Folklore of the Scottish Highlands (17 page)

Fire was, as always, an essential element in evil-averting rites; as we have seen, to carry a burning brand
deiseal
(sunwise) round a house was believed to purify and protect it. This was performed in connection with women before they were kirked after childbirth; fire was also carried sunwise about children before they were baptised; the ritual was performed both in the morning and the evening. It persisted at least into Martin’s time, but he remarks that it was only performed by old midwives; as he deeply disapproved of this pagan custom, people may have been unwilling to be quite frank about its continuing practice. When he showed his scorn of it, and asked why it was performed, the people were seemingly much annoyed by his attitude and refused to answer him. One or two, however, told him that the fire-round was a powerful means of preserving the mother and child from the ever-present forces of evil sprites, always seeking to do harm to mankind, and to snatch away the unguarded infant. The fairies were notoriously dangerous in this respect; once they could steal a healthy human babe, they would replace it by a puny, skeletal child which did not thrive, but had a voracious appetite; it would eat up everything that came its way and yet remain gaunt and under-nourished. It was customary for people in Martin’s day, who believed that their babies had been abducted by the fairies, to dig a grave in the fields on Quarter-day (an important calendar day) and to put the changeling there overnight. In the morning they expected to go and find their own healthy child lying there in place of the fairy baby. There are many versions of the changeling legend. In Martin’s time, some people used to perform these rounds sunwise about welcome strangers or people who had done them some good turn; they went round them three times, blessed them, and wished them success in all their affairs. This custom was likewise by no means kindly looked upon by the ministers of the Church.

Another ancient and widely-used antidote for plague or murrain in cattle and people was the process known as making
tein-eigin
, ‘need-fire’. It was performed as follows: all the fires in the parish must be extinguished and then, according to Martin’s account, it was necessary for 81 married men to participate in order to make the ritual successful. Two great planks of wood were taken and nine men were employed in turn to rub the two planks together until the great heat generated eventually produced fire. From this ‘need’ or ‘forced’ fire, every family must make a new fire in their homes; as soon as this was blazing well, a cauldron of water (
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) was placed on it, and this sacred liquid was then sprinkled over people or beasts infected with the plague. The people swore to the efficacy of this practice, and, like so many Highland customs, its origins clearly belong to the distant past, with profound pagan associations connected with the magic of fire ritual in general. Martin records that it was practised on the mainland, opposite the south of Skye, within 30 years of his writing — and when such deeply-rooted customs finally ceased to be carried out in remote glens and islands is still open to question.

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Bronze cauldron, Kincardine Moss, Stirlingshire. R. Hingley 1998, 52

In the nineteenth century, Carmichael, in his invaluable collection of the ancient lore of Gaelic Scotland, gives posterity many further examples of portentous signs, and the ways in which they may be interpreted. Lucky signs were known as
rathadach
; unlucky omens were called
rosadach
. Carmichael notes that the sight of a man, especially one with brown hair, is a good omen; a man coming towards or looking at the seer is likewise an excellent sign. But a man going away from the seer is an extremely unfavourable omen. If a man is seen by the seer, standing, or an animal in the act of getting up, this means that a sick person is throwing off the disease. The reverse is indicative that the illness will continue. The sight of a woman is likewise regarded as fortunate, provided she does not have red hair; this is never lucky, any more than is left-handedness.
Corrach
means ‘left-handed’; it also means tricky, crooked, and, in fact, in its true sense, sinister. There is some confusion in this vast repertoire of lucky and unlucky omens; according to some, for a seer to observe a woman standing is a sign of good luck; in the opinion of others, the reverse is the case. If the seer observes a woman approaching he should cross himself. It is also a bad omen if a woman is seen to be going away; a woman with light red hair is a bad omen; a woman with dark red hair is even worse. An augurer, performing an augury, must quickly cross himself if he sees a woman with red hair.

Sacrifices of various kinds were, as we have seen, performed for various purposes and for certain calendar festivals. Dark hints of human sacrifice underlie many of these vestigial pagan feasts; and human sacrifice, sometimes on a grand scale, was very much a feature of universal pre-Christian Celtic practice. There are also traces of its persistence into a Christian milieu, and even today, the saying ‘
Chaidh ùir air sùil Odhrain’
, ‘Earth went over Odhran’s eye’, is widely heard in the Highlands and Islands, and people will readily explain the meaning of this statement. When Saint Columba, best-loved of all the Celtic saints, left Ireland in the sixth century, in order to go into permanent exile, virtually as an act of martyrdom, he chose the island of Iona, because it was impossible to see Ireland from it; it is also possible that it was a Druidic sanctuary which he proceeded to Christianise. A legend, of a widespread kind, is told concerning the saint’s efforts to erect the first building of his monastic community. No matter how soundly they were constructed, the walls, by the machinations of some evil spirit, collapsed as soon as they had been erected. Columba recognised that some propitiation was necessary and, on prayer, was told that the building would never remain standing unless a human foundation sacrifice was buried there alive (
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). Lots were cast and Odhran was chosen; other versions of the legend say that he himself volunteered to be the victim. He was buried alive, and after three days, Columba was overcome with curiosity to find out how his follower fared, and ordered that he should be dug up. Odhran allegedly looked at the saint and said: ‘There is no wonder in death, and hell is not as it is reported’. The saint was horrified by this unChristian statement and had Odhran buried again with all haste.

Another version of the saying is ‘
Uir! Uir! air beul Odhrain
’, ‘Earth, earth, on Odhran’s mouth’. Some people who still know the legend say that the story was invented by Columba’s Druidic rivals in order to discredit the saint. Martin records that in his day it was traditional belief that Columba allowed no woman who was not a nun to stay on the island. Nearby is a small isle where all the tradesmen employed on the island had to keep their womenfolk, and for this reason it was known as the Island of Women. This seems to be an echo of the ancient pagan legend of small sacred islands which were entirely inhabited by women who were completely dedicated to the cult of some powerful deity; their rites often included human sacrifice, and no man must set foot on these islands. The women periodically left them in order to have sexual intercourse with men; it is probable that the male issue of such unions were sacrificed, while the females were reared to become future initiates in the cult. The classical writers refer to such places, and there are references to them in the early Irish tales.

Things to do and things not to do encompassed a large sphere of Highland life, for not only was daily life closely circumscribed by tabu and superstition; social intercourse and human contact were equally restricted and founded on ancient tradition. And even today this applies to some extent, especially to such matters as good manners and hospitality, for which the Celt has been renowned down the centuries, to the amazement even of the classical commentators on ancient Gaulish manners. Travellers have always been astonished at the unquestioning generosity of the Highlander to the stranger; the custom of always leaving a portion ‘for the man on the hill’, i.e. the chance guest, is widely observed. This was one of the many features of the Highland temperament that so amazed Dr Johnson on his tour. The stranger had only to arrive at even the poorest dwelling, to be given a portion of whatever happened to be available. For example, Boswell tells us:

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Iona: St Oran’s Chapel, partly twelfth-century, the Abbey Church, restored in the fifteenth century, other restored buildings including the Nunnery, and Early Christian crosses. After J. Fisher 1983, 5-7

At Auchnasheal, we sat down on a green turf seat at the end of a house; they brought us out two wooden dishes of milk, which we tasted. One of them was frothed like a syllabub.

Again, at an inn in Glenelg:

This inn was furnished with not a single article that we could either eat or drink; but Mr Murchison, factor to the Laird of MacLeod in Glenelg, sent us a bottle of rum and some sugar, with a polite message, to acquaint us, that he was very sorry that he did not hear of us till we had passed his house, otherwise he should have insisted on our sleeping there that night; and that, if he were not obliged to set out for Inverness early next morning, he would have waited upon us. — Such extraordinary attention from this gentleman, to entire strangers, deserves the most honourable commemoration.

Martin records the welcome accorded by the natives of the remote island of Ronay told to him by Mr Morison, a visiting minister from the Outer Isles. One of the natives demonstrated his high regard for the visitor by making a turn about him sunwise, blessing him and wishing him all happiness. He wished to avoid this, to him, pagan welcome, but the natives insisted upon it. On the way to the village they passed three enclosures. As Morison entered each of these, the inhabitants all saluted him shouting ‘Traveller you are welcome here’. A house had been chosen for his lodging. There was a bundle of straw on the floor for the minister to sit on. After a short, general discourse the natives went back to their homes and each man killed a sheep; five in all were killed. There were only five families on the entire island. The skins of the sheep were kept whole and flayed from the neck to the tail so that they formed a sort of sack. The skins were then filled with barley meal and this was given to the minister as a gift. Morison’s servant was also presented with some bags of meal, as he was also a traveller. Such was the sacredness of the stranger and the traveller in the eyes of the Highlanders to whom hospitality was almost a religion.

Martin has some interesting information to give about the natives of Ronay. He testifies to their devoutness; every Sunday morning they met in the chapel to repeat the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed and Ten Commandments (having no resident minister to preach to them). Their houses were built of stone and thatched with straw; the thatch was secured by means of straw ropes, and these were weighted down with stones. The only language spoken was Gaelic, and the people dressed, apparently, like the natives of Lewis. All the people died off when some sailors landed on the island and stole the bull; without it their only source of produce was taken from them; a new colony was planted there later, but it is not recorded by Martin how this fared.

Another instance of the widespread tradition of hospitality in the Highlands is given by Martin when he says, of North Uist:

There was never an Inn here till of late, and now there is but one, which is not at all frequented, for eating, but only for drinking. The fine hospitality of the natives rendered an eating-house unnecessary.

Many elaborate daily customs are recorded by Martin and other writers, some of obvious extreme antiquity. He says, for example, that it was an ancient custom which was still in operation in his day, that when a group of men went into a house to do business, or to drink, the door of the house was left open and a rod was put across it; by this, it was understood that no person without rank may approach the house; if anyone should be ill-mannered enough to remove this rod and enter without invitation, he would cause serious affront to the company assembled within. Severe punishment was meted out to the offender by the gathering.