Chapter I: Part 1

Waifs and Strays of Celtic Tradition.

Series initiated and directed by

LORD ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL.

--------------

Demy 8vo, cloth.

_ARGYLLSHIRE SERIES._

--------------

VOLUME I.

CRAIGNISH TALES.

Collected by the Rev. J. MACDOUGALL; and Notes on the War Dress of the Celts by LORD ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL, xvi, 98 pages. 20 plates. 1889. 5_s._

---

VOLUME II.

FOLK AND HERO TALES.

Collected, edited (in Gaelic), and translated by the Rev. D. MACINNES; with a Study on the Development of the Ossianic Saga and copious Notes by ALFRED NUTT. xxiv, 497 pages. Portrait of Campbell of Islay, and two illustrations by E. GRISET. 1890. 15_s._

“The most important work on Highland Folk-lore and Tales since
Campbell’s world-renowned Popular Tales.”--_Highland Monthly._

“Never before has the development of the Ossianic Saga been so
scientifically dealt with.”--HECTOR MACLEAN.

“Mr. Alfred Nutt’s excurses and notes are lucid and scholarly. They
add immensely to the value of the book, and afford abundant evidence
of their author’s extensive reading and sound erudition.”--_Scots
Observer._

“The Gaelic text is colloquial and eminently idiomatic.... Mr.
Nutt deserves special mention and much credit for the painstaking
and careful research evidenced by his notes to the tales.”--_Oban
Telegraph._

---

VOLUME III.

FOLK AND HERO TALES.

Collected, edited, translated, and annotated by the Rev. J. MACDOUGALL;
with an Introduction by ALFRED NUTT, and Three Illustrations by E.
GRISET. 1891. 10_s._ 6_d._

---

VOLUME IV.

THE FIANS;

OR,

STORIES, POEMS, AND TRADITIONS

OF

_FIONN AND HIS WARRIOR BAND_.

Collected entirely from Oral Sources by JOHN GREGORSON CAMPBELL
(Minister of Tiree); with Introduction and Bibliographical Notes by
ALFRED NUTT. Portrait of Ian Campbell of Islay, and Illustrations by E.
GRISET.

WAIFS AND STRAYS OF CELTIC TRADITION.

---------

_ARGYLLSHIRE SERIES._--No. V.

---------

CLAN TRADITIONS
AND POPULAR TALES

OF THE

WESTERN HIGHLANDS AND ISLANDS,

_Collected from Oral Sources_

BY THE LATE
REV. JOHN GREGORSON CAMPBELL.
_MINISTER OF TIREE._

SELECTED FROM THE AUTHOR’S MS. REMAINS,
AND EDITED BY

JESSIE WALLACE AND DUNCAN MAC ISAAC,

WITH INTRODUCTION BY
ALFRED NUTT.

_PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR AND ILLUSTRATIONS._

LONDON:
DAVID NUTT, 270–271 STRAND.
---
1895.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

PREFACE, vii

INTRODUCTION: ALFRED NUTT, ix

Memoir of the late Rev. John Gregorson Campbell. His work as a
folk-lorist. The present work.

CLAN TRADITIONS.

MACLEANS OF DUART, 1

DEATH OF BIG LACHLAN MACLEAN, 5

MACLEANS OF COLL, 7

BROWNS OF TIREE, 12

THE STORY OF MAC AN UIDHIR, 18

STEEPING THE WITHIES, 24

LITTLE JOHN OF THE WHITE BAG, 25

THE KILLING OF BIG ANGUS OF ARDNAMURCHAN, 26

THE LAST CATTLE RAID IN TIREE, 29

LOCHBUIE’S TWO HERDSMEN, 32

FINLAY GUIVNAC, 44

BIG DEWAR OF BALEMARTIN, 51

THE BIG LAD OF DERVAIG, 53

DONALD GORM OF SLEAT, 59

DONALD GORM OF MOIDART, 62

THE BLACK RAVEN OF GLENGARRY, 63

THE OLD WIFE’S HEADLAND, 65

A TRADITION OF ISLAY, 67

FAIR LACHLAN OF DERVAIG, 70

LEGENDARY HISTORY.

PRINCESS THYRA OF ULSTER AND HER LOVERS, 74

GARLATHA OF HARRIS, 80

STORIES ABOUT THE FAIRIES.

A HOUSEWIFE AND HER FAIRY VISITOR, 83

THE WISE WOMAN OF DUNTULM AND THE FAIRIES, 86

FOLK TALES.

THE TWO BROTHERS, 91

THE TWO SISTERS AND THE CURSE, 95

HOW THE DAUGHTER OF THE NORSE KING THINNED
THE WOODS OF LOCHABER, 101

HOW O’NEIL’S HAIR WAS MADE TO GROW, 108

BEAST FABLES.

THE WOLF AND THE FOX, 115

THE FOX AND THE BIRD, 119

THE WREN, 120

THE TWO DEER, 123

THE TWO HORSES, 124

THE TWO DOGS, 124

THE CAT AND THE MOUSE, 126

BOY’S GAMES.

KING AND KITE, 128

PARSON’S MARE HAS GONE AMISSING, 130

HIDE AND SEEK, 131

APPENDIX.

I.--FINLAY GUIVNAC, 133
II.--PORT NAN LONG, 133
III.--A TRADITION OF MORAR, 135
IV.--LETTERS FROM THE LATE CAMPBELL OF ISLAY, 138

PREFACE.

It has been thought well and due, by those who knew the late J. G. Campbell of Tiree, to give to the public more tales collected by him, and his sister has made over the following collection, selected by herself from among the tales gathered in the course of many years. We send them forth as a fitting memorial to his memory, and as another stone added to the cairn lovingly erected by old friends. At the end will be found a few letters which passed between the late minister and the late Iain Campbell of Islay, showing the methods of collecting followed by these two lovers of the folk-lore of their native land, and which in consequence cannot but prove of interest and value to those who have followed the steps of the gleaning of folk-tales throughout the British Isles--we may add throughout the world. These patient labourers in such fields were the true pioneers of the movement in Scotland.

Notes, where not otherwise stated, are the author’s or editors’; those signed A.N. are due to Mr. Alfred Nutt; those signed A.C. to the undersigned.

ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL.

_Feb. 11, 1895._

INTRODUCTION.

MEMOIR OF THE LATE JOHN GREGORSON CAMPBELL, MINISTER OF TIREE.

[_The following Memoir is chiefly from information given by Mr. Campbell’s sister, Mrs. Wallace of Hynish, thanks to whose unwearied and sympathetic assistance it was that the previous volume in the series, ‘The Fians,’ was made ready for and passed through the press, and that the present volume has been selected and put together from the mass of the material left by the author_].

John Gregorson Campbell was born at Kingairloch, in Argyllshire, in the year 1836, the second son and fourth child of Captain Campbell of the _Cygnet_ and of Helen MacGregor, his wife. The fondness for study, the devotion to his native literature and lore, which were such marked features of his life, and which earned for him an abiding reputation as a Gaelic student, would seem to have been his by birthright. His maternal grandfather was an ardent Gael, as may be judged by the letters that passed between him and Dr. Mackintosh. On his mother’s side he was descended from Duncan MacGregor, 13th in direct descent from the first MacGregor who settled at Roro, in Glenlyon, Perthshire, whilst through a paternal ancestor he traced back to a race that had had dealings with the ‘good people,’ and on whom a _bean shith_ had laid the spell ‘they shall grow like the rush and wither like the fern’ (_fàsaidh iad mar an luachair ’s crìonaidh iad mar an raineach_).

The house of his birth on the shores of Loch Linnhe was small and lonely, and when he was three years of age his parents removed to Appin. His childhood was that of many young Highlanders. From earliest boyhood he attended the parish school in the Strath of Appin, walking daily with his older sisters the long stretch that separated it from his father’s home. He loved to recall his early schooldays, and their memory was ever dear to him. He had learnt more, he was wont to say in after years, at that school than at all his other schools put together. And on the hillside and along the valley, traversed twice daily, he drank in a love for and knowledge of nature in all her manifestations that remained to him as a priceless possession throughout life. At ten he was sent to Glasgow for further schooling, passed first through the Andersonian University, and went thence to the High School, preparatory to entering College. We have interesting glimpses of him at this period. He seems to have been a dreamy, quick-witted but somewhat indolent lad of whom his masters said, ‘if Campbell likes to work no one can beat him’; hot-tempered too, as Highlanders, rightly or wrongly, are credited with being. The only Highlander in the school, he had doubtless much to put up with. His Glasgow schoolfellows had probably as little liking for Highlanders as Baillie Nicol Jarvie himself, and many were the petty persecutions he had to endure. He has himself related how he suffered several hours imprisonment for fighting another boy ‘on account of my country.’ Like all who are steadily bilingual from early youth he recognised how powerful an intellectual instrument is the instinctive knowledge of two languages, and was wont to insist upon the aid he had derived from Gaelic in the study of Hebrew and Latin. To one familiar with the complex and archaic organisation of Gaelic speech the acquisition of these languages must indeed be far easier than to one whose first knowledge of speech is based upon the analytic simplicity of English.

From the High School he gladly passed to College, where a happier life and more congenial friendships awaited him. He had many Highland fellow-students, and at this early date his love for the rich stores of oral tradition preserved by his countrymen manifested itself. He sought the acquaintance of good story-tellers, and began to store up in his keenly retentive memory the treasure he has been so largely instrumental in preserving and recording.

After leaving college he read law for awhile with Mr. Foulds. In his lonely island parish he later found his legal training of the utmost assistance. Many were the disputes he was called upon to settle, and, as he has recorded, few there were of his parishioners who needed to take the dangerous voyage to the Sheriff’s court on a neighbouring island. At once judge and jury his decisions commanded respect and acquiescence. At this period, and for some time previously, his interest in and mastery of Gaelic legendary lore are shown by the fact that he acted as Secretary to the Glasgow University Ossianic Society, founded in 1831 by _Caraid nan Gàidheal_, and still flourishing.

His thoughts and aspirations had early turned towards the church, and in 1858 he was licensed by the Presbytery of Glasgow. But suffering as he then was from the effects of inflammation of the lungs, the result of a chill caught in his student days, and the effects of which were perceptible throughout life, he was forbidden to preach for six months. The interval, spent in recruiting his shattered health, was profitable to his growing zeal for folk-lore studies. In Ayrshire or at Blair Athole he showed himself a keen and sympathetic collector of floating oral tradition.

In 1860 he accepted the appointment to the united parishes of Tiree and Coll from the Duke of Argyll, and took up the work which was to occupy the remaining thirty years of his life. It is to be wished that a sphere of activity more commensurate with his abilities had been accepted by him, as when he was offered the assistantship of St. Columba, Glasgow, and he seems at times to have felt as much. But such thoughts were certainly no hindrance to the performance of his duty, interpreted in the largest and most liberal sense. He was the guide and counsellor of his flock, who turned to him with unfailing confidence for advice, exhortation, or reproof. An amusing instance of his parishioners’ belief in his capacity may be cited; a sailor lad from Tiree got, as sailor lads will, into some row in Spain and was marched off to jail. He took the matter philosophically, remarking, ‘so long as the minister is alive I know they can’t hurt me’ (_bha fhios agam co fad’s a bha ’m ministear beò nach robh cunnart domh_). The esteem and affection in which he was held by his parishioners were cordially reciprocated by him. He is reported as saying that nowhere could be found a more intelligent community than the Duke’s tenantry in Tiree, and in the preface to Volume IV. of the present series he bears witness to the knowledge, intelligence, and character of his informants.

We do not go far wrong in conjecturing that the minister’s zealous interest for the preservation and elucidation of the native traditions was not the least potent of his claims upon the respect and love of his flock. How keenly the Highlander still treasures these faint echoes of the past glories and sorrows of his race is known to all who have won his confidence. Unhappily it has not always been the case that this sentiment has been fostered and turned to good account by the natural leaders of the people as it was by John Gregorson Campbell.

In the guidance of his people, in congenial study, in correspondence with Campbell of Islay and other fellow-workers, specimens of which will be found in the appendix (_infra_ 138), time passed. His mother died in 1890 at the manse, and his health, for long past indifferent, broke down. The last years of his life were solaced and filled by the work he prepared for the present series. At last, Nov. 22nd, 1891 he passed from his labours and sufferings into rest, the rest of one who had well earned it by devotion to duty and to the higher interests of his race.

In person Campbell was tall and fair, with deep blue eyes full of life and vivacity. He was noted at once for the kindliness of his manner, and for the shrewd causticity of his wit. The portrait which serves as frontispiece is taken from the only available photograph, and represents him in middle life.

HIS WORK AS A FOLK-LORIST.

The Gaels of Scotland cannot be accused of indifference to the rich stores of legend current among the people. From the days of the Dean of Lismore, in the late 15th century, onwards, there have not been wanting lovers and recorders of the old songs and stories. Unfortunately, in the 18th century, a new direction was given to the national interest in the race traditions by the Macpherson controversy. I say unfortunately, because attention was thereby concentrated upon one section of tradition to the neglect of others equally interesting and beautiful, and false standards were introduced into the appreciation and criticism of popular oral literature. Valuable as are the materials accumulated in the Report of the Highland Society, and generally in the voluminous literature which grew up round Macpherson’s pretentions, they are far less valuable than they might be to the folk-lorist and student of the past, owing to the misapprehension of the real points both of interest and at issue. Two generations had to pass away before Scotch Gaelic folk-lore was to be studied and appreciated for itself.

To Campbell of Islay and the faithful fellow-workers whom he knew how to inspire and organise, falls the chief share in this work, belongs the chief honour of its successful achievement. The publication of the _Popular Tales of the West Highlands_ was epoch-making, not only in the general study of folk-lore, but specially for the appreciation and intelligence of Gaelic myth and romance. No higher praise can be given to John Gregorson Campbell than that his folk-lore work is full of the same uncompromising fidelity to popular utterance, the same quick intuition into, and sympathetic grasp of popular imagination as Islay’s. His published work has indeed a somewhat wider range than that of _Leabhar na Feinne_ and the _Popular Tales of the West Highlands_, as it deals also with those semi-historic traditions, the nearest equivalent the literature of these islands can show to the Icelandic family sagas, which Islay excluded from the two collections he issued. The following is a complete list, so far as can be ascertained, of the published writings of John Gregorson Campbell, in so far as they relate to the legendary romance, history and folk-lore of Gaelic Scotland.

IN THE “CELTIC REVIEW,” (1881–85).

No. I. p. 61, West Highland Tale: How Tuairisgeal Mòr was
put to death.

” II. p. 115, The Muileartach: a West Highland Tale.[1]

” III. p. 184, West Highland Tale: How Fionn went to the
Kingdom of Big Men.[2]

” IV. p. 262, West Highland Tale: MacPhie’s Black Dog.

IN THE TRANSACTIONS OF THE INVERNESS GAELIC SOCIETY.

Vol. XIII. (1888) p. 69, Tale of Sir Hallabh O’Corn.

” XIV. (1889) p. 78, Healing of Keyn’s Foot.

” XV. (1890) p. 46, Fionn’s Ransom.

” XVI. (1891) p. 111, The Pigmies or Dwarfs (_Na h-Amhuisgean_).

” XVII. (1892) p. 58, The Fuller’s Son or School of Birds.

IN THE CELTIC MAGAZINE, VOL. XIII, (1887–88.)

No. 148, p. 167, Battle of Gavra or Oscar’s Hymn.

” 149, p. 202, do. do. do. (Continued).[3]

HIGHLAND MONTHLY.

Vol. I. No. 10. p. 622, Introduction, &c.

WAIFS AND STRAYS OF CELTIC TRADITION.

Argyllshire Series, No. I.: The Good Housewife (p. 54–69).

Argyllshire Series, No. IV.: The Fians: or Stories, Poems, and Traditions of Fionn and his Warrior Band. Collected entirely from oral sources. 1891.

In presenting his material to the English reader Campbell may profitably be compared with Islay. In few ways was the work of the latter more fruitful than in his mode of rendering Gaelic into English. It is impossible, for instance, to look at the work done of late by the distinguished Irish folk-lorists who are adding a new chapter to Gaelic romance, at the work of Douglas Hyde and W. Larminie and Jeremiah Curtin, and not recognise how much in point of colour and tone and smack of the soil their translations excel those of the pre-Campbell generation. Islay may, at times, have pushed his theory of idiomatic fidelity too far, occasionally where he aims at a rendering he achieves a distortion, but as a whole the effect of strange, wild, archaic atmosphere and medium is given with unerring--one would call it skill, did one not feel that it is the outcome of a nature steeped in the Gaelic modes of conception and expression, and bold enough to invent the English requisite to give an adumbration of them. For indeed the speech of the _Popular Tales_ is a distinctive variety of English, deserving study both from the philologist and the artist in words. Islay himself never handled this speech to better effect than did John Gregorson Campbell in the fine tale, for instance, of Sir Olave O’Corn (_Gaelic Soc. of Inverness_, Vol. XIII.), or in the _Muileartach_ (_Waifs and Strays_, Vol. IV.), though as a rule he keeps closer than Islay to the ordinary standard of English expression. Readers of this volume cannot fail to note the exceeding skill with which the pithy, imaginative turns of thought, so plentiful in the original, are rendered into English. The reader is at once taken out of nineteenth century civilisation, and, which is surely the first thing required from the translator, by the mere sound and look of the words carried back into an older, wilder, simpler and yet, in some ways, more artificially complex life. The difficulty of rendering Gaelic into English does not lie in the fact of its possessing a rude simplicity which the more sophisticated language is incapable of reproducing, but rather in that, whilst the emotions and conceptions are close to the primitive passions of nature in a degree that our civilisation has long forsworn, the mode of expression has the richness of colour and elaborate artificiality of a pattern in the Book of Kells. To neglect the latter characteristic is to miss not only a salient feature of the original but to obscure the significance of a dominant factor in the evolution of Gaelic artistry.

That Campbell, like Islay, felt the paramount necessity of endeavouring to reproduce the formal characteristics of his Gaelic text is certain; like Islay, he too, had the true scholar’s regard for his matter. To put down what he heard, to comment upon what he found, was his practice. It seems obvious, but many collectors neglect it all the same. Nor in his essays at interpretation is he other than in full sympathy with his subject. He not only understands but himself possesses the mythopoeic faculty, and if this is endowed with a wider knowledge, a more refined culture than belonged to the Gaelic bards who first gave these songs and stories their present shape, or to the peasants and fishermen who lovingly repeat them, it differs in degree only, not in kind. It may be doubted that the framers of the _Muileartach_ consciously embodied the conceptions which Campbell has read into the old poem (_Waifs and Strays_, IV. pp. 131–135), but I think it certain that he does but give shape with the precision of a a higher culture to ideas which, with them, never emerged from the stage of mythic realisation.

THE PRESENT WORK.

Most of the matter contained in the present volume had been partially, if not definitely, prepared for press by the author. The choice and arrangement are largely due to his sister, Mrs. Wallace, his devoted fellow-worker. Still it must not be forgotten that we have here a collection of posthumous remains which have not enjoyed the benefit of the author’s final shaping and revision. But it has been judged best by the editors of the series to preserve these remains substantially as they were left, with a minimum of indispensable revision. The volume may lose in other respects, but it is, at all events, the work of the author and not of his editor friends. The latter have felt that regard for the genuineness of Mr. Campbell’s text was the first of their duties towards his memory.

This volume thus represents the contents of Campbell’s note-books rather than provides such an ordered collection of material, bearing upon a particular section of Gaelic folk-lore, as he has furnished in the preceding volume of this series. But for this very reason it yields better evidence to the wealth and variety of Gaelic popular tradition. A large portion of the book is local legendary matter, and is closely analogous to what the Icelandic Sagas must have been in one stage of their development, a stage overlaid by the artistry of a greater school of prose story tellers than ever took the sagas of Gaelic Scotland in hand. Professor York Powell has well analysed the phase through which such stories as those of Burnt Njal or Egil Skallagrimm’s son must have passed before they reached the form familiar to us.[4] He describes the popular narrator working up a mass of local, fairly authentic detail about his hero, running it into a conventional mould, and then fitting the result into a scheme of wider historic scope. The Gaelic matter preserved alike by Mr. Campbell in this volume and by Mr. MacDougall in the first volume of the series has not got beyond the local anecdote stage, though, as in the variant forms of the tale of the Grizzled Lad and MacNeill (p. 5, _et seq._), we can see the conventionalizing process at work, accentuating certain details, discarding others, with the view of transmuting the blurred photographic variety of life into the clear-cut unity of art. But the process is rudimentary. It is strange that this should be so considering the wealth of conventional situations that lay ready to the hand of the Gaelic story teller in the highly elaborated sagas of Cuchulainn and of Finn, for the purpose of moulding the achievements of historical Campbells, MacLeans and MacNeills, into a satisfactory artistic form. Such convention as is apparent in these scraps of sagas is related to that of the folk-tale rather than to that of the great heroic legends. An interesting example is afforded by the story of Mac an Uidhir. This may well have a basis of fact, indeed Campbell cites an actual analogue, but it has been run into the shape of an ordinary separation and timely-recognition folk-tale. Other instances will present themselves to the reader and afford instructive study of the action and reaction upon each other of folk-life and oral narrative legend.

Any fresh addition of moment to the considerable recorded mass of Scottish local historic tradition increases the wonder that material of such vigour and interest, full of the clash of fierce primitive passion, rich in character, should have had so little literary outcome. The stuff is not inferior to that of the Icelandic tales, but instead of a first-rate contribution to the world’s literature we have only a chaos of unworked up details. Yet during the time that these implanted themselves and took shape in the popular memory, Gaelic story-tellers, elaborating and perpetually readapting the old mythic and heroic traditions of the race, were producing narratives of rare and exquisite charm. Perplexity is intensified if, as Professor Zimmer maintains, the Norsemen learnt the art of prose narrative from the Irish and developed the great school of Icelandic story telling on lines picked up in Gaeldom. Certain it is that the Irish annals, relating the events of the 3rd to 9th centuries, which assumed their present shape sometime in the 10th to the 12th centuries, contain a large amount of historic narrative that is closely allied in form and spirit to the contemporary Scotch Gaelic sagas. There is the same directness of narrative, the frequent picturesqueness of incident, the pithy characterisation; there is also the same failure to throw the material into a rounded artistic form, and, most curious of all resemblances, the conventions at work distorting historic fact are those of the folk-tale rather than of the national heroic epos. I would cite in this connection certain episodes of the Boroma[5] (in itself an admirable example of the failure of Gaelic story tellers to work up into satisfying form very promising historical material) such as that of Cumascach’s visit to Brandubh, or again many passages in the stories about Raghallach and Guaire. The whole subject is, as nearly everything else in the record of Gaelic letters, fraught with fascinating perplexities. The present writer can but here, as he has so often done before, make a big note of interrogation and trust that Gaelic scholars on both sides the water will consider the problem worth study, and succeed in solving it.

I note those points which interest me as a student of tradition in general, and of Celtic tradition in particular. For most readers these scraps of local history derive their chief value from the vivid light they flash back upon the past, from the evidence they yield of the wild, fierce--I had almost written savage--life from which we are separated by so few generations. Some there may be to mourn for the past. Not a few Highland landlords will possibly regret the good old days when the MacLean planted his gallows in the midst of the island of Tiree, and the last comer with his rent knew what awaited him (p. 13). Truly a more effectual means of getting in the money than by writ which the sheriff cannot execute.

The remainder of the volume comprises matter more upon the usual folk-lore lines; much, familiar already but valuable in the good variant form here recorded, much again novel, like the curious tale of the Princess Thyra and her lovers. Taken in conjunction with the author’s previous volume in this series on the Finn tradition as still living in the Western Highlands, the whole offers a faithful picture of the imagination, memory, and humour of the Gaelic peasant playing round the old-time beliefs, stories and customs handed down to him from his forefathers.

ALFRED NUTT.

I append a list of the chief informants from whom Mr. Campbell derived the material contained in Vol. IV. and V. of the Argyllshire series of _Waifs and Strays of Celtic Tradition_.

Malcolm MacDonald, Scarnish, Tiree.
Malcolm MacLean, Kilmoluaig, Tiree.
Hugh MacDonald, do. do.
John MacLean, (bard), Balemartin, Tiree.
Hugh Macmillan, (tailor), Tobermory.
Angus MacVurrich, Portree, Skye.
Duncan Cameron, (constable), Tiree.
Allan MacDonald, Mannal, Tiree.
Donald Mackinnon, Balevoulin, Tiree.
John Cameron, (_Iain MacFhearchar_), Balevoulin, Tiree.
Archibald Mackinnon, (_Gilleasbuig ruadh nan sgeirean dubha_), Tiree.
Donald Cameron, Ruaig, Tiree.
Donald MacDonald, Mannal, Tiree.
Malcolm Sinclair, Balephuil, Tiree.
John MacArthur, (tailor), Moss, Tiree.
Duncan MacDonald, Caolis, Tiree.
Neil MacLean, (the elder), Cornaig, Tiree.

NOTES:

[1] Reprinted The Fians. p. 131–158.

[2] Reprinted The Fians. p. 175–191.

[3] Reprinted The Fians, p. 28–48.

[4] Folk-Lore, June, 1894.

[5] The _Boroma_, the story of the tribute imposed upon Leinster by Tuathal Techtmar in the second century and remitted in the sixth century, has been edited and translated by Mr. Whitley Stokes, (_Rev. Celt._) and by Mr. Standish Hayes O’Grady in _Silva Gadelica_.

CLAN TRADITIONS.

MACLEANS OF DOWART.

The first MacLeans, Wily Lachlan (_Lachunn Lùbanach_), and Punctilious Hector (_Eachann Reanganach_), came to Dunolly to MacDougall. He sent them provisions and made his men watch to see if they were gentlemen. It was inferred they were, from their paring cheese, or, throwing the remains of their food to the dogs. On leaving Dunolly they came to Aros in Mull. This word Aros is the one regularly used to denote a royal residence or palace, and the Lords of the Isles claiming an independent sovereignty, their residence in Mull came to be called Aros, a name which it still retains. Their residence in the north was Duntulm, and in the Sound of Mull, Aros and Ardtornish. The view from the old castle of Aros up and down the Sound is very commanding, and that from Ardtornish is equally so. The MacLeans on coming to Aros found _Peddle Mòr_ (a south country ploughman to _MacCónnuill_ of the Isles) who sent them food, but gave no knife and fork, telling them to put hen’s bills on (_guib-chearc_) to take it. On coming to him they found him bending to repair a failing in the plank board (_fàillinn na fliuch-bhùird_), or keel board, of a galley (_birlinn_) with which he was to go to meet his master.

The Lords of the Isles to make their estate appear greater employed, from the name, evidently a south countryman at agricultural work, hence the name Peddle which is not of Highland origin. They struck off his head and went themselves to meet MacCónnuill whom they took prisoner, and brought to MacDougall. He however would take nothing to do with the captive. At the advice of an old man they then returned with their prisoner to Aros, and got him pledged to give his daughter to one of them. Lachlan married the daughter and got Dowart.

It is said by some that Hector was the oldest of the two brothers, and that when MacCónnuill the Lord of the Isles was out pleasure-sailing with his daughter, the brothers overtook his galley and seizing him said “The omen of your capture has overtaken you” (“_Tha manadh do ghlacaidh ort_”). He had no ransom to offer but his daughter and lands. Lachlan took the daughter, and with her he got the lands of Dowart. The other got the lands of Lochbuy. MacCónnuill gave for food to the child born of the Dowart marriage Little Hernisker with its twenty-four islands (_Earnasgeir bheag le ’cuid eileanan_). Afterwards, at Ardtornish, the fourth or fifth descendant of Dowart asked the then Lord of the Isles for a livelihood (_màthair bheathachaidh_). He got the reply, “Jump the wall where it is lowest” (“_Leum an gàradh far an ìsle e_”) which led to Ardgour being taken from MacMaster, who was known at the time to be no favourite with the Lord of the Isles, and the attack made upon his land was readily commuted into a chartered possession. The tradition is as follows:

The Lord of the Isles was lying sick at Ardtornish. The MacCónnuill, now commonly called MacDonald, claimed a jurisdiction independent of the Scottish Crown till about 1493 A.D. or thereabouts, and many if not all the chiefs of the Western Highlands and Islands paid him court. Among others MacMaster, chief, or proprietor, of Ardgour, came to pay his respects at that time. Ventilation was not then so much regarded in the case of the sick as it is now, and MacMaster, being offended at some breath from the sick chamber, said _Fùich, fùich_, an expression of disgust and offence. Unfortunately for himself the inadvertent expression was made a handle of, and was never forgiven to MacMaster by the Lord of the Isles. In consequence, when the Laird of Dowart, who was married to a near relative of his, came to ask for a means of livelihood (_màthair bheathachaidh_) to the child born of his marriage with the kinswoman of the Lord of the Isles, the potentate said to him, “Jump the wall where it is lowest” (_Leum an gàradh far an ìsle e_). The youth or young man being now of age to shift for himself, a company of men and a boat was given him by his father, and he made for Ardgour. A battle was then fought and MacMaster was defeated. One of MacMaster’s sons, who was surnamed the Fox (_An sionnach_), possibly because weakness often seeks to protect itself by wiliness and deceit or any other artifice that will give protection. In these stormy days any such means were more excusable. The Fox made his way to go across at Corran to the mainland after the battle. His father’s fisherman was then fishing in the neighbourhood of the ferry at Red Bay (_Port Dearg_), and the Fox called to him to throw him across to the other side. The fisherman who rejoiced in the cacophonous name of Carrascally (_Mac-a-Charrusglaich_), was deaf to his cry, and he only said that the cuddie fish was taking well (“_Gu ’n robh gabhail mhaith air na cudainnean_”) or that he lost his oars, and the young MacMaster had to hide himself in the adjoining wood. When the MacLeans came to the place, Carrascally said that there was a fox of the MacMasters still hiding in the wood, and the MacLeans pursued him. The cairn, or heap of stones, is still shown where the Fox was overtaken and slain.

Some say it was MacMaster himself, and not his son, who was flying after the defeat by the MacLeans, and was refused to be ferried by the fisherman, and that his son who was called the Fox, and had committed some fraud when abroad, was caught in Inverscaddel wood and was stabbed by MacLean.

The fisherman, who was rascally in more than name, came to MacLean and made claim to having done good service in having refused to help the fugitive; and in having pointed out that he was still in the wood. MacLean upon this put up three oars and made a gallows with them, on which he hanged the fisherman, or Carrascally, at the hangman’s cove (_Port-a-chrochaire_), saying if he had treated his master as he said he had done, it might be his turn another day, and the fisherman’s cunning recoiling upon himself has passed into a proverb “The officiousness, or discretionary power of MacCarrascally chasing MacMaster’s Fox,” (“_Meachanus Mhic a’ Charrasglaich ruith Sionnach Mhic a’ Mhaighstir_”). The MacLeans have ever since retained Ardgour, and have been esteemed for their position as Highland proprietors. Their title in Gaelic is _Mac-’Ic-Eoghain_ (the son of the son of Hugh). The son of the son of, or grandson, (_Mac-’Ic-_) being the word used in the Highlands of Scotland as the patronymic of Chiefs, instead of the O, or Grandson, used in Ireland, as O’ Donnell, O’ Brian, O’ Meagher, &c. Thus, the son of the son of Patrick (_Mac-’Ic-Phàdruig_) denotes Grant of Glenmoriston; the son of the son of Alexander (_Mac-’Ic-Alasdair_), the Chief of Glengarry; son of the son of Hector (_Mac-’Ic-Eachuinn_), MacLean who had once Kingairloch. The title of some Chiefs is only son of (_Mac_); as, Lochiel is known as the son of Dark Donald (_Mac Dho’uil Duibh_). The leading Highland Chief is known as _Mac Cailein_ (the son of Colin). The House of Argyll derives its Gaelic title from Colin, who was slain in a clan feud at the battle on the mountain known as the String of Lorn (_An t-Sreang Lathurnach_) when the ford, known as the Red Ford (_Ath Dearg_), ran red with blood.

DEATH OF BIG LACHLAN MACLEAN,

CHIEF OF DUART,--

(_Lachunn Mòr Dhuart_).

The Chiefs of Duart were among the most powerful and influential chiefs in the Highlands. Their power was absolute, bearing the control of neither King nor Parliament, and there are many stories shewing that they were very unsparing in visiting with their vengeance, and even taking the lives of those who offended them.

A very notorious sea-robber and land plunderer of whom there are many tales in the Isle of Skye raised a _creach_, or cattle-spoil, from MacDonald Lord of the Isles, who then occupied a fort on the site of the present manse of Kilchoman in Islay. He managed also to circulate a report that it was the MacLeans from Mull who were the depredators. At that time MacLean, Duart, was ambitious to be overlord of a great part of Islay, and _Lachunn Mòr_ came with a band of followers to Gruinard beach in the neighbourhood of the fort.

It is said that before leaving Mull, he was standing on the roof of Aros Castle which overlooks the Sound of Mull and on its being pointed out that an expedition to Islay would be very dangerous to his men, he said, that he did not care though there should not be a MacLean in Mull except those descended from himself. Neither he himself nor his men came back from the ill-fated expedition. After landing at Gruinard beach (_Tràigh Ghrunnard_) he was met by the MacDonalds. A little man, known in tradition as the Black Elf (_Dubh Sith_) and (_Ochd-rann bodaich_), or eighth part of a man--[In Scotch the eighth part would be the lippie used for measuring grain and meal. According to the table to be found in old Reckoning Books a boll consists of two pecks and each peck of four lippies. This makes each lippie equal to an eighth part of a boll],--offered his services for the battle to MacLean, but the haughty Chief rejected the offer with disdain. The Black Elf then went to MacDonald, who accepted his offer; and during all the current of the heady fight the dwarf was observed to follow MacLean for an opportunity to kill him with an arrow. An opportunity having at last occurred by MacLean lifting his arm, an arrow was launched and MacLean was pierced on the side, and fell with a deadly wound. Having lost their Chief the MacLeans were routed with loss, and those who escaped from the battle, having taken refuge in a neighbouring church, were destroyed by the MacDonalds, who set the church on fire. The body of Lachunn Mòr was taken on a sledge, there being no wheeled vehicles in those days, to Kilchoman burying-ground. Some say that the person who took him was his wife, and others say it was his foster-mother. His head from the motion of the sledge nodded in a manner that made the boy who accompanied her laugh. She was so much offended at his ill-timed merriment that she took a sword and killed him on the spot. The site of this tragedy in Benviger is still pointed out and the place where Lachunn Mòr himself was buried is known to the people of the place although no headstone marks it.

MACLEANS OF COLL.

The Laird of Dowart was on his way to gather rent in Tiree, and sent ashore to Kelis (_Caolas_), Coll, for meat (_biadhtachd_). The woman of the house told MacLean was not worth sending meat to, and Dowart kindly came ashore to see why she said so. She said it because he was not taking Coll for himself. Three brothers from Lochlin had Coll at the time, Big Annla (_Annla Mòr_) in Loch Annla, another in _Dun bithig_ in Totronald, and the third in Grisipol hill. She had thirty men herself fit to bear arms. Dowart went to Loch Annla fort late in the evening alone, and was hospitably received. Annla’s arrows were near the fire, and Dowart gradually edged near them till he managed to make off with them. This led to a fight at Grimsari and is perhaps the reason why Dowart encouraged _Iain Garbh_ to make himself master of Coll.

Stout John (_Iain Garbh_) was the fourth MacLean,--others say the first of Coll. When nine or twelve months old, his mother, having become a widow, had married MacNeill of Barra, _Iain Garbh_ was sent by his step-father to Barra, in charge of a nurse (_ban-altruim_). This woman was courted by a Barra-man, whom, as her charge was a pretty boy, she at first refused. Her lover, however, got word that _Iain Garbh_ was to be killed at MacNeill’s instigation, and told her. The three fled, in a boat with two oars, from Barra during night. An eight-oared galley (_ochd ràmhach_), with a steersman set off in chase. At Sorisdale in Coll, beyond Eilereig, in the borderline (crìch) between Sorisdale and Boust, there is a narrow sound, for which both boats were making, and the little one was almost overtaken. It was overtake and not overtake (_beir‘s cha bheir_). The little boat went through the sound (_caolas_) safely, but the oars of the large boat were broken. Hence, ’The Sound of Breaking Oars’ (_Caolas ’Bhriste-Ràmh_) is the name of the Sound to this day. The little boat put to sea again, and was lost to sight. The Barra men went to every harbour near, “The Wooded Bay” (_Bàgh na Coille_) &c., where they thought it might come, but they never saw it again. It is supposed it went to Mull. There is no further mention of the Barra man or the nurse. Stout John (_Iain Garbh_) went to Ireland, and when well grown told the woman with whom he stayed that he had a dream of a pile of oaten cakes (_tòrr de bhonnaich choirce_) and a drip from the roof (_boinne snithe_), had fallen and gone right through them. The woman said the dream meant he was a laird of land (_ceannard fearainn_) and would get back his own. On this he came to Mull, and having got men, of whom seven were from Dervaig, the baldheaded black fellow, (_gille maol dubh_) afterwards known as Grizzled Lad (_Gille Riabhach_) being one of them with him, went to Coll. His companions vowed to kill whatever living (_beò_) they fell in with first, after landing in Coll. Stout John (_Iain Garbh_) had a mark on the forehead by his having fallen on the edge of an iron pot. His foster-mother (_muime_) was gathering shellfish (_buain maoraich_). He went to speak to her, when he came behind her as she stumbled, and she exclaimed, “God be with MacLean” (“_Dia le Mac-’illeathain_”), “My loss that MacLean is not alive” (“_Mo sgaradh nach bu mhairionn do Mhac-’illeathain_”). When pressed to explain herself she said, “Conceal what I said: many an unfortunate word women say” (“_Dean rùn maith orm: is ioma facal tubaisdeach their na mnathan_”), and at last he told her his story. It had been long foretold that he would return. The Mull men came up, and the Grizzled Lad (_Gille Riabhach_) was going to kill the woman, according to the vow. Stout John (_Iain Garbh_) told who she was, and her life was spared. She informed them that MacNeill sent a servant every day from Grisipol House, where his headquarters were, to Breacacha for news. If all was well, the messenger was to return riding slowly with his face to the horse’s tail; if any one returned with him, a friend was to walk on the right of the horse, a stranger (_fògarach_) on the left; and she said that he had just left on his way home. Stout John (_Iain Garbh_) and his companions left the Hidden Anchorage (_Acarsaid Fhalaich_) and went to the top of the place called Desert (_Fàsach_). They there saw the rider of the white horse at Arileòid. Stout John (_Iain Garbh_) promised reward to any one who would intercept him, before he reached Grisipol. The Grizzled Lad (_Gille Riabhach_) said he would do so, if he got Dervaig, his native place, rent free. MacLean promised this, but the lad said, “Words may be great till it comes to solemn oaths” (_Is mór briathran gun lughadh_), made him swear to the deed. The Grizzled Lad (_Gille Riabhach_) set off, and above the Broad Knoll (_Cnoc Leathan_) saw the horseman at the township of Hough. When at the Stone of Moaning (_Clach Ochanaich_), on the top of Ben Hough, he saw him past Clabbach. He made for the road, near the present Free Church Manse, and lay down, and pretending to be a beggar began to hunt through his clothes. Where the Little Cairn of the King’s Son (_Carnan mhic an Righ_) stands, the horseman came up, was pulled off his horse and killed. The lad then waited till his companions came up, and proceeded to Grisipol with two on each side. It was dinner time, and his servant the Black Lad (_Gille Dubh_) brought word to MacNeill of the party coming. His wife, looking out of an opening, said one of the party coming looked like her son. MacNeill exclaimed, “War time is not a time for sleep” (“_Cha-n àm cadal an cogadh_”), and went out to give battle. In the fight the Grizzled Lad (_Gille Riabhach_) was hard pressed by the Black Lad, (_Gille Dubh_), and sideways jumped the stream that runs past Grisipol House at the place still known as the Grizzly Lad’s leap (_Leum a’ Ghille Riabhaich_) to avoid the blow of the battle-axe. The axe stuck in the ground, and before it was recovered, the Grizzly Lad (_Gille Riabhach_), jumping back, threw off the Black Lad’s (_Gille Dubh_) head. Stout John (_Iain Garbh_) was hard pressed by MacNeill himself, and both were out in the sea at the foot of the stream.

“Disgrace on you MacLean, though it is enough that you are being driven by the son of the skate-eating carl” (“_Miapadh ort, a Mhic ’illeathainn, ’s leoir tha thu gabhail iomain roimh Mhac bodach nan sgat_”), said the Grizzly Lad (_Gille Riabhach_) coming up to them, and then calling to MacNeill, “I am not in a mood to deceive you, there they are behind you” (“_Cha bhi mi ’m brath foille dhuit, sin iad agad air do chùlthaobh_”), and when MacNeill turned round the Grizzly Lad (_Gille Riabhach_) threw off his head with the axe. The MacNeills fled and were beset and killed in the Hollow of bones (_Slochd-nan-cnàmh_) in the lower part of Grisipol Hill (_Iochdar Beinn Ghrisipol_). They then returned to Grisipol, and MacNeill’s widow, Stout John’s (_Iain Garbh’s_) mother, held up her child a suckling (_ciocharan_), that Stout John (_Iain Garbh_) might spare him and acknowledge his own half-brother. He was for sparing it, but the Grizzly Lad (_Gille Riabhach_) told him to put the needle on the ploughshare (_cuir an t-snathad air a’ choltar_). The child was killed.

An additional if not a different account is:

Stout John (_Iain Garbh_) first of Coll, when a boy, was obliged to fly from Coll to Dowart, and his mother married MacNeill of Barra. When he came of age, and was for making good his claim to his native island, in raising the clan he came to a widow’s house in Dervaig. She said her other sons were away, or they would be at his service, and she had only a big stripling of a grizzly looking lad (_Stiall mòr de ghille riabhach_) if he choose to take him. He took him, and it was well for him he did. It is said that this family of whom the Grizzly Lad (_Gille Riabhach_) was one, and whose services were at MacLean’s command, were Campbells. MacNeill kept a man with a white horse at Arinagour, and if the MacLeans were heard to land in the island, he was to ride off at full speed to Breacacha. If anything was wrong the messenger was to turn his head to the horse’s tail when he came in sight of Breacacha. The Grizzly Lad (_Gille Riabhach_) took across the hill, where there is now a straight road, and intercepted this rider. On hearing from him that MacNeill was at Grisipol, he suddenly leapt behind him on the horse, and killed him with his dirk. He rode back to his own party, and then slowly to Grisipol where the MacNeills were at dinner.

MacLean and his men were faint and weary for want of food. They had not tasted anything since they left Mull. They entered a tenant’s house and asked food. The man had nothing for them, once he had enough, but since the MacLeans had left the island, he had come to grief and poverty. He said to Stout John (_Iain Garbh_) his heart warmed to him, he was so like his ancient masters. On learning who they were he gave all the milk he had to them.

At the fight at Grisipol, the Grizzly Lad (_Gille Riabhach_) was hard pressed by MacNeill’s body servant, who was armed with a battle-axe. On the margin of the stream, as the axe was raised to strike down, he leaped backwards, and upwards, across the stream, and the place of the leap is still known as the ‘Grizzly Lad’s leap’ (_Leum a’ Ghille Riabhaich_). The axe went into the ground, and before MacNeill’s man could defend himself the Grizzly Lad (_Gille Riabhach_) jumped back and threw off his head.

Stout John (_Iain Garbh_) himself was hard pressed by MacNeill, and driven to the beach. The Grizzly Lad (_Gille Riabhach_) came to his rescue. MacNeill’s wife cried out to Stout John (_Iain Garbh_) her son by her first marriage, that his enemies were coming behind him. The Grizzly Lad (_Gille Riabhach_) called out to him to watch his enemies in front, and he would watch those behind.

MacNeill and his men were killed. The Grizzly Lad (_Gille Riabhach_) said he would take to flight and pretend to be one of the MacNeills, of whom another party was coming to the rescue from Breacacha. He fled and made signals to the MacNeills to fly. They fled to a cave near the Hidden Anchorage (_Acarsaid fhalaich_) where their bones are still to be seen.

When Stout John (_Iain Garbh_) entered Grisipol house, his mother stood before him with a child, his half brother, on her shoulder. She told him to look at his young brother smiling at him. Stout John (_Iain Garbh_) was for sparing the infant but the Grizzly Lad (_Gille Riabhach_) warned him, the child if spared to come of age would avenge his father’s death, and he himself stabbed the infant with his dirk on his mother’s shoulder.

BROWNS OF TIREE.

(_Clann-a-Bhruthain_).

The Browns of Tiree at the present day are called _Brunaich_, sing. _Brunach_, evidently a word not of native origin, and likely an adaptation of the English Brown. Brown as the name of a colour is an English word but not Gaelic, the Gaelic for it being _donn_, hence as a clan name many affirm that the Brown of the present day is a corruption or modification of _Bruthainn_ certainly the older name, and till very recently, the name given to a sept or portion of the Browns. There are also many who maintain that the oldest form of all is _Mac-’ill-duinn_. Other explanations are also put forward in behalf of the origin of the name, but none of them are satisfactorily conclusive. The following story of how the Browns came first to Tiree is a tradition as like to be true as any other. It was heard from a native of the island, well acquainted with the traditions of his countrymen.

The wife of MacLean of Dowart was a daughter of the Lord of the Isles. Her father on visiting her at Aros had found her destitute of table-linen, and on her being spoken to on the subject, she said that there was no place on the estate where lint could be grown. Her father then gave her the island of Tiree as a good flax-growing country, that she might not be open to that reproach any longer. In this way the island of Tiree remained in the possession of the Dowart family till the forfeiture of the clan towards the end of the seventeenth century. The MacLeans seem to have ruled the island with a rod of iron. There is still shewn the hillock called the Bank of the Gallows (_Bac na Croiche_), where the man who came in last with his rent at collection time was hanged. A party of strong men called ‘MacLean’s attributes’ (_buaidheanan Mhic-’illeathain_) but more correctly oppressors and bullies, were kept in the island to overawe the people.

This wife of Dowart, with her galley and men, was at Croig in Mull, awaiting for a passage across to Tiree. When the men were getting the galley in order, a big strong man was observed making his way to the boat. His appearance was that of a beggar, with tattered and patched garments (_lùirichean_). He quietly asked to be allowed a passage with them. The master of the boat gruffly refused, saying, that they would not allow one like him to be in the same boat with their mistress, but the beggar said that his being there would make no difference, and asked the favour of getting a passage from her. She gave him permission and he seated himself at the end of the boat furthest from her to avoid giving trouble to her. The day was becoming boisterous; it was not long till the master said that the wind was becoming too high, and the day unlikely. A heavy sea was shipped wetting the Lady of Dowart, and the beggar said to the master, “Can you not steer better than that?” The master said “Could you do better?” The beggar replied “It would not be difficult for me to do better than that at any rate. Show me the direction where you wish to go,” and on it being shewn to him he added “I think you may go on that you will make land.”

“What do you know?” the other said, “it is none of your business to speak here.”