I was abroad on the moors one day in the company of a shepherd, and
we were talking of the lapwing that were plentiful there, and were
that day wailing continuously in an uneasy wavering flight. I had seen
them act thus, in this excess of alarm, in this prolonged restless
excitement, when the hill-falcons were hovering overhead in the nesting
season: and, again, just before the unloosening of wind and rain and
the sudden fires of the thundercloud. But John Logan the shepherd told
me that now it was neither coming lightnings nor drifting hawk nor
eagle that made all this trouble among the ‘peewits.’ “The wind’s goin’
to mak’ a sudden veer,” he said--adding abruptly a little later, “an’
by the same token we’ll have rain upon us soon.”
I looked at the cold blue of the sky, and at the drift of the few
clouds trailing out of the east or south-east, and could see no sign
of any change of wind or likelihood of rain.
“What makes you think that?” I asked.
“Weel,” he answered literally, “I don’t think it. It’s the peewits
an’ the craws that ken swifter than oursels; it’s they that tell, an’
I think they’re better at the business than thae folk wha haver awa’
in the papers, an’ are sometimes richt because they canna help it an’
oftener wrang because it’s maistly guesswork.”
“Well, what do the peewits and the crows say?--though I haven’t seen
crow or rook or corbie for the last hour.”
“Thae peewits an’ a’ the plovers are a’ the same. If the win’s gaun to
leap out of the east intae the sooth-wast, or slide quickly from the
north intae the wast, they’ll gang on wheelin’ an’ wailin’ like yon for
an hour or mair, an’ that afore there’s the least sign o’ a change. An’
as for the craws ... weel, if ye had been lookin’ up a wee whilie ago
ye’d ’a seen a baker’s dozen go by, slantin’ on the edge o’ the win’,
like boats before a stiff breeze. Aye, an’ see there! ... there’s a
wheen mair comin’ up overhead.”
I glanced skyward, and saw some eight or ten rooks flying high and
evidently making for the mountain-range about two miles away to our
left.
“D’ye see that ... thae falling birds?”
“Yes,” I answered, noticing a singular occasional fall in the general
steady flight, as though the suddenly wheeling bird had been shot: “and
what o’ that, John?”
“It’s just this: when ye see craws flyin’ steady like that an’ then
yince in a while drapping oot like yon, ye may tak’ it as meanin’
there’s heavy rain no that great way aff: onyways, when ye see the like
when thae black deils are fleein’ straight for the hills, ye maun feel
sure frae the double sign that ye’ll hae a good chance o’ being drookit
afore twa-three hours.”
One question led to another, and I heard much crow and corbie lore from
John Logan, some of it already familiar to me and some new to me or
vaguely half-known--as the legend that the corbies or ravens, and with
them all the crow-kind, were originally white, but at the time of the
Deluge were turned sooty-black because the head of the clan, when sent
out by Noah from the Ark, did not return, but stayed to feed on the
bodies of the drowned. “So the blackness of death was put on them, as
my old mother has it in her own Gaelic.”
“Your old mother, John?” I queried surprisedly: “I did not know you had
any one at your croft.”
“Aye, but I have that, though she’s a poor frail auld body an’ never
gangs further frae the hoose than the byre an’ the hen-yaird. If ye
want to hear more aboot thae birds an’ the auld stories forenenst them,
she’d mak’ you welcome, an’ we’d be glad an’ prood to offer ye tea: an’
I’ll just tell ye this, that ye’ll gie her muckle pleasure if ye’ll hae
a crack wi’ her in the Gaelic, an’ let her tell her auld tales in’t.
She’s Hielan’, ye ken: tho’ my faither was oot o’ Forfar, Glen Isla
way. She’s never got hold o’ the English yet varra weel, an’ to my
sorrow I’ve never learnt the auld tongue, takin’ after my faither in
that, dour lowland body as he was. I ken enough to follow her sangs,
an’ a few words forbye, just enough to gie us a change as ye micht say.”
I gladly accepted the shepherd’s courteous offer; and so it was that
an hour later we found ourselves at Scaur-vàn, as his croft was
called, from its nearness to a great bleached crag that rose out of
the heather like a light-ship in a lonely sea. By this time, his
prognostications--or those rather of the wheeling and wailing lapwings,
and the mountain-flying rooks--had come true. Across the wide desolate
moors a grey wind soughed mournfully from the south-west, driving
before it long slanting rains and sheets of drifting mist. I was glad
to be out of the cold wet, and in the warm comfort of a room lit with a
glowing peat-fire on which lay one or two spurtling logs of pine.
A dear old woman rose at my entrance. I could see she was of great
age, because her face was like a white parchment seamed with a myriad
wrinkles, and her hands were so sere and thin that they were like
wan leaves of October. But she was fairly active, and her eyes were
clear--and even, if the expression may be used, with a certain quiet
fire in their core--and her features were comely, with a light on them
as of serene peace. The old-fashioned white mutch she wore enhanced
this general impression, and I remember smiling to myself at the quaint
conceit that old Mrs. Logan was like a bed-spirit of ancient slumber
looking out from an opening of frilled white curtains.
It was pleasant to sit and watch her, as with deft hands she prepared
the tea and laid on the table scones and butter and grey farrels of
oatcake, while, outside, the wet wind moaned and every now and then
a swirl of rain splashed against the narrow panes of the window, in
whose inset stood three pots of geranium whose scarlet flowers caught
the red flicker of the fire-flaucht and warmed the grey dusk gathering
without.
Later, we began to speak of the things of which her son John and I
had talked on the moor: and then of much else in connection with the
legendary lore of the birds and beasts of the hills and high moorlands.
As it was so much easier for her (and so far more vivid and idiomatic)
she spoke in Gaelic, delighted to find one who could understand
the ancient speech: for in that part of the country, though in the
Highlands, no Gaelic is spoken, or only a few words or phrases
connected with sport, sheep-driving, and the like. I had won her
heart by saying to her soon after the tea--up to which time she had
spoken in the slow and calculated but refined Highland-English of the
north-west--_Tha mi cinnteach gu bheil sibh aois mhòr_ ... ‘I am sure
that you have the great age on you.’ She had feared that because I had
‘the English way’ I would not know, or remember, or care to remember,
the old tongue: and she took my hand and stroked it while she said with
a quiet dignity of pleasure, _Is taitneach leam nach ’eil ’ur Gàidhlig
air meirgeadh_ ... (in effect) ‘It is well pleased I am that your
Gaelic has not become rusty.’
It was after the tea-things had been set aside, and old Mrs. Logan had
said reverently, _Iarramaid beannachadh_ (‘Let us ask a blessing’),
that she told me, among other legendary things and fragments of old
natural-history folklore, the following legend (or holy Christmas tale,
as she called it) as to how the first crows were black and the first
doves white.
I will tell it as simply but also with what beauty I can, because her
own words, which I recall only as the fluctuating remembrance from a
dream and so must translate from the terms of dream into the terms of
prose, though simple were beautiful with ancient idiom.
Thus she began:--_Feumaidh sinn dol air ar n’-ais dlùth fichead ceud
bliadhna_, which is to say, ‘We must go back near two thousand (_lit_:
_twenty hundred_) years.’
* * * * *
Yes, it is nigh upon twenty hundred years that we must go back. It
was in the last month of the last year of the seven years’ silence
and peace. When would that be, you ask? Surely what other would it be
than the seven holy years when Jesus the Christ was a little lad. Do
you not remember the lore of the elders? ... that in the first seven
years of the life of the young Christ there was peace in the world, and
that the souls of men were like souls in a dream, and that the hearts
of women were at rest. In the second seven years it is said that the
world was like an adder that sloughs its skin: for there was everywhere
a troubled sense of new things to come. So wide and far and deep was
this, that men in remote lands began moving across swamps and hills and
deserts; that the wild beasts shifted their lairs and moaned and cried
in new forests and upon untrodden plains; that the storks and swallows
in their migration wearied their wings in high, cold, untravelled
ways; that the narwhals and great creatures of the deep foamed through
unknown seas; that the grasses of the world wandered and inhabited
hills; that many waters murmured in the wilderness and that many waters
mysteriously sank from pools and wellsprings. In the third seven years,
men even on the last ocean-girdled shores were filled with further
longing, and it is said that new stars were flung into the skies and
ancient stars were whirled away, like dust and small stones beneath
the wheels of a chariot. It was at the end of the third seven years
that a Face looked out of Heaven, and that from the edges of the world
men heard a confused and dreadful sound rising from the Abyss. Though
the great and the small are the same, it is the great that withdraws
from remembrance and the small that remains, and that may be why men
have grown old with time, and have forgotten, and remember only the
little things of the common life: as that in these years the Herring
became the king of all fishes, because his swift gleaming clan carried
the rumour of great tidings to the uttermost places of ocean; as that
in these years the little fly became king over lions and panthers and
eagles and over all birds and beasts, because it alone of all created
things had remained tameless and fearless; as that in these years the
wild-bees were called the clan of wisdom, because they carried the Word
to every flower that grows and spread the rumour on all the winds of
the world; as that in these years the Cuckoo was called the Herald of
God, because in his voice are heard the bells of Resurrection.
But, as I was saying, it was in the last month of the last year of the
seven years’ silence and peace: the seventh year in the mortal life of
Jesus the Christ. It was on the twenty-fifth day of that month, the day
of His holy birth.
It was a still day. The little white flowers that were called Breaths
of Hope and that we now call Stars of Bethlehem were so hushed in
quiet that the shadows of moths lay on them like the dark motionless
violet in the hearts of pansies. In the long swards of tender grass
the multitude of the daisies were white as milk faintly stained with
flusht dews fallen from roses. On the meadows of white poppies were
long shadows blue as the blue lagoons of the sky among drifting
snow-white moors of cloud. Three white aspens on the pastures were in a
still sleep: their tremulous leaves made no rustle, though there was a
soundless wavering fall of little dusky shadows, as in the dark water
of a pool where birches lean in the yellow hour of the frostfire. Upon
the pastures were ewes and lambs sleeping, and yearling kids opened and
closed their onyx eyes among the garths of white clover.
It was the Sabbath, and Jesus walked alone. When He came to a little
rise in the grass He turned and looked back at the house where His
parents dwelled. Joseph sat on a bench, with bent shoulders, and was
dreaming with fixt gaze into the west, as seamen stare across the
interminable wave at the pale green horizons that are like the grassy
shores of home. Mary was standing, dressed in long white raiment, white
as a lily, with her right hand shading her eyes as she looked to the
east, dreaming her dream.
The young Christ sighed, but with the love of all love in His heart.
“So shall it be till the day of days,” He said aloud; “even so shall
the hearts of men dwell among shadows and glories, in the West of
passing things: even so shall that which is immortal turn to the East
and watch for the coming of Joy through the Gates of Life.”
At the sound of His voice He heard a sudden noise as of many birds, and
turned and looked beyond the low upland where He stood. A pool of pure
water lay in the hollow, fed by a ceaseless wellspring, and round it
and over it circled birds whose breasts were grey as pearl and whose
necks shone purple and grass-green and rose. The noise was of their
wings, for though the birds were beautiful they were voiceless and dumb
as flowers.
At the edge of the pool stood two figures, whom He knew to be of the
angelic world because of their beauty, but who had on them the illusion
of mortality so that the child did not know them. But He saw that one
was beautiful as Night, and one beautiful as Morning.
He drew near.
“I have lived seven years,” He said, “and I wish to send peace to the
far ends of the world.”
“Tell your secret to the birds,” said one.
“Tell your secret to the birds,” said the other.
So Jesus called to the birds.
“Come,” He cried; and they came.
Seven came flying from the left, from the side of the angel beautiful
as Night. Seven came flying from the right, from the side of the angel
beautiful as Morning.
To the first He said: “Look into my heart.”
But they wheeled about Him, and with new-found voices mocked, crying,
“How could we see into your heart that is hidden” ... and mocked and
derided, crying, “What is Peace!... Leave us alone! Leave us alone!”
So Christ said to them:
“I know you for the birds of Ahriman, who is not beautiful but is Evil.
Henceforth ye shall be black as night, and be children of the winds.”
To the seven other birds which circled about Him, voiceless, and
brushing their wings against His arms, He cried:
“Look into my heart.”
And they swerved and hung before Him in a maze of wings, and looked
into His pure heart: and, as they looked, a soft murmurous sound came
from them, drowsy-sweet, full of peace: and as they hung there like a
breath in frost they became white as snow.
“Ye are the Doves of the Spirit,” said Christ, “and to you I will
commit that which ye have seen. Henceforth shall your plumage be white
and your voices be the voices of peace.”
The young Christ turned, for He heard Mary calling to the sheep and
goats, and knew that dayset was come and that in the valleys the
gloaming was already rising like smoke from the urns of the twilight.
When He looked back He saw by the pool neither the Son of Joy nor the
Son of Sorrow, but seven white doves were in the cedar beyond the pool,
cooing in low ecstasy of peace and awaiting through sleep and dreams
the rose-red pathways of the dawn. Down the long grey reaches of the
ebbing day He saw seven birds rising and falling on the wind, black as
black water in caves, black as the darkness of night in old pathless
woods.
* * * * *
And that is how the first doves became white, and how the first crows
became black and were called by a name that means the clan of darkness,
the children of the wind.