A lost St Kilda Gospel?

All sorts of unusual information and anecdotage lurk in murky corners of the Carmichael Watson Collection. Here is a piece relating to the Island of Boraraigh or Boreray in the St Kilda archipelago. A recent survey by the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS) has found evidence that the island, previously thought only to be home to many thousands of seabirds and a flock of sheep, may in fact have been inhabited by humans for many centuries, right up until the seventeenth century.

The undated item, CW170 fo.16, is written in Carmichael’s hand. It refers to the Rev. Lauchlan MacLeod (1762–1832), minister of St Kilda between 1788 and 1830 when he left his charge and retired to the Island of Berneray, Harris: perhaps a corroboration of part of the story given below.

Macleod, Lachlan Rev.

M.S.

Mr Lachlann Macleod was for many years minister in S. Kilda. After coming from S. Kilda, when dining with Macleod of Bearnaray in the Sound of Harris, he was choked with a piece of beef. He told Macleod of Bearnaray that boys – perhaps girls also – were digging in taigh an stallair in Boraraidh near S. Kilda and in their upturning they came upon a curious ‘stone’. They brought home the stone from Bororay to St. Kilda. The ‘stone’ was a parchment manuscript of the Gospels now become hard and solidified like stone. The minister said that  the letters were like Hebrew – old Celtic. What became of the M.S. no one knows. Probably the M.S. belonged to the anchorite who lived in [the] lonely spot.

When the team were up in Fort William looking at Carmichael’s material collections, one of them got rather excited when he found in a box of odds and ends a small lump looking like a stone on the outside, but apparently made from closely packed sheets with writing on them. Could this be part of the Rev. Lauchlan’s long-lost parchment manuscript? Unfortunately, probably not: the rock seems to be a papier-mâché one made for the West Highland Museum and once used as a perch for a stuffed bird or animal in their exhibition!

References: CW170 fo.16
Hew Scott et al. (eds), Fasti Ecclesiæ Scoticanæ vii, 194.

Image: The Island of Boreray, from the seaharris.co.uk website

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.

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

From his papers we can calculate that during the time he lived in Uist, between 1864 and 1882, Alexander Carmichael recorded at least 62 charm texts. But in actual fact, Carmichael would print hardly any of this rich corpus under his own name before he published the first two volumes of Carmina Gadelica in 1900. What did appear was a number of prayers and blessings among other ‘old hymns’ included in ‘Grazing and Agrestic Customs of the Outer Hebrides’, Carmichael’s unorthodox contribution to Appendix A of the Napier Commission’s Report into the Condition of the Crofters and Cottars in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland (1884), 451–82; these were republished in Lord Archibald Campbell’s Records of Argyll (Edinburgh: William Blackwood & Sons, 1885), 385–98. Some of these appeared again in the paper Carmichael gave on 24 December 188 about ‘Uist Old Hymns’ to the Gaelic Society of Glasgow, a revised version of a newspaper report of which was printed in the Society’s Transactions, i (1887–91), 34–47.

Now, it seems significant that neither of these pieces, ‘Grazing and Agrestic Customs’ or ‘Uist Old Hymns’, actually contains any item whatsoever which Carmichael would include in the second volume of Carmina Gadelica, the one mostly taken up with Uibe or Incantations. What we do have in these articles are what he was to describe in the first volume of CG as Achaine or Invocations: that is, blessings and prayers. This inevitably brings us to the delicate and problematic distinction between blessings and prayers, and charms and incantations. The Gaelic scholar Alexander Macbain, whom we’ll meet again shortly, anticipates a common, but by no means uncontroversial, modern definition of the latter when he writes:

An incantation consists of a formula of words which is recited to bring about certain physical results to which the meaning of the words has some correspondence more or less direct. [Alexander Macbain, ‘Gaelic incantations’, Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Inverness, xvii (1890–1), 222].

But strict, watertight divisions between the two genres are difficult to uphold. Macbain admits as such a few pages later on:

The exact line of demarcation on the one hand between what is an incantation and what is a prayer or hymn, and on the other hand between an incantation and an ordinary secular song, is often difficult to draw. [ibid., 230]

We can build on Macbain’s suggestion by suggesting that, pragmatically and in general, it was felt that charms tended to focus upon specific ailments or accidents, to ‘bespell’ people, or to protect them against evil eye. Of course prayers could also function to protect or cure; charms, however, often needed to be recited by a specific class of people to be efficacious: the luchd-eòlais, or ‘cunning folk’ in English. Charms were usually more ‘performance pieces’ than prayers, often delivered with the assistance of an object or an amulet, in specific places, at specific times, and under specific conditions of enactment. Most importantly of all, charms had to be kept secret. Often a charm couldn’t be given to just anybody. If it were to retain its efficacy, it had to be handed down under certain restrictions: a woman had to give a charm text to a man or vice versa, for example. Once the charm had been given to somebody else, the original reciter might lose their power to use it. Prayers, on the other hand, were much more portable, and much more public.

In both ‘Grazing and Agrestic Customs’ and ‘Uist Old Hymns’, it’s notable that Carmichael never uses the words ‘charm’ or ‘incantation’. We have ‘hymns’, ‘prayers’, ‘invocations’, ‘croons’, and ‘dedicatory hymns’, but no charms. If anything, Carmichael appears keen to play down the category: although he reprints six pieces from the Napier Commission Report in ‘Uist Old Hymns’, it may be significant that this time he misses out the Beannachadh Buachailleachd (‘Herding Blessing’) and the Rann Buachailleachd (‘Herding Rune’), prayers to protect cows which to our eyes shade suspiciously into charms to be recited by milkmaids and cattle herds. Mention is certainly made in ‘Uist Old Hymns’ of a Eòlas Ceartais, but this piece is described as a prayer rather than a charm for justice, and is not printed in the article. Incidentally, this was probably the Eòlas Ceartais obtained from Catrìona Macintosh, Staoidhligearraidh, on 20 May 1875 (CW87/17 [fos.12v–13]), and printed as Ora Ceartais, no. 20 in CG i, 52–3.

Two questions for the next blog on this subject: Which charms recorded by Alexander Carmichael had been published before Carmina? And why was he apparently so reluctant to see them in print once more?

References:
Alexander Carmichael, ‘Grazing and Agrestic Customs of the Outer Hebrides’, Parliamentary Report into the Condition of the Crofters and Cottars in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland (1884), 451–82.
_____. ‘Prayers and hymns of the Hebrides’ in Lord Archibald Campbell (ed.), Records of Argyll (Edinburgh: William Blackwood & Sons, 1885), 385–98.
_____. ‘Uist old hymns’, Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Glasgow, i (1887–91), 34–47.
Alexander Macbain, ‘Gaelic incantations’, Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Inverness, xvii (1890–1), 222–66.

Images:
Staoiligearraidh, home of Catriona Macintosh

Breac anns an Tobar

St Andrew's Well, Isle of Lismore, Argyllshire

 

A bricein in Tob (Tobar) D (Domhnull) nan

Ord 140 yrs (years) old. A strange

lad took it out Then put it

back & Stop ad cuir cann (ceann)

on. The trout died.

This is quite an unusual entry in Carmichael’s notebooks dated 27 September 1883 and collected from John Livingstone 'Muillear Mòr', Portnacroish, Appin aged 73 years. The mention of trout in wells is not very common although it does get a mention in Seán Ó Suilleabháin’s A Handbook of Irish Folklore: is a trout or other fish supposed to inhabit the well permanently? Is it considered unlucky to meddle with this fish?

With a bit of research it was discovered that a trout or even an eel living in a well was a good omen, especially if they appeared at the time of pilgrimage. If the fish was removed there were often consequences. Here is a story related to Sunday’s Well, Walshestown, Co. Cork:

The story is to the effect that a local woman carried home water from the well to boil potatoes, but unfortunately the eel had been drawn out at the same time. To her amazement the water remained cold after hours of boiling until her husband found out what had happened and returned the eel and water to the well. But this did not appease the offended spirit, who caused the well to dry up; and it has remained dry to the present day. (Cordner, 30)

On further research to the Scottish Studies Archive a handful of references to trout in wells were discovered in the MacLagan Manuscripts and the oral recordings:

           

            From Mrs McLean, Kintra, Islay.

Tobar a’bhric, is the name of a well on Lic. Which is now a part of the Estate of Ballinaby, in Islay. It is said to have got this name because it has never yet been seen without a trout in it. Long ago offerings used to be made to it and old people treated it with much respect, under the belief that it possessed healing properties.

            From William Forbes, Camuserney, Perthshire (oral recording summary)

Wells: this well, only wishing well he knows of. Called tobar taimh in Gaelic. Quite a number of wells in the area, but he does not know their names. There was a village well until recently. The women cleaned it out each year. 1 trout always kept in it, which they fed. Trout quite a pet. When it died, no fish for many years, then replaced.

From Stephen Bichan, Rendall, Orkney (oral recording summary)

Fish in wells: has heard of eels in wells in North Isles, not in Deerness; but there is a saying that a girl expecting a love-child has "a trout in the well".

A well in Kilbride is mentioned by Martin Martin in his A Description of the Western Islands of Scotland :

           

I saw a little Well in Kilbride in the South of Skie, with one Trout only in it; the Natives are very tender of it, and tho they often chance to catch it in their wooden Pales, they are very careful to preserve it from being destroy’d; it has been seen there for many Years: there is a Rivulet not far distant from the Well, to which it hath probably had access thro some narrow Passage.

He also refers to Skye and the well of Lough-Siant well and the surrounding area:

There is a  little fresh-water Lake within ten Yards of the said Well; it abounds with Trouts, but neither the natives nor Strangers will ever presume to destroy any of them, such is the Esteem they have for the Water.

References

CW120/188 f.52

MacLagan Manuscripts, Volume 25, pps 5319-5320

Oral Recordings 1964 17 a6 and 1967 115 A11

Cordner, W. S., ‘The Cult of the Holy Well’, Ulster Journal of Archaeology, 9 (1946), 24-36.

Martin, Martin A Description of the Western Islands of Scotland (Glasgow : T.D. Morison, 1884), 141.

Ó Súilleabháin, Sean A Handbook of Irish Folklore (Detroit: Singing Tree Press, 1970), 279.

Images

St Andrew's Well, Isle of Lismore, Argyllshire, taken by Ciorstag, August 2009.

Tracking Down Treasures

Last Sunday the team made their way through beautifully snowy glens to Fort William to carry out a significant piece of work for the project. Fort William is home to the West Highland Museum, where the majority of the artefacts collected by Alexander Carmichael are held. Indeed, the museum has looked after the collection for a long time, first taking it in as a loan from Michael Carmichael, one of Alexander's grandsons, in 1948 before it was gifted to the museum in 1992.

Domhnall Uilleam placing a winnowing riddle for Carsten to photograph

In addition to research, this phase of the project aims to catalogue all the objects collected by Carmichael. In order to make a useful online catalogue photographs are required, so we hired Highland photographer Carsten Flieger to work with us. Now, the collection is complicated enough, with Uist plaids, Jacobite tartans, bronze brooches, bone pins, fossils, wool carders, sea bean charms, oil lamps and swords to contend with without adding in the fact that a large proportion of the collection is on display. Luckily for us museum volunteer and former curator Sally Archibald had given up her time to help us identify objects in storage and carefully remove and replace objects on display. No mean feat given the weight of some of the display cases - it's not just the tango that takes two.

Guinevere proving the worth of a porridge breakfast with the charms display case

The variety of objects, their dispersal throughout the museum and the need to consult different lists compiled over the years made the task quite complicated, however we soon had a production line of sorts going. Working from the largest objects to the smallest, prioritising items on display and trying to keep things made of similar materials together were key. Over the five days we were in Fort William, of the 200 or so items which were produced Carsten took over 300 photographs. What we've seen so far is first-class and we can hardly wait to see them all properly: ruddy-red tartans, shiny sea beans, ferocious flax combs. However, we're going to have to wait as we still have some objects to to photograph, which, now we have some experience, we know will probably take another two days.

Carsten and the bright lights making sure everything looks as it should

We are grateful to the West Highland Museum, especially manager Colleen Foggo for letting us work for as long as possible each day to get through the material and for being patient with us as we roved the different floors and rooms of the museum seeking out Carmichael-collected objects. We are indebted to Sally Archibald for the extraordinary energy and work she put into locating and identifying items.

Sally and Kirsty try to identify a brooch

The museum re-opens following its winter closure next week, so if you're in Fort William, do go in as it's well worth the time.

Òran a’ Gheòcaire

Just for Lent: a blog about the ‘Glutton’s Song’ (‘Cruachan Ben as crowdie, Loch Awe cream …’) recorded by Alexander Carmichael from Donald Maclean, husband of Catrìona MacColl from Lismore, while on a visit to the Isle of Coll in September 1887.

Tha e air a bhith greiseag mhath bho nochd am blog mu dheireadh anns a’ Ghàidhlig; an-diugh, cuiridh sinn fo ur comhair pìos beag mu rannan éibhinn, agus an Carghas dìreach a’ tòiseachadh. Seo thugaibh Òran a’ Gheòcaire, co-dhiù mar a sgrìobh Alasdair MacGilleMhìcheil sìos e bho aithris Dhomhnaill MhicGillEathain, tuathanach Àirigh Leòid, ’s e air chuairt ann an Eilean Chola a’s t-fhoghar 1887:

            The Song of the Glutton

Cruachan Beann bhi na ghruitheam (curds & butter mixed)
Loch du’aich bhi na uac[hd]ar
Gach beinn s gach monadh bhi nan caise
S an gleann so lamh rium lan fuaraig
            O b’eibhinn an t-aran
            Strac thairis da’n im
            Saoil m bu chunnart ar bathadh
            Na m bu bhlathach bu chuan
            Siuil mhuice us crainn gheire
            S mor an t-eireac[hd]as cuain sid!

                        Oran a gheocaire
From Donald Maclean Airileoid, Coll
                                    Sep 1887 [CW131A, fo.126]

Ged a chanas an sluagh-chunntas gum b’ ann ann an Eilean nam Muc a rugadh Domhnall MacGillEathain, timcheall air 1825, b’ ann air tac Chille Mhoire ann an Eilean Rùma a bha na daoine aige air a bhith a’ fuireachd airson sia glùintean. Ann an 1860 phòs Domhnall Catrìona NicColla á Lios Mór; bha ochdnar de theaghlach aca. Faodaidh amharas a bhith againn gun robh Catrìona càirdeach do dh’ Alasdair taobh a mhàthar, agus b’ e siud a thug air dhol air chéilidh air tac Àirigh Leòid ann an Cola ’s e air chuairt ann an Eilean Thiriodh aig deireadh an t-Sultain 1887. Gu dearbh, leis mar a rugadh Catrìona ann an 1836, bhiodh e coltach gun robh an dithis Liosach air a bhith eòlach air a chéile bho aois òig.

Tha e follaiseach gun robh na briathran a’ fairtleachadh air Domhnall aig deireadh an òrain. Seo mar a théid na rannan gu léir a chur sìos anns a’ phàipear-naidheachd Mac-Talla ann an 1901: chaidh an clò-bhualadh an uair sin le Alasdair MacGillEathain Mac na Ceàrdaich ’na chruinneachadh Mactalla nan Tùr (1909).

        Guidhe a’ Gheocaire

Nam faighinn-sa m’ iarrtas,
            B’ e mo mhiann air an uair seo
Cruachan Beann bhith ’na ghruthaim
            Is Loch Odha bhith ’na uachdar,
Is gach gleann a tha làmh ris
            Bhith làn blàth bhainne buaile.
Cha bhiodh cùram gum bàtht’ sinn
            Nam bu bhlàthach bu chuan dhuinn.
            O, b’ éibhinn an t-aran
            Is stràic thairis de’n ìm air!

Bhiodh taoibh dhìonach a’ m’ bhàta
            De bhuntàta math suaite;
Druim dìreach de dh’ aran,
            Is rol mharag mu’n cuairt air;
Bhiodh a tobhta de chabhraich,
            ’S bhiodh an dram ’dol mu’n cuairt innt’;
’S mi gun iomaireadh gu làidir,
            Is ràimh chàis’ air a gualainn.
            O, b’ éibhinn an t-aran,
            Is stràic thairis de’n ìm air!

Tagairtean:
CW131A, fo.126
Cruinneachadh Maclean Sinclair NSARM MG 1, leabh. 2660 àirn 74–5.

Alexander Maclean Sinclair (deas.), Mactalla nan Tùr (Sydney, CB, 1909), 100–1.
_____, The Clan Gillean (Charlottetown, 1899), 399.
Mac-Talla, ix, 41 (12 Giblein 1901)

Dealbh:
Cruachan Beann agus Loch Odha

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.