“Sian a chuir Moire air Mac ort,Sian ro’ marbhadh, sian ro’ lot ort,Sian eadar a’ chlioch ’s a’ ghlun,Sian nan Tri ann an aon ort,O mhullach do chinn gu bonn do chois ort:Sian seachd eadar a h-aon ort,Sian seachd eadar a dha ort,Sian seachd eadar a tri ort,Sian seachd eadar a ceithir ort,Sian seachd eadar a coig ort,Sian seachd eadar a sia ort,Sian seachd paidir nan seach paidir dol deiseil ri diugh narach ort, ga do ghleidheadh bho bheud ’s bho mhi-thapadh!”
“Sian a chuir Moire air Mac ort,Sian ro’ marbhadh, sian ro’ lot ort,Sian eadar a’ chlioch ’s a’ ghlun,Sian nan Tri ann an aon ort,O mhullach do chinn gu bonn do chois ort:Sian seachd eadar a h-aon ort,Sian seachd eadar a dha ort,Sian seachd eadar a tri ort,Sian seachd eadar a ceithir ort,Sian seachd eadar a coig ort,Sian seachd eadar a sia ort,Sian seachd paidir nan seach paidir dol deiseil ri diugh narach ort, ga do ghleidheadh bho bheud ’s bho mhi-thapadh!”
“Sian a chuir Moire air Mac ort,Sian ro’ marbhadh, sian ro’ lot ort,Sian eadar a’ chlioch ’s a’ ghlun,Sian nan Tri ann an aon ort,O mhullach do chinn gu bonn do chois ort:Sian seachd eadar a h-aon ort,Sian seachd eadar a dha ort,Sian seachd eadar a tri ort,Sian seachd eadar a ceithir ort,Sian seachd eadar a coig ort,Sian seachd eadar a sia ort,Sian seachd paidir nan seach paidir dol deiseil ri diugh narach ort, ga do ghleidheadh bho bheud ’s bho mhi-thapadh!”
“Sian a chuir Moire air Mac ort,
Sian ro’ marbhadh, sian ro’ lot ort,
Sian eadar a’ chlioch ’s a’ ghlun,
Sian nan Tri ann an aon ort,
O mhullach do chinn gu bonn do chois ort:
Sian seachd eadar a h-aon ort,
Sian seachd eadar a dha ort,
Sian seachd eadar a tri ort,
Sian seachd eadar a ceithir ort,
Sian seachd eadar a coig ort,
Sian seachd eadar a sia ort,
Sian seachd paidir nan seach paidir dol deiseil ri diugh narach ort, ga do ghleidheadh bho bheud ’s bho mhi-thapadh!”
Scarcely had she finished before she heard heavy steps approaching.
“Away with you,” she whispered, repeating in a loud, angry tone, “Away with you!Seachad!Seachad!”
And with that Neil Ross slipped from the milk-shed and crossed the yard, and was behind the byres before Andrew Blair, with sullen mien and swift, wild eyes, strode from the house.
It was with a grim smile on his face that Neil tramped down the wet heather till he reached the high road, and fared thence as through a marsh because of the rains there had been.
For the first mile he thought of the angry mind of the dead man, bitter at paying of the silver. For the second mile he thought of the evil that had been wrought for him and his. For the third mile he pondered over all that he had heard and done and taken upon him that day.
Then he sat down upon a broken granite heap by the way, and brooded deep till one hour went, and then another, and the third was upon him.
A man driving two calves came towardshim out of the west. He did not hear or see. The man stopped: spoke again. Neil gave no answer. The drover shrugged his shoulders, hesitated, and walked slowly on, often looking back.
An hour later a shepherd came by the way he himself had tramped. He was a tall, gaunt man with a squint. The small, pale-blue eyes glittered out of a mass of red hair that almost covered his face. He stood still, opposite Neil, and leaned on hiscromak.
“Latha math leat,” he said at last: “I wish you good day.”
Neil glanced at him, but did not speak.
“What is your name, for I seem to know you?”
But Neil had already forgotten him. The shepherd took out his snuff-mull, helped himself, and handed the mull to the lonely wayfarer. Neil mechanically helped himself.
“Am bheil thu ’dol do Fhionphort?” tried the shepherd again: “Are you going to Fionnaphort?”
“Tha mise ’dol a dh’ I-challum-chille,” Neil answered, in a low, weary voice, and as a man adream: “I am on my way to Iona.”
“I am thinking I know now who you are. You are the man Macallum.”
Neil looked, but did not speak. His eyes dreamed against what the other could not see or know. The shepherd called angrily to his dogs to keep the sheep from straying; then, with a resentful air, turned to his victim.
“You are a silent man for sure, you are. I’m hoping it is not the curse upon you already.”
“What curse?”
“Ah,thathas brought the wind against the mist! I was thinking so!”
“What curse?”
“You are the man that was the Sin-Eater over there?”
“Ay.”
“The man Macallum?”
“Ay.”
“Strange it is, but three days ago I saw you in Tobermory, and heard you give your name as Neil Ross to an Iona man that was there.”
“Well?”
“Oh, sure, it is nothing to me. But theysay the Sin-Eater should not be a man with a hidden lump in his pack.”[9]
“Why?”
“For the dead know, and are content. There is no shaking off any sins, then—for that man.”
“It is a lie.”
“Maybe ay and maybe no.”
“Well, have you more to be saying to me? I am obliged to you for your company, but it is not needing it I am, though no offence.”
“Och, man, there’s no offence between you and me. Sure, there’s Iona in me, too; for the father of my father married a woman that was the granddaughter of Tomais Macdonald, who was a fisherman there. No, no; it is rather warning you I would be.”
“And for what?”
“Well, well, just because of that laugh I heard about.”
“What laugh?”
“The laugh of Adam Blair that is dead.”
Neil Ross stared, his eyes large and wild. He leaned a little forward. No word camefrom him. The look that was on his face was the question.
“Yes: it was this way. Sure, the telling of it is just as I heard it. After you ate the sins of Adam Blair, the people there brought out the coffin. When they were putting him into it, he was as stiff as a sheep dead in the snow—and just like that, too, with his eyes wide open. Well, someone saw you trampling the heather down the slope that is in front of the house, and said, ‘It is the Sin-Eater!’ With that, Andrew Blair sneered, and said—‘Ay, ’tis the scapegoat he is!’ Then, after a while, he went on: ‘The Sin-Eater they call him: ay, just so: and a bitter good bargain it is, too, if all’s true that’s thought true!’ And with that he laughed, and then his wife that was behind him laughed, and then …”
“Well, what then?”
“Well, ’tis Himself that hears and knows if it is true! But this is the thing I was told:—After that laughing there was a stillness and a dread. For all there saw that the corpse had turned its head and was looking after you as you went down theheather. Then, Neil Ross, if that be your true name, Adam Blair that was dead put up his white face against the sky, and laughed.”
At this, Ross sprang to his feet with a gasping sob.
“It is a lie, that thing!” he cried, shaking his fist at the shepherd. “It is a lie!”
“It is no lie. And by the same token, Andrew Blair shrank back white and shaking, and his woman had the swoon upon her, and who knows but the corpse might have come to life again had it not been for Maisie Macdonald, the deid-watcher, who clapped a handful of salt on his eyes, and tilted the coffin so that the bottom of it slid forward, and so let the whole fall flat on the ground, with Adam Blair in it sideways, and as likely as not cursing and groaning, as his wont was, for the hurt both to his old bones and his old ancient dignity.”
Ross glared at the man as though the madness was upon him. Fear and horror and fierce rage swung him now this way and now that.
“What will the name of you be, shepherd?” he stuttered huskily.
“It is Eachainn Gilleasbuig I am to ourselves; and the English of that for those who have no Gaelic is Hector Gillespie; and I am Eachainn mac Ian mac Alasdair of Strathsheean that is where Sutherland lies against Ross.”
“Then take this thing—and that is, the curse of the Sin-Eater! And a bitter bad thing may it be upon you and yours.”
And with that Neil the Sin-Eater flung his hand up into the air, and then leaped past the shepherd, and a minute later was running through the frightened sheep, with his head low, and a white foam on his lips, and his eyes red with blood as a seal’s that has the death-wound on it.
On the third day of the seventh month from that day, Aulay Macneill, coming into Balliemore of Iona from the west side of the island, said to old Ronald MacCormick, that was the father of his wife, that he had seen Neil Ross again, and that he was “absent”—for though he had spoken to him, Neil would not answer, but only gloomed at him from the wet weedy rock where he sat.
The going back of the man had loosed every tongue that was in Iona. When, too, it was known that he was wrought in some terrible way, if not actually mad, the islanders whispered that it was because of the sins of Adam Blair. Seldom or never now did they speak of him by his name, but simply as “The Sin-Eater.” The thing was not so rare as to cause this strangeness, nor did many (and perhaps none did) think that the sins of the dead ever might or could abide with the living who had merely done a good Christian charitable thing. But there was a reason.
Not long after Neil Ross had come again to Iona, and had settled down in the ruined roofless house on the croft of Ballyrona, just like a fox or a wild-cat, as the saying was, he was given fishing-work to do by Aulay Macneill, who lived at Ard-an-teine, at the rocky north end of themacharor plain that is on the west Atlantic coast of the island.
One moonlit night, either the seventh or the ninth after the earthing of Adam Blair at his own place in the Ross, Aulay Macneill saw Neil Ross steal out of the shadow of Ballyrona and make for the sea. Macneillwas there by the rocks, mending a lobster-creel. He had gone there because of the sadness. Well, when he saw the Sin-Eater, he watched.
Neil crept from rock to rock till he reached the last fang that churns the sea into yeast when the tide sucks the land just opposite.
Then he called out something that Aulay Macneill could not catch. With that he springs up, and throws his arms above him.
“Then,” says Aulay when he tells the tale, “it was like a ghost he was. The moonshine was on his face like the curl o’ a wave. White! there is no whiteness like that of the human face. It was whiter than the foam about the skerry it was; whiter than the moon shining; whiter than … well, as white as the painted letters on the black boards of the fishing-cobles. There he stood, for all that the sea was about him, the slip-slop waves leapin’ wild, and the tide making, too, at that. He was shaking like a sail two points off the wind. It was then that, all of a sudden, he called in a womany, screamin’ voice—
“‘I am throwing the sins of Adam Blairinto the midst of ye, white dogs o’ the sea! Drown them, tear them, drag them away out into the black deeps! Ay, ay, ay, ye dancin’ wild waves, this is the third time I am doing it, and now there is none left; no, not a sin, not a sin!
“‘O-hi, O-ri, dark tide o’ the sea,I am giving the sins of a dead man to thee!By the Stones, by the Wind, by the Fire, by the Tree,From the dead man’s sins set me free, set me free!Adam mhic Anndra mhic Adam and me,Set us free! Set us free!’
“‘O-hi, O-ri, dark tide o’ the sea,I am giving the sins of a dead man to thee!By the Stones, by the Wind, by the Fire, by the Tree,From the dead man’s sins set me free, set me free!Adam mhic Anndra mhic Adam and me,Set us free! Set us free!’
“‘O-hi, O-ri, dark tide o’ the sea,I am giving the sins of a dead man to thee!By the Stones, by the Wind, by the Fire, by the Tree,From the dead man’s sins set me free, set me free!Adam mhic Anndra mhic Adam and me,Set us free! Set us free!’
“‘O-hi, O-ri, dark tide o’ the sea,
I am giving the sins of a dead man to thee!
By the Stones, by the Wind, by the Fire, by the Tree,
From the dead man’s sins set me free, set me free!
Adam mhic Anndra mhic Adam and me,
Set us free! Set us free!’
“Ay, sure, the Sin-Eater sang that over and over; and after the third singing he swung his arms and screamed—
“‘And listen to me, black waters an’ running tide,That rune is the good rune told me by Maisie the wise,And I am Neil the son of Silis MacallumBy the black-hearted evil man Murtagh Ross,That was the friend of Adam mac Anndra, God against him!’
“‘And listen to me, black waters an’ running tide,That rune is the good rune told me by Maisie the wise,And I am Neil the son of Silis MacallumBy the black-hearted evil man Murtagh Ross,That was the friend of Adam mac Anndra, God against him!’
“‘And listen to me, black waters an’ running tide,That rune is the good rune told me by Maisie the wise,And I am Neil the son of Silis MacallumBy the black-hearted evil man Murtagh Ross,That was the friend of Adam mac Anndra, God against him!’
“‘And listen to me, black waters an’ running tide,
That rune is the good rune told me by Maisie the wise,
And I am Neil the son of Silis Macallum
By the black-hearted evil man Murtagh Ross,
That was the friend of Adam mac Anndra, God against him!’
“And with that he scrambled and fell into the sea. But, as I am Aulay mac Luais and no other, he was up in a moment, an’ swimmin’ like a seal, and then over the rocks again, an’ away back to that lonely roofless place once more, laughing wild at times, an’ muttering an’ whispering.”
It was this tale of Aulay Macneill’s that stood between Neil Ross and the isle-folk. There was something behind all that, they whispered one to another.
So it was always the Sin-Eater he was called at last. None sought him. The few children who came upon him now and again fled at his approach, or at the very sight of him. Only Aulay Macneill saw him at times, and had word of him.
After a month had gone by, all knew that the Sin-Eater was wrought to madness because of this awful thing: the burden of Adam Blair’s sins would not go from him! Night and day he could hear them laughing low, it was said.
But it was the quiet madness. He went to and fro like a shadow in the grass, and almost as soundless as that, and as voiceless. More and more the name of him grew as a terror. There were few folk on that wild west coast of Iona, and these few avoided him when the word ran that he had knowledge of strange things, and converse, too, with the secrets of the sea.
One day Aulay Macneill, in his boat, butdumb with amaze and terror for him, saw him at high tide swimming on a long rolling wave right into the hollow of the Spouting Cave. In the memory of man, no one had done this and escaped one of three things: a snatching away into oblivion, a strangled death, or madness. The islanders know that there swims into the cave, at full tide, a Mar-Tarbh, a dreadful creature of the sea that some call a kelpie; only it is not a kelpie, which is like a woman, but rather is a sea-bull, offspring of the cattle that are never seen. Ill indeed for any sheep or goat, ay, or even dog or child, if any happens to be leaning over the edge of the Spouting Cave when the Mar-tarbh roars: for, of a surety, it will fall in and straightway be devoured.
With awe and trembling Aulay listened for the screaming of the doomed man. It was full tide, and the sea-beast would be there.
The minutes passed, and no sign. Only the hollow booming of the sea, as it moved like a baffled blind giant round the cavern-bases: only the rush and spray of the water flung up the narrow shaft high into the windy air above the cliff it penetrates.
At last he saw what looked like a mass of sea-weed swirled out on the surge. It was the Sin-Eater. With a leap, Aulay was at his oars. The boat swung through the sea. Just before Neil Ross was about to sink for the second time, he caught him and dragged him into the boat.
But then, as ever after, nothing was to be got out of the Sin-Eater save a single saying:Tha e lamhan fuar: Tha e lamhan fuar!—“It has a cold, cold hand!”
The telling of this and other tales left none free upon the island to look upon the “scapegoat” save as one accursed.
It was in the third month that a new phase of his madness came upon Neil Ross.
The horror of the sea and the passion for the sea came over him at the same happening. Oftentimes he would race along the shore, screaming wild names to it, now hot with hate and loathing, now as the pleading of a man with the woman of his love. And strange chants to it, too, were upon his lips. Old, old lines of forgotten runes were overheard by Aulay Macneill, and not Aulay only: lines wherein the ancient sea-name of the island,Ioua, that was given to it long before it was called Iona, or any other of the nine names that are said to belong to it, occurred again and again.
The flowing tide it was that wrought him thus. At the ebb he would wander across the weedy slabs or among the rocks: silent, and more like a lost duinshee than a man.
Then again after three months a change in his madness came. None knew what it was, though Aulay said that the man moaned and moaned because of the awful burden he bore. No drowning seas for the sins that could not be washed away, no grave for the live sins that would be quick till the day of the Judgment!
For weeks thereafter he disappeared. As to where he was, it is not for the knowing.
Then at last came that third day of the seventh month when, as I have said, Aulay Macneill told old Ronald MacCormick that he had seen the Sin-Eater again.
It was only a half-truth that he told, though. For, after he had seen Neil Ross upon the rock, he had followed him when he rose, and wandered back to the roofless place which hehaunted now as of yore. Less wretched a shelter now it was, because of the summer that was come, though a cold, wet summer at that.
“Is that you, Neil Ross?” he had asked, as he peered into the shadows among the ruins of the house.
“That’s not my name,” said the Sin-Eater; and he seemed as strange then and there, as though he were a castaway from a foreign ship.
“And what will it be, then, you that are my friend, and sure knowing me as Aulay mac Luais—Aulay Macneill that never grudges you bit or sup?”
“I am Judas.”
“And at that word,” says Aulay Macneill, when he tells the tale, “at that word the pulse in my heart was like a bat in a shut room. But after a bit I took up the talk.
“‘Indeed,’ I said; ‘and I was not for knowing that. May I be so bold as to ask whose son, and of what place?’
“But all he said to me was, ‘I am Judas.’
“Well, I said, to comfort him, ‘Sure, it’snot such a bad name in itself, though I am knowing some which have a more home-like sound.’ But no, it was no good.
“‘I am Judas. And because I sold the Son of God for five pieces of silver …’
“But here I interrupted him and said,—‘Sure, now, Neil—I mean, Judas—it was eight times five.’ Yet the simpleness of his sorrow prevailed, and I listened with the wet in my eyes.
“‘I am Judas. And because I sold the Son of God for five silver shillings, He laid upon me all the nameless black sins of the world. And that is why I am bearing them till the Day of Days.’”
And this was the end of the Sin-Eater; for I will not tell the long story of Aulay Macneill, that gets longer and longer every winter: but only the unchanging close of it.
I will tell it in the words of Aulay.
“A bitter, wild day it was, that day I saw him to see him no more. It was late. The sea was red with the flamin’ light that burned up the air betwixt Iona and all that is westof West. I was on the shore, looking at the sea. The big green waves came in like the chariots in the Holy Book. Well, it was on the black shoulder of one of them, just short of the ton o’ foam that swept above it, that I saw a spar surgin’ by.
“‘What is that?’ I said to myself. And the reason of my wondering was this: I saw that a smaller spar was swung across it. And while I was watching that thing another great billow came in with a roar, and hurled the double spar back, and not so far from me but I might have gripped it. But who would have gripped that thing if he were for seeing what I saw?
“It is Himself knows that what I say is a true thing.
“On that spar was Neil Ross, the Sin-Eater. Naked he was as the day he was born. And he was lashed, too—ay, sure, he was lashed to it by ropes round and round his legs and his waist and his left arm. It was the Cross he was on. I saw that thing with the fear upon me. Ah, poor drifting wreck that he was!Judas on the Cross: It was hiseric!
“But even as I watched, shaking in mylimbs, I saw that there was life in him still. The lips were moving, and his right arm was ever for swinging this way and that. ’Twas like an oar, working him off a lee shore: ay, that was what I thought.
“Then, all at once, he caught sight of me. Well he knew me, poor man, that has his share of heaven now, I am thinking!
“He waved, and called, but the hearing could not be, because of a big surge o’ water that came tumbling down upon him. In the stroke of an oar he was swept close by the rocks where I was standing. In that flounderin’, seethin’ whirlpool I saw the white face of him for a moment, an’ as he went out on the re-surge like a hauled net, I heard these words fallin’ against my ears,—
“‘An eirig m’anama… In ransom for my soul!’
“And with that I saw the double-spar turn over and slide down the back-sweep of a drowning big wave. Ay, sure, it went out to the deep sea swift enough then. It was in the big eddy that rushes between Skerry-Mòr and Skerry-Beag. I did not see it again—no, not for the quarter of an hour,I am thinking. Then I saw just the whirling top of it rising out of the flying yeast of a great, black-blustering wave, that was rushing northward before the current that is called the Black-Eddy.
“With that you have the end of Neil Ross: ay, sure, him that was called the Sin-Eater. And that is a true thing; and may God save us the sorrow of sorrows.
“And that is all.”
The wind fell as we crossed the Sound. There was only one oar in the boat, and we lay idly adrift. The tide was still on the ebb, and so we made way for Soa; though, well before the island could be reached, the tide would turn, and the sea-wind would stir, and we be up the Sound and at Balliemore again almost as quick as the laying of a net.
As we—and by “us” I am meaning Phadric Macrae and Ivor McLean, fishermen of Iona, and myself beside Ivor at the helm—as we slid slowly past the ragged islet known as Eilean-na-h’ Aon-Chaorach, torn and rent by the tides and surges of a thousand years, I saw a school of seals basking in the sun. One by one slithered into the water, and I could note the dark forms, like moving patches of sea-weed, drifting in the green underglooms.
Then, after a time, we bore down uponSgeir-na-Oir, a barren rock. Three great cormorants stood watching us. Their necks shone in the sunlight like snakes mailed in blue and green. On the upper ledges were eight or ten northern-divers. They did not seem to see us, though I knew that their fierce light-blue eyes noted every motion we made. The small sea-ducks bobbed up and down, first one flirt of a little black-feathered rump, then another, then a third, till a score or so were under water, and half-a-hundred more were ready at a moment’s notice to follow suit. A skua hopped among the sputtering weed, and screamed disconsolately at intervals. Among the myriad colonies of close-set mussels, which gave a blue bloom like that of the sloe to the weed-covered boulders, a few kittiwakes and dotterels flitted to and fro. High overhead, white against the blue as a cloudlet, a gannet hung motionless, seemingly frozen to the sky.
Below the lapse of the boat the water was pale green. I could see the liath and saith fanning their fins in slow flight, and sometimes a little scurrying cloud of tiny flukies and inch-long codling. For two orthree fathoms beyond the boat the waters were blue. If blueness can be alive and have its own life and movement, it must be happy on these western seas, where it dreams into shadowy Lethes of amethyst and deep, dark oblivions of violet.
Suddenly a streak of silver ran for a moment along the sea to starboard. It was like an arrow of moonlight shot along the surface of the blue and gold. Almost immediately afterward, a stertorous sigh was audible. A black knife cut the flow of the water: the shoulder of a pollack.
“The mackerel are coming in from the sea,” said Macrae. He leaned forward, wet the palm of his hand, and held it seaward. “Ay, the tide has turned——”
“Ohrone—achree—an—Srùth-màra!Ohrone—achree—an—Lionadh!”
“Ohrone—achree—an—Srùth-màra!Ohrone—achree—an—Lionadh!”
“Ohrone—achree—an—Srùth-màra!Ohrone—achree—an—Lionadh!”
“Ohrone—achree—an—Srùth-màra!
Ohrone—achree—an—Lionadh!”
he droned monotonously, over and over, with few variations.
“An’ it’s Oh an’ Oh for the tides o’ the sea,An’ it’s Oh for the flowing tide,”
“An’ it’s Oh an’ Oh for the tides o’ the sea,An’ it’s Oh for the flowing tide,”
“An’ it’s Oh an’ Oh for the tides o’ the sea,An’ it’s Oh for the flowing tide,”
“An’ it’s Oh an’ Oh for the tides o’ the sea,
An’ it’s Oh for the flowing tide,”
I sang at last in mockery.
“Come, Phadric,” I cried, “you are as badas Peter McAlpin’s lassie, Fiona, with the pipes!”
Both men laughed lightly. On the last Sabbath, old McAlpin had held a prayer-meeting in his little house in the “street,” in Balliemore of Iona. At the end of his discourse he told his hearers that the voice of God was terrible only to the evil-doer, but beautiful to the righteous man, and that this voice was even now among them, speaking in a thousand ways, and yet in one way. And at this moment, that elfin granddaughter of his, who was in the byre close by, let go upon the pipes with so long and weary a whine that the collies by the fire whimpered, and would have howled outright but for the Word of God that still lay open on the big stool in front of old Peter. For it was in this way that the dogs knew when the Sabbath readings were over, and there was not one that would dare to bark or howl, much less rise and go out, till the Book was closed with a loud, solemn bang. Well, again and again that weary quavering moan went up and down the room, till even old McAlpin smiled, though he was fair angry with Fiona. Buthe made the sign of silence, and began: “My brethren, even in this trial it may be the Almighty has a message for us——,” when at that moment Fiona was kicked by a cow, and fell against the board with the pipes, and squeezed out so wild a wail that McAlpin started up and cried, in the Lowland way that he had won out of his wife, “Hoots, havers, an’ a’! come oot o’ that, ye deil’s spunkie!”
So it was this memory that made Phadric and Ivor smile. Suddenly Ivor began, with a long rising and falling cadence, an old Gaelic rune of the Faring of the Tide:
“Athair, A mhic, A Spioraid Naoimh,Biodh an Tri-aon leinn, a la’s a dh’ oidhche;S’ air chul nan tonn, no air thaobh nam beann!”“O Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,Be the Three-in-One with us day and night,On the crested wave, when waves run high!”And out of the place in the WestWhere Tir-nan-Òg, the Land of YouthIs, the Land of Youth everlasting,Send the great tide that carries the sea-weedAnd brings the birds, out of the North:And bid it wind as a snake through the bracken,As a great snake through the heather of the sea,The fair blooming heather of the sunlit sea.And may it bring the fish to our nets,And the great fish to our lines:And may it sweep away the sea-houndsThat devour the herring:And may it drown the heavy pollackThat respect not our netsBut fall into and tear them and ruin them wholly.And may I, or any that is of my blood,Behold not the Wave-Haunter who comes in with the Tide;Or the Maighdeann-màra who broods in the shallows,Where the sea-caves are, in the ebb:And fair may my fishing be, and the fishing of those near to me,And good may this Tide be, and good may it bring:And may there be no calling in the Flow, this Srùth-màra,And may there be no burden in the Ebb!ochone!An ainm an Athar, s’ an Mhic, s’ an Spioraid Naoimh,Biodh an Tri-aon leinn, a la’s a dh’ oidhche,S’ air chul nan tonn, no air thaobh nam beann!Ochone! arone!
“Athair, A mhic, A Spioraid Naoimh,Biodh an Tri-aon leinn, a la’s a dh’ oidhche;S’ air chul nan tonn, no air thaobh nam beann!”“O Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,Be the Three-in-One with us day and night,On the crested wave, when waves run high!”And out of the place in the WestWhere Tir-nan-Òg, the Land of YouthIs, the Land of Youth everlasting,Send the great tide that carries the sea-weedAnd brings the birds, out of the North:And bid it wind as a snake through the bracken,As a great snake through the heather of the sea,The fair blooming heather of the sunlit sea.And may it bring the fish to our nets,And the great fish to our lines:And may it sweep away the sea-houndsThat devour the herring:And may it drown the heavy pollackThat respect not our netsBut fall into and tear them and ruin them wholly.And may I, or any that is of my blood,Behold not the Wave-Haunter who comes in with the Tide;Or the Maighdeann-màra who broods in the shallows,Where the sea-caves are, in the ebb:And fair may my fishing be, and the fishing of those near to me,And good may this Tide be, and good may it bring:And may there be no calling in the Flow, this Srùth-màra,And may there be no burden in the Ebb!ochone!An ainm an Athar, s’ an Mhic, s’ an Spioraid Naoimh,Biodh an Tri-aon leinn, a la’s a dh’ oidhche,S’ air chul nan tonn, no air thaobh nam beann!Ochone! arone!
“Athair, A mhic, A Spioraid Naoimh,Biodh an Tri-aon leinn, a la’s a dh’ oidhche;S’ air chul nan tonn, no air thaobh nam beann!”
“Athair, A mhic, A Spioraid Naoimh,
Biodh an Tri-aon leinn, a la’s a dh’ oidhche;
S’ air chul nan tonn, no air thaobh nam beann!”
“O Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,Be the Three-in-One with us day and night,On the crested wave, when waves run high!”
“O Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
Be the Three-in-One with us day and night,
On the crested wave, when waves run high!”
And out of the place in the WestWhere Tir-nan-Òg, the Land of YouthIs, the Land of Youth everlasting,Send the great tide that carries the sea-weedAnd brings the birds, out of the North:And bid it wind as a snake through the bracken,As a great snake through the heather of the sea,The fair blooming heather of the sunlit sea.And may it bring the fish to our nets,And the great fish to our lines:And may it sweep away the sea-houndsThat devour the herring:And may it drown the heavy pollackThat respect not our netsBut fall into and tear them and ruin them wholly.
And out of the place in the West
Where Tir-nan-Òg, the Land of Youth
Is, the Land of Youth everlasting,
Send the great tide that carries the sea-weed
And brings the birds, out of the North:
And bid it wind as a snake through the bracken,
As a great snake through the heather of the sea,
The fair blooming heather of the sunlit sea.
And may it bring the fish to our nets,
And the great fish to our lines:
And may it sweep away the sea-hounds
That devour the herring:
And may it drown the heavy pollack
That respect not our nets
But fall into and tear them and ruin them wholly.
And may I, or any that is of my blood,Behold not the Wave-Haunter who comes in with the Tide;Or the Maighdeann-màra who broods in the shallows,Where the sea-caves are, in the ebb:And fair may my fishing be, and the fishing of those near to me,And good may this Tide be, and good may it bring:And may there be no calling in the Flow, this Srùth-màra,And may there be no burden in the Ebb!ochone!
And may I, or any that is of my blood,
Behold not the Wave-Haunter who comes in with the Tide;
Or the Maighdeann-màra who broods in the shallows,
Where the sea-caves are, in the ebb:
And fair may my fishing be, and the fishing of those near to me,
And good may this Tide be, and good may it bring:
And may there be no calling in the Flow, this Srùth-màra,
And may there be no burden in the Ebb!ochone!
An ainm an Athar, s’ an Mhic, s’ an Spioraid Naoimh,Biodh an Tri-aon leinn, a la’s a dh’ oidhche,S’ air chul nan tonn, no air thaobh nam beann!Ochone! arone!
An ainm an Athar, s’ an Mhic, s’ an Spioraid Naoimh,
Biodh an Tri-aon leinn, a la’s a dh’ oidhche,
S’ air chul nan tonn, no air thaobh nam beann!
Ochone! arone!
Both men sang the closing lines, with loudly swelling voices, and with a wailing fervour which no words of mine could convey.
Runes of this kind prevail all over the isles, from the Butt of Lewis to the Rhinns of Islay: identical in spirit, though varying in lines and phrases, according to the mood and temperament of therannaicheor singer, the local or peculiar physiognomy of nature, theinstinctive yielding to hereditary wonder-words, and other compelling circumstances of the outer and inner life. Almost needless to say, the sea-maid or sea-witch and the Wave-Haunter occur in many of those wild runes, particularly in those that are impromptu. In the Outer Hebrides, the runes are wild natural hymns rather than Pagan chants: though marked distinctions prevail there also,—for in Harris and the Lews the folk are Protestant almost to a man, while in Benbecula and the Southern Hebrides the Catholics are in a like ascendancy. But all are at one in the common Brotherhood of Sorrow.
The only lines in Ivor McLean’s wailing song which puzzled me were the two last which came before “the good words,” “in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit,” etc.
“Tell me, in English, Ivor,” I said, after a silence, wherein I pondered the Gaelic words, “what is the meaning of
“‘And may there be no calling in the Flow, this Srùth-màra,And may there be no burden in the Ebb’?”
“‘And may there be no calling in the Flow, this Srùth-màra,And may there be no burden in the Ebb’?”
“‘And may there be no calling in the Flow, this Srùth-màra,And may there be no burden in the Ebb’?”
“‘And may there be no calling in the Flow, this Srùth-màra,
And may there be no burden in the Ebb’?”
“Yes, I will be telling you what is the meaning of that. When the great tide that wells outof the hollow of the sea, and sweeps towards all the coasts of the world, first stirs, when she will be knowing that the Ebb is not any more moving at all, she sends out nine long waves. And I will be forgetting what these waves are: but one will be to shepherd the sea-weed that is for the blessing of man; and another is for to wake the fish that sleep in the deeps; and another is for this, and another will be for that; and the seventh is to rouse the Wave-Haunter and all the creatures of the water that fear and hate man; and the eighth no man knows, though the priests say it is to carry the Whisper of Mary; and the ninth——”
“And the ninth, Ivor?”
“May it be far from us, from you and from me, and from those of us. An’ I will be sayin’ nothing against it, not I; nor against anything that is in the sea. An’ you will be noting that!
“Well, this ninth wave goes through the water on the forehead of the tide. An’ wherever it will be going itcalls. An’ the call of it is—‘Come away, come away, the sea waits! Follow!… Come away, come away, the seawaits! Follow!’[10]An’ whoever hears that must arise and go, whether he be fish or pollack, or seal or otter, or great skua or small tern, or bird or beast of the shore, or bird or beast of the sea, or whether it be man or woman or child, or any of the others.”
“Any of the others, Ivor?”
“I will not be saying anything about that,” replied McLean gravely; “you will be knowing well what I mean, and if you do not it is not for me to talk of that which is not to be talked about.
“Well, as I was for saying, that calling of the ninth wave of the Tide is what Ian Mòr of the hills speaks of as ‘the whisper of the snow that falls on the hair, the whisper of the frost that lies on the cold face of him that will never be waking again.’”
“Death?”
“It isyouthat will be saying it.”
“Well,” he resumed, after a moment’s hush, “a man may live by the sea for five-score years and never hear that ninth wave call in anySrùth-màra; but soon or late he willhear it. An’ many is the Flood that will be silent for all of us; but there will be one Flood for each of us that will be a dreadful Voice, a voice of terror and of dreadfulness. And whoever hears that voice, he for sure will be the burden in the Ebb.”
“Has any heard that Voice, and lived?”
McLean looked at me, but said nothing. Phadric Macrae rose, tautened a rope, and made a sign to me to put the helm a-lee. Then, looking into the green water slipping by—for the tide was feeling our keel, and a stronger breath from the sea lay against the hollow that was growing in the sail—he said to Ivor:
“You should be telling her of Ivor MacIvor Mhic Niall.”
“Who was Ivor MacNeill?” I said.
“He was the father of my mother,” answered McLean, “and was known throughout the north isles as Ivor Carminish: for he had a farm on the eastern lands of Carminish which lie between the hills called Strondeval and Rondeval, that are in the far south of the Northern Hebrides, and near what will be known to you as the Obb of Harris.
“And I will now be telling you about him in the Gaelic, for it is more easy to me, and more pleasant for us all.
“When Ivor MacEachainn Carminish, that was Ivor’s father, died, he left the farm to his elder son, and to his second son Sheumais. By this time Ivor was married, and had the daughter who is my mother. But he was a lonely man, and an islesman to the heart’s core. So … but you will be knowing the isles that lie off the Obb of Harris: the Saghay, and Ensay, and Killegray, and, farther west, Berneray; and north-west, Pabaidh; and, beyond that again, Shillaidh?”
For the moment I was confused, for these names are so common: and I was thinking of the big isle of Berneray that lies in huge Loch Roag that has swallowed so great a mouthful of Western Lewis, to the seaward of which also are the two Pabbays, Pabaidh Mòr and Pabaidh Beag. But when McLean added, “and other isles of the Caolas Harrish (the Sound of Harris),” I remembered aright; and indeed I knew both, though the nor’ isles better, for I had lived near Callernish on the inner waters of Roag.
“Well, Carminish had sheep-runs upon some of these. One summer the gloom came upon him, and he left Sheumais to take care of the farm, and of Morag his wife, and of Sheen their daughter; and he went to live upon Pabbay, near the old castle that is by the Rua Dune on the south-east of the isle. There he stayed for three months. But on the last night of each month he heard the sea calling in his sleep; and what he heard was like ‘Come away, come away, the sea waits! Follow!…Come away, come away, the sea waits! Follow!’ And he knew the voice of the ninth wave; and that it would not be there in the darkness of sleep if it were not already moving towards him through the dark ways ofAn Dàn(Destiny). So, thinking to pass away from a place doomed for him, and that he might be safe elsewhere, he sailed north to a kinsman’s croft on Aird-Vanish in the island of Taransay. But at the end of that month he heard in his sleep the noise of tidal waters, and at the gathering of the ebb he heard ‘Come away, come away, the sea waits! Follow!’ Then once more, when the November heat-spell had comehe sailed farther northward still. He stopped awhile at Eilean Mhealastaidh, which is under the morning shadow of high Griomabhal on the mainland, and at other places; till he settled, in the third week, at his cousin Eachainn MacEachainn’s bothy, near Callernish, where the Great Stones of old stand by the sea, and hear nothing for ever but the noise of the waves of the North Sea and the cry of the sea-wind.
“And when the last night of November had come and gone, and he had heard in his sleep no calling of the ninth wave of the Flowing Tide, he took heart of grace. All through that next day he went in peace. Eachainn wondered often with slant eyes when he saw the morose man smile, and heard his silence give way now and again to a short, mirthless laugh.
“The two were at the porridge, and Eachainn was muttering hisBui’cheas dha’n Ti, the Thanks to the Being, when Carminish suddenly leaped to his feet, and, with white face, stood shaking like a rope in the wind.
“‘In the name of the Son, what is it, Ivor Mhic Ivor? What is it, Carminish?’ cried Eachainn.
“But the stricken man could scarce speak. At last, with a long sigh, he turned and looked at his kinsman, and that look went down into the shivering heart like the polar wind into a crofter’s hut.
“‘What will be that?’ said Carminish, in a hoarse whisper.
“Eachainn listened, but he could hear no wailingbeann-sith, no unwonted sound.
“‘Sure, I hear nothing but the wind moaning through the Great Stones, an’ beyond them the noise of the Flowin’ Tide.’
“‘The Flowing Tide! the Flowing Tide!’ cried Carminish, and no longer with the hush in the voice. ‘An’ what is it you hear in the Flowing Tide?’
“Eachainn looked in silence. What was the thing he could say? For now he knew.
“‘Ah, och, och, ochone, you may well sigh, Eachainn Mhic Eachainn! For the ninth wave o’ the Flowing Tide is coming out o’ the North Sea upon this shore, an’ already I can hear it calling ‘Come away, come away, the sea waits! Follow!…Come away, come away, the sea waits! Follow!’
“And with that Carminish dashed out thelight that was upon the table, and leaped upon Eachainn, and dinged him to the floor, and would have killed him, but for the growing noise of the sea beyond the Stannin’ Stones o’ Callernish, and the woe-weary sough o’ the wind, an’ the calling, calling, ‘Come, come away!Come, come away!’
“And so he rose and staggered to the door, and flung himself out into the night: while Eachainn lay upon the floor and gasped for breath, and then crawled to his knees, an’ took the Book from the shelf by his fern-straw mattress, an’ put his cheek against it, an’ moaned to God, an’ cried like a child for the doom that was upon Ivor McIvor Mhic Niall, who was of his own blood, and his owndallat that.
“And while he moaned, Carminish was stalking through the great, gaunt, looming Stones of the Druids that were here before St Colum and hisShonacame, and laughing wild. And all the time the tide was coming in, and the tide and the deep sea and the waves of the shore, and the wind in the salt grass and the weary reeds and the black-pool gale, made a noise of a dreadful hymn, that wasthe death-hymn, the going-rune of Ivor the son of Ivor of the kindred of Niall.
“And it was there that they found his body in the grey dawn, wet and stiff with the salt ooze. For the soul that was in him had heard the call of the ninth wave that was for him. So, and may the Being keep back that hour for us, there was a burden upon that ebb on the morning of that day.
“Also, there is this thing for the hearing. In the dim dark before the curlew cried at dawn, Eachainn heard a voice about the house, a voice going like a thing blind and baffled,