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Folklore and Legends from Scotland

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Section 1 of 17
FOLK-LORE AND LEGENDS
SCOTLAND


W. W. GIBBINGS
18 BURY ST., LONDON, W.C.
1889

Contents:

   Prefatory Note
   Canobie Dick and Thomas of Ercildoun.
   Coinnach Oer.
   Elphin Irving.
   The Ghosts of Craig-Aulnaic.
   The Doomed Rider.
   Whippety Stourie.
   The Weird of the Three Arrows.
   The Laird of Balmachie's Wife.
   Michael Scott.
   The Minister and the Fairy.
   The Fisherman and the Merman.
   The Laird O' Co'.
   Ewen of the Little Head.
   Jock and his Mother.
   Saint Columba.
   The Mermaid Wife.
   The Fiddler and the Bogle of Bogandoran.
   Thomas the Rhymer.
   Fairy Friends.
   The Seal-Catcher's Adventure.
   The Fairies of Merlin's Craig.
   Rory Macgillivray.
   The Haunted Ships.
   The Brownie.
   Mauns' Stane.
   "Horse and Hattock."
   Secret Commonwealth.
   The Fairy Boy of Leith.
   The Dracae.
   Lord Tarbat's Relations.
   The Bogle.
   Daoine Shie, or the Men of Peace.
   The Death "Bree."




PREFATORY NOTE


The distinctive features of Scotch Folk-lore are such as might have been
expected from a consideration of the characteristics of Scotch scenery.
The rugged grandeur of the mountain, the solemn influence of the
widespreading moor, the dark face of the deep mountain loch, the babbling
of the little stream, seem all to be reflected in the popular tales and
superstitions.  The acquaintance with nature in a severe, grand, and
somewhat terrible form must necessarily have its effect on the human
mind, and the Scotch mind and character bear the impress of their natural
surroundings.  The fairies, the brownies, the bogles of Scotland are the
same beings as those with whom the Irish have peopled the hills, the
nooks, and the streams of their land, yet how different, how
distinguished from their counterparts, how clothed, as it were, in the
national dress!




CANOBIE DICK AND THOMAS OF ERCILDOUN.


Now it chanced many years since that there lived on the Borders a jolly
rattling horse-cowper, who was remarkable for a reckless and fearless
temper, which made him much admired and a little dreaded amongst his
neighbours.  One moonlight night, as he rode over Bowden Moor, on the
west side of the Eildon Hills, the scene of Thomas the Rhymer's
prophecies, and often mentioned in his history, having a brace of horses
along with him, which he had not been able to dispose of, he met a man of
venerable appearance and singularly antique dress, who, to his great
surprise, asked the price of his horses, and began to chaffer with him on
the subject.  To Canobie Dick, for so shall we call our Border dealer, a
chap was a chap, and he would have sold a horse to the devil himself,
without minding his cloven hoof, and would have probably cheated Old Nick
into the bargain.  The stranger paid the price they agreed on, and all
that puzzled Dick in the transaction was, that the gold which he received
was in unicorns, bonnet-pieces, and other ancient coins, which would have
been invaluable to collectors, but were rather troublesome in modern
currency.  It was gold, however, and therefore Dick contrived to get
better value for the coin than he perhaps gave to his customer.  By the
command of so good a merchant, he brought horses to the same spot more
than once; the purchaser only stipulating that he should always come by
night and alone.  I do not know whether it was from mere curiosity, or
whether some hope of gain mixed with it, but after Dick had sold several
horses in this way, he began to complain that dry bargains were unlucky,
and to hint, that since his chap must live in the neighbourhood, he
ought, in the courtesy of dealing, to treat him to half a mutchkin.

"You may see my dwelling if you will," said the stranger; "but if you
lose courage at what you see there, you will rue it all your life."

Dickon, however, laughed the warning to scorn, and having alighted to
secure his horse, he followed the stranger up a narrow footpath, which
led them up the hills to the singular eminence stuck betwixt the most
southern and the centre peaks, and called, from its resemblance to such
an animal in its form, the Lucken Hare.  At the foot of this eminence,
which is almost as famous for witch-meetings as the neighbouring windmill
of Kippilaw, Dick was somewhat startled to observe that his conductor
entered the hillside by a passage or cavern, of which he himself, though
well acquainted with the spot, had never seen nor heard.

"You may still return," said his guide, looking ominously back upon him;
but Dick scorned to show the white feather, and on they went.  They
entered a very long range of stables; in every stall stood a coal-black
horse; by every horse lay a knight in coal-black armour, with a drawn
sword in his hand; but all were as silent, hoof and limb, as if they had
been cut out of marble.  A great number of torches lent a gloomy lustre
to the hall, which, like those of the Caliph Vathek, was of large
dimensions.  At the upper end, however, they at length arrived, where a
sword and horn lay on an antique table.

"He that shall sound that horn and draw that sword," said the stranger,
who now intimated that he was the famous Thomas of Ercildoun, "shall, if
his heart fail him not, be king over all broad Britain.  So speaks the
tongue that cannot lie.  But all depends on courage, and much on your
taking the sword or horn first."

Dick was much disposed to take the sword, but his bold spirit was quailed
by the supernatural terrors of the hall, and he thought to unsheathe the
sword first might be construed into defiance, and give offence to the
powers of the mountain.  He took the bugle with a trembling hand, and
blew a feeble note, but loud enough to produce a terrible answer.  Thunder
rolled in stunning peals through the immense hall; horses and men started
to life; the steeds snorted, stamped, ground their bits, and tossed their
heads; the warriors sprang to their feet, clashed their armour, and
brandished their swords.  Dick's terror was extreme at seeing the whole
army, which had been so lately silent as the grave, in uproar, and about
to rush on him.  He dropped the horn, and made a feeble attempt to seize
the enchanted sword; but at the same moment a voice pronounced aloud the
mysterious words--

   "Woe to the coward, that ever he was born,
   Who did not draw the sword before he blew the horn!"

At the same time a whirlwind of irresistible fury howled through the long
hall, bore the unfortunate horse-jockey clear out of the mouth of the
cavern, and precipitated him over a steep bank of loose stones, where the
shepherds found him the next morning, with just breath sufficient to tell
his fearful tale, after concluding which he expired.




COINNACH OER.


Coinnach Oer, which means Dun Kenneth, was a celebrated man in his
generation.  He has been called the Isaiah of the North.  The prophecies
of this man are very frequently alluded to and quoted in various parts of
the Highlands; although little is known of the man himself, except in
Ross-shire.  He was a small farmer in Strathpeffer, near Dingwall, and
for many years of his life neither exhibited any talents, nor claimed any
intelligence above his fellows.  The manner in which he obtained the
prophetic gift was told by himself in the following manner:--

As he was one day at work in the hill casting (digging) peats, he heard a
voice which seemed to call to him out of the air.  It commanded him to
dig under a little green knoll which was near, and to gather up the small
white stones which he would discover beneath the turf.  The voice
informed him, at the same time, that while he kept these stones in his
possession, he should be endued with the power of supernatural
foreknowledge.

Kenneth, though greatly alarmed at this aerial conversation, followed the
directions of his invisible instructor, and turning up the turf on the
hillock, in a little time discovered the talismans.  From that day
forward, the mind of Kenneth was illuminated by gleams of unearthly
light; and he made many predictions, of which the credulity of the
people, and the coincidence of accident, often supplied confirmation; and
he certainly became the most notable of the Highland prophets.  The most
remarkable and well known of his vaticinations is the
following:--"Whenever a M'Lean with long hands, a Fraser with a black
spot on his face, a M'Gregor with a black knee, and a club-footed M'Leod
of Raga, shall have existed; whenever there shall have been successively
three M'Donalds of the name of John, and three M'Kinnons of the same
Christian name,--oppressors will appear in the country, and the people
will change their own land for a strange one."  All these personages have
appeared since; and it is the common opinion of the peasantry, that the
consummation of the prophecy was fulfilled, when the exaction of the
exorbitant rents reduced the Highlanders to poverty, and the introduction
of the sheep banished the people to America.

Whatever might have been the gift of Kenneth Oer, he does not appear to
have used it with an extraordinary degree of discretion; and the last
time he exercised it, he was very near paying dear for his divination.

On this occasion he happened to be at some high festival of the M'Kenzies
at Castle Braan.  One of the guests was so exhilarated by the scene of
gaiety, that he could not forbear an eulogium on the gallantry of the
feast, and the nobleness of the guests.  Kenneth, it appears, had no
regard for the M'Kenzies, and was so provoked by this sally in their
praise, that he not only broke out into a severe satire against their
whole race, but gave vent to the prophetic denunciation of wrath and
confusion upon their posterity.  The guests being informed (or having
overheard a part) of this rhapsody, instantly rose up with one accord to
punish the contumely of the prophet.  Kenneth, though he foretold the
fate of others, did not in any manner look into that of himself; for this
reason, being doubtful of debating the propriety of his prediction upon
such unequal terms, he fled with the greatest precipitation.  The
M'Kenzies followed with infinite zeal; and more than one ball had
whistled over the head of the seer before he reached Loch Ousie.  The
consequences of this prediction so disgusted Kenneth with any further
exercise of his prophetic calling, that, in the anguish of his flight, he
solemnly renounced all communication with its power; and, as he ran along
the margin of Loch Ousie, he took out the wonderful pebbles, and cast
them in a fury into the water.  Whether his evil genius had now forsaken
him, or his condition was better than that of his pursuers, is unknown,
but certain it is, Kenneth, after the sacrifice of the pebbles,
outstripped his enraged enemies, and never, so far as I have heard, made
any attempt at prophecy from the hour of his escape.

Kenneth Oer had a son, who was called Ian Dubh Mac Coinnach (Black John,
the son of Kenneth), and lived in the village of Miltoun, near Dingwall.
His chief occupation was brewing whisky; and he was killed in a fray at
Miltoun, early in the present century.  His exit would not have formed
the catastrophe of an epic poem, and appears to have been one of those
events of which his father had no intelligence, for it happened in the
following manner:--

Having fallen into a dispute with a man with whom he had previously been
on friendly terms, they proceeded to blows; in the scuffle, the boy, the
son of Ian's adversary, observing the two combatants locked in a close
and firm gripe of eager contention, and being doubtful of the event, ran
into the house and brought out the iron pot-crook, with which he saluted
the head of the unfortunate Ian so severely, that he not only
relinquished his combat, but departed this life on the ensuing morning.
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