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Highland Folklore

by R MacDonald Robertson, WS, FSA (Scot)

A belief in the supernatural prevails almost universally among the tribes of mankind.  Man has always chafed at the limitations of his knowledge, and has tended to see in any unusual experience the manifestation of mysterious powers.

The Scottish Highlands are a perfect setting for contacts of all kinds with the supernatural.  John Buchan writes in "Midwinter" about the North of Scotland:  "It is the land of the edge of moorlands and the ruins of forests and the twilight before dawn, and strange knowledge dwells in it".

The depth andremoteness of the solitude, the huge peaks, the deep chasms between the rocks, the dark gloom of the primeval forests, the deep black lochs - are full of associations of awe and grandeur and mystery.  There is hardly a glen or river north of the Forth that has not its own supernatural inhabitant.

In spite of the advent of (so-called) civilisation, the old beliefs linger on among the silent fastnesses of the Highland hills;  from clachan and shieling come "tales, marvellous tales", of phantasms of the living and apparitions of the dead;  of compacts with the devil and fights with the same dark being;  of fairies who haunt green knolls and grey cliffs;  of mermaids and witches, and strange incredible monsters in loch and river and sea, as well as dwellers in the sky.

In any collections of Highland legends, the first and most important place must be assigned to the Fairy People.

Throughout the greater part of the North, the fairies are regarded as things of the past.  A common belief is that they existed once, though they are not now seen.  They were believed to dwell inside green hillocks and knolls, in gorgeous palaces.  They usually appeared as men or women of small stature, dressed in green, or grey, though they could assume any shape at will.  While the sith had no inborn antagonism towards human beings, and were occasionally known to do good turns to their favourites, they were very quick to take offence, capricious in their behaviour, and delighted in playing tricks on their mortal neighbours.  These cantrips had to be patiently endured, as resistance or hostility might lead to dreadful reprisals - the kidnapping of children or even adults.  An attitude of passive friendliness on the human side was therefore assumed to be eminently desirable.  Contact with the fairies was never productive of good in the end.

People deemed it advisable to maintain good relations with the "Secret Commonwealth", and with this in view, bestowed on them various titles such as "Good Neighbours".  Scott refers to this practice in Rob Roy, when he makes Bailie Nicol Jarvie say to his companion, as they are passing the fairy-hill near the eastern extremity of the valley of Aberfoyle: "They ca' them...Daoine Sith, quhilk signifies, as I understand, men of peace, meaning thereby to make their gudewill.  And we may e'en as well ca' them that too, Mr Osbaldistone, for there's nae gude in speaking ill'o the laird within his ain bounds".

Cold iron, in the form of a horse shoe, was believed to be the most effective charm against the Sith, and the cross of rowan - fastened above the door of many a Highland homestead - was intended to keep the house and its occupants safe from their interference.

Although they often got mortals to play the pipes for them, the Sith were reputed to have great musical skill of their own, and when men and women of human race were stolen and taken into their dwellings, or beguiled into them, one of the greatest inducements to stay was the allurement of the fairy music.

Of Fairy Music, James Stephens writes:  "From the darkness there came...a low, sweet sound; thrilling joyous, thrillingly low; so low the ear could scarcely note it, so sweet the ear wished to catch nothing else, and would strive to hear it rather than all sounds that may be heard by man: the music of another world; the unearthly, dear melody of the south. So sweet it was that the sense strained to it, and having reached must follow drowsily in its wake, and would merge in it, and could not return to its own place until that strange harmony was finished and the ear restored to freedom".

Sometimes the fairies communicated their musical skill to mortal favourites.  To them has been ascribed the excellence in music of the MacCrimmons, for centuries pipers to the Macleods.

The "Glaistig" was a mortal who had assumed a fairy nature.  She liked to frequent human habitations, took part in domestic chores, and was always busiest at nightfall, keeping watch over cattle, or other farm animals, on the hillsides.

The "Urisk" was a big, stupid supernatural being, of solitary habits and harmless nature, which had its dwelling not in the haunts of men but in solitude and remote localities.  It was usually seen in the evening, sitting on a rock, "mor glas" (big and grey), and peering at the intruders on its solitude.  The "Urisk" occasionally spoke to passers-by, and is even said to have attacked some; but as a rule it did not meddle with those of mortal race.

Stories of monsters are (in terms of the late John Gregorson Campbell) "dependent not so much on the imagination of the individual spectator as on accumulated rumours; and their explanation is to be sought in men's love of the marvellous and tendency to exaggeration".

A rock by the loch-side looming up in the darkness; a pine tree swayed by the wind; an upturned boat on the shore; a fog-bank stretching out to sea in the grey dawn - all might easily be mistaken for strange creatures hostile to man, and once this belief became popular, fear and rumour would do the rest;  but quite apart from this there are many queer phenomena which are unaccounted for at this present day.

The early tales concerning monsters and waterhorses and mermaids and the like belong to the region of folklore rather than fiction, and appear with comparatively little variation in the traditions of all countries.

The "Cirein croin" (sea-serpent) was believed by Highlanders and Islanders to be the largest animal in the world.  They called it "Mial mhor a chuain" (Great beast of the ocean).

The "Mer folk" were the traditional inhabitants of the briny deep.  Until a few years ago there were few accounts of mermen; but Highland and Island lore teems with allusions to the mermaids who dwell

"Fathoms deep beneath the wave,

Stringing beads of glistening pearl"

who often come up from the sea-caves to disport themselves on the shore and are to be seen in the quiet bays, floating on the surface of the water and mingling their voices with the sighing breeze.

While there is hardly a loch or corrie in the Highlands that has not its reputed "Big Beast", Celtic tradition has few stories of "beithrichean" (dragons).  There are, of course, the legends concerning "The Dragon of Strathmartine" in Forfarshire;  "The Ben Vair Dragons" of Glencoe; and "The Beast of the Charred Forests" (Peat Fire Flame), which are fairly well known.

Stories concerning the "each uisge" or water-horse (also known as "kelpie") are told all over the Scottish Highlands.  It is believed that the creature could assume human form; but in shape it was most often said to resemble an ordinary horse, grey or white in colour with a long, flowing mane and tail;  and might easily be mistaken for one.  This dreaded beast was reputed to lurk by lonely tarns and sea-lochs and to be able by some strange fascination to lure unsuspecting persons to their doom.

Unlike the "each uisge", the "tarbh-uisge" (water bull) was quite harmless, and did not interfere with those who came near its haunts.  It lived in small lonely tarns among the hills, from which it emerged only at night.  Its lowing was heard after sundown - a weird sound "like the crowing of a cock" - as it came from its lair to graze with the farmer's cattle; but it was seldom seen.  Calves born with short ears, or, as called in Gaelic, "carechluasach" (knife-eared), were said to be the offspring of the "Tarbh-uisge".  It had no ears itself, and hence its calves had only half ears!  An eye-witness account of the water-bull, from Lorne, describes it as a black animal, velvety and soft in appearance.

Wild swans are called in the North "the enchanted kings".  It is said that the watcher by the shores of the firth or by the lonely mountain tarn may see them taking off their "cochull" (coverings) and resuming their proper shape as men in their endeavours to free themselves from the spell they are under.  This, however, is impossible until three times three hundred years are passed; so they are obliged to assume their swan feathers once more.

The belief in portents of death in the form of "Ghost Lights" is deeply seated in the mind of the Highlander. There are apparently very few who have not had a "manadh" (warning) of some sort during their life.  It is an undoubted fact that fire has taken a place in common with death ceremonies among the Gael, for, at death, it is believed that "all fires are extinguished".

In regard to the Northern Lights, on winter nights, when there is peace on sea and land, the "Fir-chlisneach" (Nimble Men or Merry Dancers) come forth to dance in the northern sky.  Such is the poetic expression given by the romantically-minded Celt of the scientific phenomenon known as the "Aurora Borealis", those

"Fearful lights that never beacon

Save when kings or heroes die".

Another name for the Northern Lights is "The Streamers", and it is said that when they have a battle among themselves, as often happens, the blood of the wounded falls to the earth and becomes congealed in the form of "Bloodstones", called in the Hebrides "fuil siochaire" (elf's blood).

Fairies, mermaids, water-horses and kindred supernatural beings are distinct from the evil spirits that gave to witches their unhallowed powers.  The "beanshithe" and the "each uisge" could not be compelled by mortals to appear when wanted, or to aid them:  the Powers of darkness on the other hand, were always at the services of their votaries, and by means of charms and incantations known to the initiated might be made to lend their aid in any nefarious scheme.

Witchcraft, which Andrew Lang defined as "as web of fraud, folk-medicine and fairy tales", is one of the strangest and most persistent of Celtic beliefs.  It is a combination of many powers, including a dependence on the Devil.  Witches were believed to work by spells, divinations and the Evil Eye.  They could transform themselves into the shape of animals, especially hares and cats, and by various ways, work disaster to man and beast.  The Highland Witches though they once (according to Lindsay) could muster round their prototype of Endor in numerous groups, from

"Athole and Argyle,

And from the Rhynnis of Galloway

With money woefull walloway"

have now dwindled down to a few old women, deemed "unlucky to meet" by their neighbours.

The 16th and 17th centuries were troublous and unsettled times in Athole - a period of sieges and feuds, and of strife between the Strathardle lairds and the Earls of Athole.  This was the golden age of witchcraft and witches and sorcerers undaunted by severe laws against the practising of the Black Art, by the witch trials and subsequent tortures, were swarming in Athole.  But although belief in their existence is rapidly dying out, stories of witches and their ways are still repeated at the Ceilidh.

In the folklore of the Scottish Highlands there is no chapter more extraordinary, and few more interesting, than that which deals with Second Sight.  Much that is merely traditional has without doubt accumulated round the subject; but there still remain a considerable number of well-authenticated anecdotes that deserve the attention both of the investigator and of the psychologist.

The professional sages of the Gaelic chiefs carried the whole of the mediaeval literature of entertainment in their heads and recited it on public occasions.  The common people were thus familiarised with it, and when, with the break-up of traditional Gaelic society in the 17th and 18th centuries, the sages were themselves depressed to the common level, they brought their tales, songs and manuscripts with them.  Hence many ancient literary tales and poems, became established within the frame of Gaelic folklore; with the result that it is more literary in character than any other European folklore.  Folktale-tellers themselves were people of high intelligence and powers of memory, artists who appreciated the consideration brought by their position as communal entertainers.  It is to be regretted that the Gaelic folktale is approaching extinction, killed by bigotry and modern urbanised sophistication; but enough is still left to make it essential to press on now with collection before it is too late.

Gaelic folklore constitutes an amazing survival of the thought and life of the Middle Ages into the 20th century, and it is our urgent duty to see that the situation is not left as incomplete as it is today.

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