ANTIQUITY NO. 11.FRAGMENT OF TROUGH FOUND IN A BROCH OR PICTISH ROUND HOUSE NEAR TOURNAIG.SCALE—ONE INCH TO A FOOT.
Itis impossible to fix the exact date when a post was established to Gairloch; it was probably some time in the latter half of the eighteenth century. In 1730 letters from Inverness to Edinburgh were carried by a foot-post, as we learn from Captain Burt, so that it is not to be wondered at that our remote parish of Gairloch did not have any post until even a later period. Originally one post-"runner" was employed on the service. He seems for a long time to have come regularly only when the laird of Gairloch was in residence at Flowerdale in summer and autumn. The post-runner came from Dingwall by Strath Braan and Glen Dochartie to the head of Loch Maree, then along the east side of the lochviâLetterewe to Poolewe, and thence, if necessary, forward to Flowerdale. Sometimes, during the residence of the laird at Flowerdale, the post-runner seems to have gone by the west side of Loch Maree to Slatadale, and thence over the pass, by the falls of the Kerry, to Flowerdale. During the winter months the post was suspended; even in summer he originally came to Gairloch only once a week. When a second runner was employed the post bags were brought twice a week. After the construction of the present roads the mail came by horse and trap three times a week, and in 1883 the Post Office authorities granted a daily mail,i.e.every day except Sundays.
Dr Mackenzie, writing of the ten years commencing with 1808, describes the Gairloch post as follows:—"Then the mail north of the Highland metropolis (Inverness) went on horseback; and when we squatted on the west coast (Gairloch) our nearest post-office was sixty miles away in our county town (Dingwall), and our only letter-carrier was one of my father's (Sir Hector's) attachés, little Duncan, a bit of kilted india-rubber, who, with a sheepskin knapsack on his back to keep his despatches dry (for Mackintosh waterproof had not been dreamed of then), left the west on Monday, got the sixty miles done on Wednesday, and returning on Thursday delivered up his mail to my father on the Saturday, and was ready to trip off east next Monday; and so all the five months of our western stay, doing his one hundred and twenty miles every week! I never heard of his being a day off work in many a year. And what a lot of news was extracted from him ere he got away to his home on Saturday evening! When we retired to the east the natives left behind us got their postal delivery the best way they could."
James Mackenzie states, that before 1820 there were two Gairloch post-runners, viz., Donald Mackenzie, always called Donald Charles, grandfather of the present John Mackenzie (Iain Glas) of Mossbank, Poolewe, and Roderick M'Lennan of Kirkton, father of George M'Lennan of Londubh, who is at present foreman to Mr O. H. Mackenzie. James Mackenzie thinks that Dr Mackenzie is mistakenin giving the name Duncan to the post-runner he mentions, and that it was Donald Charles (who was the last single post-runner) that Dr Mackenzie knew in his youth. This opinion agrees with the fact that Donald Charles always wore the kilt, then falling into disuse among the common people of Gairloch. The kilt seems, however, to have been generally in favour with the post-runners, who doubtless found it suitable for their long walks; both Rorie (Roderick M'Lennan) and William Cross (a subsequent post-runner, descended from one of the ironworkers) always wore the kilt. Donald Charles and Rorie alternately brought the post from Dingwall. They came to Poolewe on Wednesdays and Saturdays, walking "through the rock,"i.e. viâLetterewe, the Bull Rock, and the east side of Loch Maree. When the laird was staying at Flowerdale the post-runners went there first.
Another post-runner—one M'Leay, from Poolewe—was found dead about a mile from the inn at Achnasheen. In his hand were a piece of bread and a bit of mutton, which his sister, who was a servant at the inn, had given him just before he left. He was a young man. A brother of his was found dead at the back of the park at Tournaig. He had been sent by Mr Mackenzie of Lochend to Aultbea to fetch whisky. His face was "spoilt," and his mouth full of earth. His death was thought to be the work of a spirit! A memorial cairn was thrown up on the spot where the body was found, and is there to this day.
John Mackenzie, son of Donald Charles, was the last running post to Gairloch. He was called Iain Mor am Post, and was a remarkably strong and courageous Highlander. When the mail-car began to run he emigrated to Australia.
There were no roads in Gairloch until the military road was made, which took nearly the same course as the present county road; it can still be traced in most places. It was part of the system of military roads constructed under the supervision of General Wade in the first half of the eighteenth century. It is usually called General Wade's road, though it is possible he never saw it. In the beginning of the nineteenth century this old road had become impassable by wheeled vehicles.
There was a bridge at Grudidh on General Wade's road; when the new road was made there it was doubled in width. The bridge at Kenlochewe was built in 1843; that near Flowerdale (widened about 1880) long before. The bridge at Poolewe was built about 1844; that at Little Gruinard, on the northern boundary of the parish, a little later.
The road from Gairloch to Poolewe was made by Sir Hector Mackenzie in 1825. It was set out by Duncan Mackenzie, the innkeeper at Poolewe, who had been butler to Sir Hector.
The Dowager Lady Mackenzie of Gairloch, widow of the late Sir Francis Mackenzie, has communicated the following statement with regard to other roads in Gairloch:—"I came to reside permanently at Flowerdale in June 1844. For ten years from June 1843 I was trustee for the Gairloch property with Mr Mackenzie of Ord. There was no road then betweenRudha 'n Fhomhair, at the upper end ofLoch Maree and Slatadale. The potato disease commenced in August 1846, and this road was begun the following spring. When the government steamers called in at Gairloch, inquiring as to the distress and poverty caused by the potato disease, I did not advocate the sending of supplies of meal, &c., but urged continually, in speaking and by letters, both to the Destitution Committee and to the Home Secretary (Sir George Grey), and to Lord John Russell, that money might be granted to make the road fromRudha 'n Fhomhairto Slatadale, and thus to open up the country, I, on my part, as trustee, guaranteeing to support the people who could not work on the road. The Edinburgh Destitution Committee was not willing to agree to my request without the sanction of the government; and the government said, however much they approved of my plan, and however desirous of assisting me they felt, they could not grant the request of one individual, without incurring the risk of many more applications; but after some delay and consideration, they said they would send me Captain Webb of the Engineers and a corporal and two privates (who had been employed in Shetland) to line out the road and map it, ready for a contractor's offer. This was done. Captain Webb was my guest at Flowerdale for six weeks during the winter; and early in the following spring, the maps and plans arrived from Woolwich, and the road was begun, my son (Mr O. H. Mackenzie) cutting the first turf. Though mentioning my own name throughout this transaction, I could not have done anything without the indefatigable assistance of Captain (now Admiral) Russell Elliott of Appleby Castle; he was at the head of the Destitution Committee, a sort of generalissimo of the whole concern; also I was much indebted to Sir Charles Trevelyan, at that time Secretary to the Home Secretary. By the aid of such good and able friends, the Destitution Committee was induced to advance in all two or three thousand pounds, the district road trustees undertaking to advance equal to what was advanced on the Loch Maree road; and money was afterwards received from the Destitution Fund to carry on the road to Badachro, now the large fishing station, where curers purchase the herring, cod, ling, &c., from the people. Lord John Russell sent me £100 out of a fund he had from the receipts of a ball or concert for the destitute Highlanders, and I had several large sums sent me by strangers, besides some from my own relations. Money also was granted from Edinburgh to assist in making the road from Poolewe to Inverasdale. After I received money from the Destitution Committee several other proprietors applied for assistance in the same way. Mr Bankes of Letterewe, and Mr Hugh Mackenzie of Dundonnell, both received grants on the same terms. The road from Poolewe to Aultbea was thus made, and also I think the road from Dundonnell, by Feithean, to the Ullapool road."
Mr Mackenzie, Dundonnell, took a leading part in obtaining Destitution money for road-making. Nearly £2000 from that and similar sources was spent on the Loch Maree road; it cost £3403, the balance being raised by the district road trustees, who also gave £1000 towards the Aultbea road, the Destitution Committee giving£370. That Committee also assisted the making of the roads on the north and south sides of Gairloch, and on the west side of Loch Ewe.
There is no account to be had of the making of the road from Poolewe to Inveran, but it seems to have been formed some time before the road from Gairloch to Poolewe was made.
Mr Osgood H. Mackenzie completed the road from Kernsary to Fionn Loch in 1875. The road connecting Kernsary with Inveran was made about 1870.
ANTIQUITY NO. 12.—BRONZE PENANNULAR RING FOUND AT LONDUBH.SCALE—HALF TRUE SIZE.
IsleMaree, or Innis, or Inch, orEileanMaree, is, as it were, the eye of Loch Maree. From either end of the loch it arrests the gaze of the spectator, and seems almost to look him in the face. Though one of the smallest of the islands, it is without doubt the most interesting. Not only does the story of the unfortunate prince and princess (Part I., chap, ii.) centre in it, but so also do the quaint superstitions connected with the wishing-tree, the little well resorted to for the cure of insanity, and the now discontinued sacrifices of bulls.
Her most gracious Majesty Queen Victoria visited Isle Maree on the 16th September 1877. It was the Sabbath day, and Her Majesty graciously read a short sermon to her Gairloch gillies. She then fixed her offering in the wishing-tree, a pleasantry which most visitors to the island repeat, it being common report that a wish silently formed when any metal article is attached to the tree will certainly be realized. It is said that if any one removes an offering that has been fixed in the tree, some misfortune, probably the taking fire of the house of the desecrator, is sure to follow. The tree is now nearly dead. This modern fancy of the wishing-tree is very different from its original superstition, as will appear shortly.
It seems certain that StMaelrubha, who brought Christianity into the district in the seventh century, permitted the Druidical sacrificesof bulls to be continued, and endeavoured to give them a Christian aspect. These sacrifices continued to as late a date as 1678. Latterly the sacrifices appear to have been connected with the resort to the island for the cure of insanity. Originally neither the legend of the prince and princess (Part I., chap. ii.), nor the sacrifices of bulls, had any connection with the cure of insanity. Later on versions of the traditional legend were promulgated, in which either the prince or the princess were made out to have become lunatic, evidently with the idea of connecting the story in some way, however remote, with the cure of insanity. The sacrifice of a bull became in the seventeenth century a preliminary to the proceedings for the cure of a lunatic, although in older days such a sacrifice had been entirely independent of anything of the sort.
Probably the resort to the island for the miraculous cure of insanity, although, as has been remarked, unconnected with the legend or the sacrifices, dates back to the time of St Maelrubha. The practice was for the party to row several times round the island, the attendants jerking the lunatic thrice into the water; then they landed on the island, where the patient knelt before the altar, was brought to the little well, drank some of the holy water, and finally attached an offering to the tree. This process was repeated every day for some weeks. In modern times there is no altar, and the lunatic is brought only on one occasion to the island.
The resort to Isle Maree for the cure of lunacy was continued until a very recent date, though no longer prefaced by the sacrifice of a bull. There was an instance in 1856, when a young woman was brought to the island from Easter Ross; she was afterwards placed in the Inverness Asylum. A prior case was reported in theInverness Courierof 4th November 1852. I am assured on good authority that lunatics are still taken to the island to be cured, but these expeditions are now kept strictly secret.
Our next chapter will be devoted to a discussion of these superstitions, mostly from the pen of Dr Arthur Mitchell, chairman of the Lunacy Commission of Scotland. His full description of Isle Maree will give the reader a good idea of the subject generally.
Her Majesty the Queen has herself written an excellent account of the island in "More leaves from the Journal of a Life in the Highlands," to which the reader is referred.
The following is Dr Mitchell's description, extracted from his valuable paper "On various Superstitions in the north-west Highlands and Islands of Scotland, especially in relation to Lunacy," printed in Vol. IV. of the proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. Dr Mitchell, it will be seen, clears up in a most satisfactory manner the question of the derivation of the name Maree:—
"Eilean Maree, or Innis Maree, is a small low island, with clean gravelly shores, half-way down the loch, not more than a quarter of a mile in its greatest diameter.
"On its highest part there is an enclosure, whose outline is an irregular oval (ninety by one hundred and twenty feet). The wall, which is not more than two feet high, is now covered with earth andmoss. Pennant, however, describes it as a 'stone dyke, with a regular narrow entrance.' In the centre of this enclosure there are the remains of a small chapel; but so complete is the ruin, that it is not possible to determine the style of architecture. Round about the chapel are fifty or sixty graves, generally covered by a flat undressed stone, with rude blocks at the head and feet. Many of these graves are recent. One, indeed, is quite fresh,—the burial having taken place but a week before my visit. Several of the older ones are said to contain the bodies of the Sasunnach artizans who, in the seventeenth century, worked at the iron furnaces of Poolewe. With two exceptions there are no cuttings, carvings, or inscriptions of any kind on any of the tombstones. These two have distinct and well-formed incised crosses on them (seeillustration). The stones on which these occur have never been dressed or even squared. They are flat, and lie beside each other, nearly end to end, and about east and west.
"The celebrated well, whose waters are of such magic power, is near the shore. We found it dry, and full of last year's leaves. It is a built well, and the flat stone which serves for a cover we found lying on the bank.
"Near it stands an oak tree, which is studded with nails. To each of these was originally attached a piece of the clothing of some patient who had visited the spot. There are hundreds of nails, and one has still fastened to it a faded ribbon. Two bone buttons and two buckles we also found nailed to the tree. Countless pennies and halfpennies are driven edgeways into the wood,—over many the bark is closing, over many it has already closed. All the trees about the well are covered with initials. A rude M, with an anchor below it, tells of the seaman's noted credulity and superstitious character. Two sets of initials with a date between, and below a heart pierced by an arrow, probably record the visit of a love-sick couple, seeking here a cure of their folly. The solitary interview would probably counteract the working of the waters.
"The sacred holly grows everywhere on the island. We found it loaded with fruit. The oak, the larch, the alder, the beech, the mountain-ash, the sycamore, the willow, the prickly holly, the dog-rose, the juniper, the honeysuckle, and the heather all abound, and form a most charming grove."
After giving a version of the legend of the prince and princess, Dr Mitchell proceeds to remark:—
"Since the same tale is told with many variations, it is probable that something of this kind did really happen; but that the virtues of the well have any connection with the story is improbable, as I shall shortly show.
"Anderson, Fullarton, the new and old Statistical Accounts, as well as the people of the place, derive the name from a dedication to St Mary. This remarkable error is first clearly pointed out in the 'Origines Parochiales,' though Pennant evidently had the right view when he speaks of it as the favoured isle of the saint (St Maree), the patron of all the coast from Applecross to Lochbroom, and tells usthat he, the saint, is held in high esteem, and that the oath of the country is by his name.
"It appears thatMaelrubhacame from Ireland to Scotland, and founded the church of Aporcrossan in 673. After his death he became the patron saint of the district. His name is variously known as Malrubius, Malrube, Mulray, Murie, Mourie, and as the last corruption, Maree. That the island and loch bear the name of this saint there can be no doubt. Even the mode of pronouncing the word by the Gaelic-speaking population shews that it is not derived from Mary; while Pennant's remark proves that the mistake is not yet a century old. Names are monuments—pages of history—inscribed stones; yet thus do we find them broken, blotted, and defaced. Mourie died at Applecross, on the 21st April 722. There is some doubt as to where he was buried, and I have nothing to make it probable that it was in Inch Maree. It is certain, or all but certain, however, that thisvir deiled a hermit's life, and wrought miracles there; and that, like St Goderick, St Fillan, and a host of others, he continued to do so after his death.
"Whether the saint, on his arrival in Scotland, found a pagan temple on this little island, or whether he himself first consecrated the spot, is a question of interest. Pennant says, 'I suspect the dike to have been originally Druidical, and that the ancient superstition of paganism was taken up by the saint as the readiest method of making a conquest over the minds of the inhabitants.' This opinion I am inclined to adopt. The people of the place speak often of the god Mourie, instead of St Mourie, which may have resulted from his having supplanted the old god. Tradition also points to it as a place of worship before the Christian epoch; and the curious record I have obtained of the sacrifice of bulls there, strongly confirms this belief, and furnishes fresh proof of the liberal engrafting upon Christianity of all forms of paganism in the early history of the Church."
Theprincipal source of the knowledge we possess of the superstitious sacrifices of bulls and attempted cures of insanity at Isle Maree, are the minutes extracted from the records of the Presbytery of Dingwall, which will be found inAppendix F.
Dr Mitchell has the following instructive remarks on these subjects in his paper written in 1860:—
"Fuller wittily observes that, as careful mothers and nurses on condition they can get their children to part with knives are contented to let them play with rattles, so the early Christian teachers permitted ignorant people to retain some of their former foolish customs, that they might remove from them the most dangerous. Fuller is here writing of protesting times; but if we go back to thefirst introduction of Christianity into our country, we shall find that many pagan ceremonies were connived at and engrafted on the new religion, which we now-a-days should feel inclined rather to class with edged tools than rattles. Instead of breaking the monuments of idolatry, our early teachers gave them a Christian baptism, by cutting on them the symbols of their own religion; and with the rites and ceremonies of paganism they dealt in like manner.
"The places of Druidical worship, whichMaelrubhafound on his arrival in Applecross, in all probability became afterwards places of Christian worship; and such of them as were believed to possess special virtues continued to enjoy their special reputation, with this difference, however, that what the god, or demon, orgenius locidid before, the saint took upon himself, tolerating as much of the old ceremony as the elastic conscience of the age permitted. 'Une religion chargée de beaucoup de pratiques,' says Montesquieu, 'attache plus à elle qu'une autre, qui l'est moins;' and this principle was freely acted on,—the more freely, perhaps, that the early Christian teachers came among a people peculiarly given to ceremony, if we may trust the remark of Pliny, 'The Britons are so stupendly superstitious in their ceremonies, that they go even beyond the Persians.' I am inclined to think, with Pennant and the writer in the old Statistical Account, that Inch Maree was such a locality. The sacrifice of the bull, and the speaking of the saint as 'the god,' made this probable, while the belief expressed by some old writers that such was the fact, and existing oral traditions, render it still more so.
"I have no earlier allusion to the well on this island than 1656. It was then the resort of the lunatic, and, as I have said, it may possibly have been so from the date of Mourie's arrival, or even before that time. One shrine in Belgium is known to have had a special reputation of this kind for more than twelve hundred years. I refer to that of St Dympna in Gheel. Our own St Fillan's, too, has been resorted to for the 'blessed purpose of conferring health on the distressed' since the year 700. Further back still, Orpheus, who is said to have written the hymn to Mercury, speaks of Mercury's grot, where remedy was to be had for lunatics and lepers.
"The most interesting feature of these [presbytery] extracts, however, is the finding so complete and formal a sacrificial ceremony commonly practised in our country at so late a period as within two hundred years of our own day. The people point to Inverasdale as the last place where the sacrifice was offered. For the cure of the murrain in cattle, one of the herd is still sacrificed for the good of the whole. This is done by burying it alive. I am assured that within the last ten years such a barbarism occurred in the county of Moray. It is, however, happily, and beyond all doubt, very rare. The sacrifice of a cock, however, in the same fashion, for the cure of epilepsy, is still not unfrequently practised; but in neither of these cases is the sacrifice offered on the shrine of a saint, or to a named god, though, of course, in both there is the silent acknowledgment of some power thus to be propitiated.
"I only know one other recorded instance of the formal sacrificeof a bull in Scotland, to a saint on his feast-day. A writer of the twelfth century, Reginald of Durham, sometimes also called Reginald of Coldingham, takes occasion, in his lively 'Book of the Miracles of St Cuthbert,' to relate certain incidents which befell the famous St Aelred ofRievauxin the year 1164, during a journey into Pictland,—that is Galloway it would seem, or perhaps, more generally, the provinces of Scotland lying to the south of the Forth and Clyde. The saintly abbot happened to be at 'Cuthbrichtis Kirche,' or Kirkcudbright, as it is now called, on the feast-day of its great patron. A bull, the marvel of the parish for its strength and ferocity, was dragged to the church, bound with cords, to be offered as an alms and oblation to St Cuthbert.
"It is curious to find, in the inaccessible districts both of the north and south of Scotland, traces of a similar Christianised paganism. Whether these ceremonies are remains of the vague Druidical, or of the Helioarkite, or of the Mithraic worship, I am not able to say. As regards the last, which was set up in opposition to Christianity, and which used many of its ceremonies, it is known that the sacrifice of a bull was one of its rites. The study of this form of worship has not yet received from Scottish antiquaries the attention which it probably deserves.
"It would seem that to some saints the sacrifice of a bull was not confined to the day of honour, but was a thing of frequent occurrence. This appears from a letter on the superstitions of Caernarvonshire of the sixteenth century, in which the writer tells us that he visited the locality where bullocks were said to be offered to St Beyno, and that he witnessed such an offering in 1589. This Beyno is described as 'the saint of the parish of Clynnog, and the chiefest of all saints;' but we are told that the people did not dare to cut down the trees that grew in the saint's ground, 'lest Beyno should kill them, or do them some one harm or another.' Though so saintly, therefore, as to be deemed the chiefest of all saints, he was evidently not worshipped solely as a beneficent being, and sacrifices were offered to avert his anger as well as to secure his favour; thus bringing out his successorship as saint of the place to thedemon lociof pure paganism. 'They called Barnabas, Jupiter; and Paul, Mercurius,' andvice versâ.
"In our own day, belief in the healing virtues of the well on Inch Maree is general over all Ross-shire, but more especially over the western district. The lunatic is taken there without consideration of consent. As he nears the island, he is suddenly jerked out of the boat into the loch; a rope having been made fast to him, by this he is drawn into the boat again, to be a second, third, or fourth time unexpectedly thrown overboard during the boat's course round the island. He is then landed, made to drink of the waters, and an offering is attached to the tree. Sometimes a second and third circumnavigation of the island is thought necessary, with a repetition of the immersions, and of the visit to the well.
"The writer of the 'New Statistical Account,' in 1836, says that the poor victim of this superstitious cruelty was towed round theisland after the boat by his tender-hearted friends. Macculloch, writing in 1824, says: 'Here also there was a sacred well, in which, as in St Fillan's, lunatics were dipped, with the usual offerings of money; but the well remains, and the practice has passed away.' He makes two mistakes here. Lunatics are not, and cannot be, dipped into the well, which is not larger than a bucket, and both practice and well still exist. Pennant describes the ceremony in 1772, as having a greater show of religion in the rites, and less barbarity in the form of immersion. According to him, the patient was taken to the 'Sacred Island, made to kneel before the altar, where his attendants left an offering in money; he was then brought to the well, sipped some of the holy water, and a second offering was made; that done, he was thrice dipped in the lake, and the same operation was repeated every day for some weeks.'
"I could not learn that any form of words is at present in use, nor do any of the writers referred to make mention of such a thing; nor does it appear that the feast-day of the saint (25th August) is now regarded as more favourable than any other.
"There is an unwillingness to tell a stranger of the particular cases in which this superstitious practice had been tried, but several came to my knowledge. About seven years ago a furious madman was brought to the island from a neighbouring parish. A rope was passed round his waist, and, with a couple of men at one end in advance and a couple at the other behind, like a furious bull to the slaughter-house he was marched to the loch side, and placed in a boat, which was pulled once round the island, the patient being jerked into the water at intervals. He was then landed, drank of the water, attached his offering to the tree, and, as I was told, in a state of happy tranquillity went home. 'In matters of superstition among the ignorant, one shadow of success prevails against a hundred manifest contradictions.'
"The last case of which I heard came from a parish in the east of Ross, and was less happy in its issue. It was that of a young woman, who is now in one of our asylums. This happened about three years ago.
"Another case was reported in theInverness Courierof 4th November 1852, and is quoted at length by Dr Reeves, in his paper on Saint Maelrubha, already referred to (see Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. iii., p. 288).
"'Every superstition,' says Archbishop Whately, 'in order to be rightly understood, should be read backward.' In this manner I have endeavoured to treat that which is attached to the little-known Inch Maree. We have seen it as it exists to-day, with its ceremonies of cruelty, barbarism, and ignorance; we have seen it, differing little from its present form, a century ago; we have seen it in 1656 and 1678, associated with an abominable and heathenish sacrifice; we have connected it with the saintly founder of the monastery of Applecross; and we have adduced some reasons for believing that its real paternity goes back to strictly pagan times."
In several notes to his paper Dr Mitchell, besides stating hisauthorities, points out that St Ruffus and St Maelrubha appear to have been regarded as identical, and that Inch Maree itself was in 1678 spoken of as the "Island of St Ruffus." Also, that an old man in the district told him that the name of the island was originally Eilean-Mo-Righ (the island of my king), orEilean-a-Mhor-Righ(the island of the great king), and that this king was long ago worshipped as a god in the district. Dr Mitchell also mentions that, some fifteen or twenty years before, a farmer from Letterewe is said to have brought a mad dog to the well on the island. It drank of the waters, and was cured; but the desecrating act is said to have driven virtue for a time from the well. I have a detailed account of this last incident from James Mackenzie of Kirkton, which differs from Dr Mitchell's information. James Mackenzie says he well remembers that it was about 1830 that John Macmillan, who was the first shepherd the late Mr Bankes had at Letterewe, and who was the son of Donald Macmillan who had been shepherd at Letterewe when Macintyre was manager there, had a sheep-dog that went mad. John took the dog to Isle Maree, and put him headlong in the well; the dog died next day, and John Macmillan died a week after that!
Dr Mitchell, in a foot-note referring to the account of the sacrifice of a bull in 1164 witnessed by St Aelred ofRievauxatCuthbrichtis Kirche, remarks that, "it is interesting to find that the clerks of the church, the Scolofthes, who must have been the best informed and most learned, opposed the ceremony, and attempted to throw it into ridicule by proposing to bait the bull, probably an indication that opinion was then beginning to change."
Dr Mitchell also remarks, in another foot-note, that "it would appear probable, that as Romish paganism after a time began to acknowledge and worship covertly and openly the divinities of the Druids, so Christianity did not escape a similar pollution, but, after a time, tolerated and even adopted not a few of the ceremonies and sacrifices of that modified Druidism with which it had to deal. And since Druidism existed in force to a later period in the north of Scotland than elsewhere, it may be reasonably expected that we shall there find the strongest and most enduring evidence of the infusion of paganism into Christianity."
In connection with this interesting point, the following note respecting the Kirkcudbright bull, which occurs at page 9 to the preface to vol. ii. of "The Sculptured Stones of Scotland," published by the Spalding Club, is instructive:—
"The memorable advice given by Pope Gregory to the Abbot Melitus prescribes a course of action which we cannot doubt was adopted by the early missionaries in dealing with the superstitions of the heathens:—'Et quia boves solent in sacrificio dæmonum multos accidere, debet eis etiam hac de re aliqua sollemnitas immutari; ut die dedicationis vel natalitii sanctorum martyrum quorum illic reliquiæ ponuntur, tabernacula sibi circa easdem ecclesias quæ ex fanis commutatæ sunt de ramis arborum faciant, et religiosis conviviis sollemnitatem celebrent; nec diabolo jam animalia immolent, sed ad laudem Dei in esu suo animalia occidant, et donatori omnium desatietate sua gratias referant; ut dum eis aliqua exterius gaudia reservantur, ad interiora gaudia consentire facilius valeant. Nam duris mentibus simul omnia abscidere impossibile esse non dubium est; quia et is qui summum locum ascendere nititur, gradibus vel passibus non autem saltibus elevatur' (Bede Hist. Ecc., 1, 30).
"It is probable that the permission to adopt for a time a heathen rite, with the view of giving it a new character, was taken advantage of, by acting on it after the cause of the concession was gone.
"Reginald, the monk of Durham, has preserved a notice of the offering of a bull to St Cuthbert, at his church on the Solway, on the festival kept on the day of the dedication of the church in the year 1164 (Libellus de Admir B. Cuthbert virtut, page 185, Surtees Soc.)."
ANTIQUITY NO. 13.CAST-IRON APPLIANCE, PROBABLY PART OF MACHINERY FROM THE FASAGH IRONWORKS.SCALE—ONE INCH TO A FOOT.
Inthe hill country of every land superstition and credulity are met with. Here in Gairloch the supernatural is suggested on all sides. Weird mountain forms often veiled in murky mists, frantic ocean waves thundering in gloomy caverns, hoarse rumblings of rushing waters, startling echoes from terrific precipices, curiously gnarled and twisted trees, tangled jungles in green islands, black peat mosses, wild moorlands, bubbling springs, dark caves, deep lochs, moaning winds, lonely paths, long winter nights,—such are the surroundings of man in this wild country. Can we wonder that the Gairloch Highlander has always been superstitious and credulous?
Superstition is still rife here, but with the march of education it is gradually decaying, and, partly from this cause, and partly from the disinclination of the superstitious to tell strangers about their doings and fancies, it is difficult to obtain descriptions of present instances, so that the notices which follow will often relate to circumstances of the past, though not indeed of the remote past. They are all local cases.
Amongst the older superstitions of Gairloch were the sacrifices of bulls at Isle Maree, the resort to the oracular stone with the hole, and the rites for the care of insanity mentioned in the presbytery records (Appendix F, section iv.), and more particularly described in the two last chapters.
Some other notions of a superstitious kind are hinted at in other parts of this book. In the old presbytery records there are notices of marches round "monuments," charmings, libations, and midsummer or Beltane fires in the neighbouring parishes, and no doubt there were similar practices in Gairloch but most of these are forgotten now.
There was a superstitious belief, scarcely yet dead, that a draught of the waters of Loch Maree was a certain cure for any disease,—a notion akin to that which prompted the friends of the insane to take them to Isle Maree. The modern advocates of hydropathy might have thought this belief in Loch Maree water was far from being superstitious, had it not been for the established fact that the water drinker used always to cast his offering of small money into the loch at the time he imbibed its waters. The Fox point was the usual—perhaps the only—place where the Loch Maree water-cure was practised. They say that when the loch was very low, coins used often to be found among the pebbles in the water surrounding this point. I have been told that a man found five coins here not many years ago, but I have been unable to get a sight of them. In connection with this superstition it may be mentioned, that within recent years invalids have had bottles of Loch Maree water sent to them, with a firm belief in its curative qualities.
Local names are often evidences of superstition. In Gairloch we haveCathair MhorandCathair Bheag,—names applied to several places,—and theSitheanan Dubhaon Isle Ewe and on the North Point. There isCathair Mhorat the head of Loch Maree, andCathair Beag(the Gaelic name of the place) at Kerrysdale. These names mean respectively the big and little seats of the fairies. There are no stories told now-a-days of these fairy seats, but their names testify to the belief in fairies which was universal not long ago.
The nameSitheanan Dubhasignifies the black knowes or hillocks of the fairies. It is applied to two places in Gairloch, viz., to the highest hill tops at the north end of Isle Ewe, and to a low hill and small round loch a full mile due north ofCarn Dearghouse; both are shown on thesix-inch ordnance map.
There is a tradition of a Gairloch woman having spent a year with the fairies; a tale founded on this story is given in theCeltic Magazine, vol. iv., page 15. About midsummer 1878 I went in an open boat from Poolewe to the Shiant Isles, to observe the birds which breed in such numbers there. It was after 11p.m.when I landed on the largest island of the group. About a mile distant was a shepherd's house, the only human habitation in these islands. I thought of going to the shepherd's to beg shelter for the night, but my servant, a Gairloch lad, dissuaded me. On my pressing him for a reason, he told me there was a fairy in the house, as he had beeninformed by a Gairloch fisherman, who had spent a night there not long before. This fairy was said to be a mischievous boy, "one of the family," who, when the rest were asleep, appeared in the rafters of the roof and disturbed the sleepers by bouncing on them. The night (it was but two hours' twilight) was so fine, and the way to the shepherd's house looked so rough, that I decided to sleep in a plaid on the beach, and so I missed the only opportunity that ever presented itself to me of observing the peculiarities of a fairy imp.
Hugh Miller, in "My Schools and Schoolmasters," mentions that, when he was voyaging down Loch Maree in 1823, the boatmen told his companion in Gaelic, "Yon other island (Eilean Suainne) is famous as the place in which the good people [fairies] meet every year to make submission to their queen. There is a little loch in the island, and another little island in the loch; and it is under a tree in that inner island that the queen sits and gathers kain [tribute] for the evil one." "They tell me," said Hugh Miller's companion, "that for certain the fairies have not left this part of the country yet."
It was as recently as 1883 that several boys got a great fright when they actually saw (as they narrated) the fairies at the Sitheanan Dubha, at the north end of Isle Ewe. The people at Mellon Charles, on the mainland opposite that end of the island, still assert, with all the earnestness of conviction, that they often see lights and hear music at the Sitheanan Dubha of Isle Ewe, which they believe can only be accounted for by the supposition that they proceed from the fairies. I give these statements on the authority of Mr William Reid, J.P., the lessee of Isle Ewe.
The township of Ormiscaig lies to the east of Mellon Charles, in the heart of this fairy-haunted district. It was at Ormiscaig that William Maclean, a celebrated performer on the bagpipes, was born and brought up. As a boy he was employed in herding cattle on the hill. One evening he returned home with a bagpipe chanter, on which (though he had not previously tried the bagpipes) he could play to perfection. He said he had received the chanter and the power to play it from the fairies. He emigrated some years ago to America, and is now living at Chicago. He has won many prizes for pipe music at competitions in America. His nephews, the three young Macleans, now at Ormiscaig, are all excellent pipers, and are included in the list of living pipers given further on. Similar incidents are related in other parts of the north-west Highlands, where pipers have attributed their talents to the powers conferred upon them by fairies, and in every case a chanter was given along with the faculty of performing on it.
The best known Gairloch fairy of modern times went by the name of theGille DubhofLoch a Druing. His haunts were in the extensive woods that still cluster round the southern end of that loch and extend far up the side of the high ridge to the west of it. There are grassy glades, dense thickets, and rocky fastnesses in these woods, that look just the places for fairies.Loch a Druingis on the North Point, about two miles fromRudha Reidh. TheGille Dubhwas sonamed from the black colour of his hair; his dress, if dress it can be called, was of leaves of trees and green moss. He was seen by many people on many occasions during a period of more than forty years in the latter half of the eighteenth century; he was, in fact, well-known to the people, and was generally regarded as a beneficent fairy. He never spoke to any one except to a little girl named Jessie MacRae, whose home was atLoch a Druing. She was lost in the woods one summer night; theGille Dubhcame to her, treated her with great kindness, and took her safely home again next morning. When Jessie grew up she became the wife of John Mackenzie, tenant of the Loch a Druing farm, and grandfather of James Mackenzie of Kirkton. It was after this that Sir Hector Mackenzie of Gairloch invited Sir George S. Mackenzie of Coul, Mr Mackenzie of Dundonnell, Mr Mackenzie of Letterewe, and Mr Mackenzie of Kernsary, to join him in an expedition to repress theGille Dubh. These five chieftains together repaired toLoch a Druing, armed with guns, with which they hoped to shoot the unoffending fairy. They wore of course their usual Highland dress, and each had his dirk at his side. They were hospitably entertained by John Mackenzie. An ample supper was served in the house; it included both beef and mutton, and each of the chieftains used the knife and fork from the sheath of his own dirk. Knives and forks were not common in Gairloch in those days. They spent the night atLoch a Druing, and slept in John Mackenzie's barn, where couches of heather were prepared for them. They went through all the woods, but they saw nothing of theGille Dubh.
There are a large number of notions or fancies common in Gairloch that are plainly tinged with a superstitious character, such as that unaccountable noises and moving lights predict a death; that trees and shrubs planted when the moon is waning must die, whereas if the moon be "growing" at the time of the removal they will live and thrive; that there are several classes of undertakings that will succeed if commenced when the moon is growing, but will be failures if it be waning; that a walking-stick cut from the bird-cherry prevents the bearer of it being lost in the mist; that whales attack new boats or boats newly tarred; that the bite of a dog is rendered innocuous if the saliva (literally, "water from the teeth") of the dog be immediately applied; that a pledge to give something to a soft person or an idiot, will enable any one to discover a lost article, or will bring good luck; and that if a stocking be accidentally put on wrong side out it must not be altered, or bad luck will follow. And surely the idea illustrated in some of the stories inPart II., chap. xxv., and which is still current in Gairloch, that Sabbath-breaking brings immediate retribution smacks strongly of superstition.
The existence of water-kelpies in Gairloch, if perhaps not universally credited in the present generation, was accepted as undoubted in the last. The story of the celebrated water-kelpie of the Greenstone Point is very well known in Gairloch. The proceedings for the extermination of this wonderful creature formed a welcome topic forPunchof the period. The creature is spoken of by the natives asthe "Beast." He lives, or did live, in the depths of a loch called after himLoch na Beiste, or "the loch of the beast," which is about half way between Udrigil House and the village of Mellon Udrigil. About 1840 Mr Bankes, the then proprietor of the estate on which this loch is situated, was pressed by his tenants to take measures to put an end to the Beast. At first he was deaf to the entreaties of the people, but at length he was prevailed upon to take action. Sandy M'Leod, an elder of the Free Church, was returning to Mellon Udrigil from the Aultbea Church one Sunday in company with two other persons, one of whom was a sister (still living at Mellon Udrigil) of James Mackenzie, when they actually saw the Beast itself. It resembled in appearance a good-sized boat with the keel turned up. Kenneth Cameron, also an elder of the Free Church, saw the same sight another day. A niece of Kenneth Cameron's (some time housemaid at Inveran) told me she had often heard her mother speak of having seen the Beast. It was the positive testimony of the two elders that induced Mr Bankes to take measures for the destruction of the Beast. The proceedings have been much exaggerated; James Mackenzie states that the following is the correct version of them:—Mr Bankes had a yacht or vessel named theIris; James Mackenzie was a sailor in theIris, along with another sailor named Allan Mackenzie. For a long time they and others worked a large pump with two horses with the object of emptying the loch. The pump was placed on the burn which runs from the loch into the not far distant sea; a cut or drain was formed to enable the pump to be worked, and a number of pipes were provided for the purpose of conducting the water away. The pipes are now lying in a house or shed at Laide. James Mackenzie often attended the pump. He and others were employed parts of two years in the attempt to empty the loch, or as James Mackenzie puts it, "to ebb it up." It was after this that theIriswas sent to Broadford in Skye to procure lime. James Mackenzie went with her. They brought from Broadford fourteen barrels of "raw lime." They came with the lime to Udrigil, and it was taken up to the "loch of the beast," and the small boat or dingy of theIriswas also taken up. The ground-officers would not go in the boat on the loch for fear of the Beast, so Mr Bankes sent to theIrisfor James and Allan Mackenzie, and they went in the boat over every part of the loch, which had been reduced only by six or seven inches after all the labour that had been spent on it. They plumbed the loch with the oars of the boat; in no part did it exceed a fathom in depth, except in one hole, which at the deepest was but two and a half fathoms. Into this hole they put the fourteen barrels of lime. It is needless to state that the Beast was not discovered, nor has he been further disturbed up to the present time. The loch contained a few good trout above the average size when I fished it in 1873. There are rumours that the Beast was seen in 1884 in or near another loch on the Greenstone Point.
Here is a story of a mermaid; they say it is quite true:—Roderick Mackenzie, the elderly and much respected boatbuilder at Port Henderson, when a young man, went one day to a rocky part of theshore there. Whilst gathering bait he suddenly spied a mermaid asleep among the rocks. Rorie "went for" that mermaid, and succeeded in seizing her by the hair. The poor creature, in great embarrassment, cried out that if Rorie would let go she would grant him whatever boon he might ask. He requested a pledge that no one should ever be drowned from any boat he might build. On his releasing her, the mermaid promised that this should be so. The promise has been kept throughout Rorie's long business career; his boats still defy the stormy winds and waves. I am the happy possessor of an admirable example of Rorie's craft. The most ingenious framers of trade advertisements might well take a hint from this veracious anecdote.