feast of God,
Feast of every priest and every cleric;
Feast of virtuous Michael,
Who laid in the sun his strength.

The second charm is an example of the very common bone-to-bone charm, known throughout Europe and far beyond. The writer, probably once more the Rev. Norman MacLeod, apparently gets the gender of St Brìde wrong!

Eòlas an t-Snìomh

Chaidh Brìde mach
Air maduinn mhoich
Le càraid each.
Bhris fear ac’ a chas.
Chuir e glùn ri glùn,
A’s cnàimh ri cnàimh,
A’s feith ri feith.
Mar leighis esan sin,
Cha leighis mise so.

The Charm of the Sprain

Bride went out
In the early morning
With a pair of horses.
One of them broke his leg.
He put knee to knee,
And bone to bone,
And sinew to sinew.
Unless he healed that,
I shall not heal this.

Thirty years later, on 20 June 1872, these two charms were reprinted in one of the many remarkable columns which the Rev. Alexander Stewart compiled under the pen-name ‘Nether-Lochaber’ for the Inverness Courier. As Alexander Macbain rather acerbically notes in one of his folklore notebooks, Stewart presented ‘these Cuairtear charms cooly as his own, even their errors’ [CW511D, fo.79^v]. We can, however, forgive ‘Nether’ his creative pilfering: as a hook to intrigue his readers, it certainly worked. After coming across Stewart’s ‘charms’ column, Alexander Carmichael was inspired to despatch to his friend some similar items which he himself had recently written down in Uist, and then to collect some more: these were the kernel of what was to become, three decades later, Carmina Gadelica i–ii.

References:
Hugh Cheape, ‘Lead hearts and runes of protection’, ROSC: Review of Scottish Culture, 18 (2006), 149–55.
Clerk, Rev. Archibald, ‘Duirinish’, New Statistical Account of Scotland (1834–45), vol. 14, 322–60.
G. C. [‘Gilleasbaig Cléireach’, i.e. Rev. Archibald Clerk], ‘Saobh-chràbhadh nan Gàidheal’, Cuairtear nan Gleann, 25 (1 March 1842), 9–14.
[Rev. Norman MacLeod], ‘Saobh-chràbhadh nan Gàidheal anns na lìnntibh a chaidh seachad’, Cuairtear nan Gleann, 23 (8 January 1842), 309–12, edited and reprinted in Rev. Norman MacLeod, Caraid nan Gàidheal (Glasgow: William MacKenzie, 1867), 338–43.
_____. ‘Saobh-chràbhadh nan Gàidheal’, Cuairtear nan Gleann, 29 (1 July 1842), 137.

For another article about charms and folk cures (despite the reference to himself in the third person, it was probably also written by the Rev. Archibald Clerk), see:
‘Cas air Allaban’, ‘Buidseachd sa’ Ghàidhealtachd’, Cuairtear nan Gleann, 37 (1 March 1843), 13–16.

Image:
Duirinish Parish Church, built 1832, where the Rev. Archibald Clerk preached 1840–1.

A Method of Recovering Stolen Goods

John Ewen MacRury (1853–1909)

A remarkable method – which may be termed witchcraft – was said to have been a favoured way in which to claim the recovery of stolen goods. This particular tradition was recorded not by Alexander Carmichael – although he may have been aware of it – but rather by his friend and colleague John Ewen (Iain Eòghann) MacRury of Torlum, Benbecula. Born in Benbecula around 1853, MacRury was nearly twenty years younger than Carmichael. He died in Airdrie Poor House aged fifty-four in 1909. Between 1887 and 1895 he gathered in a great deal of material at the behest of Carmichael who remembered him as: ‘A highly intelligent man, for whose knowledge of old lore I am greatly indebted in this work.’ The following example of his collecting, where the original spelling has been retained, was entitled in the notebook as ‘Togal an Doinis’ or rather ‘Togail an Donais’, which, in other words, was ‘Raising the Devil’. No reciter is noted down from John Ewen – he was a tradition bearer himself – but it is likely that he heard this anecdote from someone in Uist:

This extraordinary stroke
of art in olden times
was very effectual am-
ong the inhabitants of
the North. When anything
was stollen, and no
clear clue attached could be found
to any person in par-
ticular, all under sus-
pission were named out
by the looser to the
party gifted with the
art, their names were
written on parchment
or paper, and if the
party could not write
there was a different
mark for every one
under suspission.
The paper was fould
ed longways, and rub
bed between the pa[l]ms
of his hand, and in
the name of the Dev
il allowed to fall
gently into a basin
or a big bowl full
of cold water. If the
name of the guilty
party was among them
it would go to the
bottom and the rest
would float on
on the surface. Then the party
possessed of the art
was to inform the thief
of what happened and
unless the stolen
property was restored
to the right
ful owner within three days
the whole affair was
proclaimed publicly
and would be compelled
to submit.
They greatly object
ed to the raising of
the D[evil] as several y[ea]rs
famine was
sure to follow in
the township after
that.

References:
CW1, fos. 32r–33.
Carmina Gadelica, ii, p. 381.
Image: John Ewen MacRury (1853–1909). Reproduced with the kind permission of Calum Laing.

Stealing of the Milk Profit

A very common migratory legend concerning witchcraft throughout the Highlands and Islands, and doubtless elsewhere, was the supernatural phenomenon whereby a neighbouring woman, usually an older woman with an uncanny reputation, steals the milk from her neighbour’s cow. There are quite a few variations of this story, such as the witch taking the form of a hare, or where the woman who has had her cattle afflicted seeks advice on how to remedy the situation and so gets her cows back to milking again. In Gaelic the phrase ‘a’ toirt an tòraidh air falbh’ is used to described what may be translated as having the sense of stealing the substance of the milk or taking the milk profit. Alexander Carmichael in one of his later notebooks wrote down such a story (probably around 1904) and, as is common with memorate-type stories, the experience is passed onto a person directly known to the narrator thus giving lie to the story’s alleged credence. Judging by the surname of the informant as well as by the the name of the house in which she resided it would be safe to assume that this story has its background in Badenoch, the cat country of the central Highlands:

Miss Macpherson Phones Villa
Morningside Edinburgh told me this
last night. My mother a woman
of great intelligence and sterling integrity
told me that shortly before she
was married she was milking
a cow in her fathers byre. Just
in the middle a beautiful cow
and a fine milker a reputed witch
passed the door of the byre and stretch
ing her head towards the cow in
side the cow door she called
out Ciamar a tha bho a bleoghan?
Is beag is f[h]eairrd thus co dhiu
orsa mise – How is the cow milking
But little is better of you
at any rate. The word was hardly
out of my mouth when the
milk suddenly stopped. Not a
drop would come although the
cow was not half milked. I patted
and patted and coaxed and coaxed
the cow and sang a [supra: soothing] milking song
to her but not a drop would come

Unusually, perhaps, a solution of getting her cow to milk again depsite her singing a milking is not forthcoming as part of the story. Nevertheless, there were such stories of counter-charms and cures aplenty that will no doubt appear in another blog.

References:

CW 178, fols. 13v–14r

Bruford, Alan, ‘Scottish Gaelic Witch Stories: A Provisional Type-List’, Scottish Studies, vol. 11 (1967), pp. 13–47

MacDonald, Donald Archie, ‘Migratory Legends of the Supernatural in Scotland: A General Survey, Béaloideas, vols., 62–63 (1994–95), pp. 29–78

Image: A Splash of Milk