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Folklore and Legends from Scotland
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.