Alexander, who appears to have been present himself at Ayr, or in the
neighbourhood of the town, with the greater part of his forces, now
opened negotiations, sending several messages by Franciscan or
Dominican Friars for the purpose of treating for peace. Nor did King
Hacon show himself unwilling to negotiate, and proved this
sufficiently by permitting Eogan of Argyll to depart in peace,
loading him, moreover, with presents, on the condition that he should
do his best to bring about a reconciliation,--Eogan pledging himself,
if he did not succeed, to return to King Hacon. Perhaps it was due
to the exertions of Eogan, that a truce was concluded, in order to
commence negotiations in a more formal manner. King Hacon now
despatched an embassy, consisting of two bishops, Gilbert of Hamar,
and Henry of Orkney, with three barons, to Alexander, whom they found
at Ayr. They were well received, but could not get any definite
answer,--Alexander alleging that, before proposing the conditions, he
must consult with his councillors; this done, he should not fail to
let King Hacon know the result. The Norwegian messengers, therefore,
returned to their king, who meanwhile had removed to Bute. The next
day, however, messengers arrived from King Alexander, bringing a list
of those isles which he would not resign,--viz., Arran, Bute, and the
Cumreys, (that is, generally speaking, the isles inside Kentire,)
which implies that he now offered to renounce his claim to all the
others. It is certainly not to be wondered at that he did not like
to see those isles, which commanded the entrance to the Clyde, in the
hands of another power. King Hacon, however, had prepared another
list, which contained the names of all those isles which he claimed
for the crown of Norway; and although the exact contents are not
known, there can be no doubt that at least Arran and Bute were among
the number. The Saga says that, on the whole, there was, after all,
no great difference, but that, nevertheless, no final reconciliation
could be obtained,--the Scotchmen trying only to protract the
negotiations because the summer was past, and the bad weather was
begun. The Scotch messengers at last returned, and King Hacon
removed with the fleet to the Cumreys, near Largs, in the direction
of Cuningham, no doubt with a view of being either nearer at hand if
the negotiations failed, and a landing was to be effected, or only of
intimidating his opponents and hastening the conclusion of the peace,
as the roadstead in itself seems to have been far less safe than that
of Lamlash or Bute. King Alexander sent, indeed, several messages,
and it was agreed to hold a new congress a little farther up in the
country, which shows that King Alexander now had removed from Ayr to
a spot nearer Largs, perhaps to Camphill, (on the road from Largs to
Kilbirnie,) where a local tradition states the king encamped. The
Norwegian messengers were, as before, some bishops and barons; the
Scotch commissaries were some knights and monks. The deliberations
were long, but still without any result. At last, when the day was
declining, a crowd of Scotchmen began to gather, and, as it continued
to increase, the Norwegians, not thinking themselves safe, returned
without having obtained anything. The Norwegian warriors now
demanded earnestly that the truce should be renounced, because their
provisions had begun to be scarce, and they wanted to plunder. King
Hacon accordingly sent one of his esquires, named Kolbein, to King
Alexander with the letter issued by this monarch, ordering him to
claim back that given by himself, and thus declare the truce to be
ended, previously, however, proposing that both kings should meet at
the head of their respective armies, and try a personal conference
before coming to extremities; only, if that failed, they might go to
battle as the last expedient. King Alexander, however, did not
declare his intention plainly, and Kolbein, tired of waiting,
delivered up the letter, got that of King Hacon back, and thus
rescinded the truce. He was escorted to the ships by two monks.
Kolbein, when reporting to King Hacon his proceedings, told him that
Eogan of Argyll had earnestly tried to persuade King Alexander from
fighting with the Norwegians. It does not seem, however, that Eogan
went back to King Hacon according to his promise. This monarch now
was greatly exasperated, and desired the Scottish monks, when
returning, to tell their king that he would very soon recommence the
hostilities, and try the issue of a battle.
"Accordingly, King Hacon detached King Dugald, Alan M'Rory his
brother, Angus of Isla, Murchard of Kentire, and two Norwegian
commanders, with sixty ships, to sail into Loch Long, and ravage the
circumjacent ports, while he prepared to land himself with the main
force at Largs, and fight the Scottish army. The detachment does not
appear to have met with any serious resistance, all the Scotch forces
being probably collected near Largs. The banks of Loch Lomond and
the whole of Lennox were ravaged. Angus even ventured across the
country to the other side, probably near Stirling, killing men and
taking a great number of cattle. This done, the troops who had been
on shore returned to the ships. Here, however, a terrible storm,
which blew for two days, (Oct. 1 and 2,) wrecked ten vessels; and one
of the Norwegian captains was taken sick, and died suddenly.
"Also the main fleet, off Largs, suffered greatly by the same
tempest. It began in the night between Sunday (Sept. 30) and Monday
(Oct. 1,) accompanied by violent showers. A large transport vessel
drifted down on the bow of the royal ship, swept off the gallion, and
got foul of the cable; it was at last cast loose and drifted toward
the island; but on the royal ship it had been necessary to remove the
usual awnings and covers, and in the morning (Oct. 1) when the flood
commenced, the wind likewise turned, and the vessel, along with
another vessel of transport and a ship of war, was driven on the main
beach, where it stuck fast, the royal ship drifting down while with
five anchors, and only stopped when the eighth had been let go. The
king had found it safest to land in a boat on the Cumrey, with the
clergy, who celebrated mass, the greater part believing that the
tempest had been raised by witchcraft. Soon the other ships began to
drift; several had to cut away the masts; five drifted towards the
shore, and three went aground. The men on board these ships were now
dangerously situated, because the Scotch, who from their elevated
position could see very well what passed in the fleet, sent down
detachments against them, while the storm prevented their comrades in
the fleet from coming to their aid. They manned, however, the large
vessel which had first drifted on shore, and defended themselves as
well as they could against the superior force of the enemy, who began
shooting at them. Happily the storm abated a little, and the king
was not only able to return on board his ships, but even sent them
some aid in boats; the Scotch were put to flight, and the Norwegians
were able to pass the night on shore. Yet, in the dark, some Scots
found their way to the vessel and took what they could. In the
morning (Tuesday, Oct. 2,) the king himself, with some barons and
some troops, went to shore in boats to secure the valuable cargo of
the transport, or what was left of it, in which they succeeded. Now,
however, the main army of the Scots was seen approaching, and the
king, who at first meant to remain on shore and head his troops
himself, was prevailed upon by his men, who feared lest he should
expose himself too much, to return on board his ship. The number of
the Norwegians left on shore did not exceed 1000 men, 240 of whom,
commanded by the Baron Agmund Krokidans, occupied a hillock, the rest
were stationed on the beach. The Scotch, it is related in the Saga,
had about 600 horsemen in armour, several of whom had Spanish steeds,
all covered with mail; they had a great deal of infantry, well armed,
especially with bows and Lochaber axes. The Norwegians believed that
King Alexander himself was in the army: perhaps this is true. We
learn, however, from Fordun that the real commander was Alexander of
Dundonald, the Stewart of Scotland. The Scotch first attacked the
knoll with the 240 men, who retired slowly, always facing the enemy
and fighting; but in retracing their steps down hill, as they could
not avoid accelerating their movement as the impulse increased, those
on the beach believed that they were routed, and a sudden panic
betook them for a moment, which cost many lives; as the boats were
too much crowded they sank with their load; others, who did not reach
the boats, fled in a southerly direction, and were pursued by the
Scotch, who killed many of them; others sought refuge in the
aforesaid stranded vessel: at last they rallied behind one of the
stranded ships of war, and an obstinate battle began; the Norwegians,
now that the panic was over, fighting desperately. Then it was that
the young and valiant Piers of Curry, of whom even Fordun and Wyntown
speak, was killed by the Norwegian baron Andrew Nicholasson, after
having twice ridden through the Norwegian ranks. The storm for a
while prevented King Hacon from aiding his men, and the Scotch being
tenfold stronger, began to get the upper hand; but at last two barons
succeeded in landing with fresh troops, when the Scotch were
gradually driven back upon the knoll, and then put to flight towards
the hills. This done, the Norwegians returned on board the ships; on
the following morning (Oct. 3) they returned on shore to carry away
the bodies of the slain, which, it appears, they effected quite
unmolested by the enemy; all the bodies were carried to a church, no
doubt in Bute, and there buried. The next day, (Thursday, Oct. 4,)
the king removed his ship farther out under the island, and the same
day the detachment arrived which had been sent to Loch Long. The
following day, (Friday, Oct. 5,) the weather being fair, the king
sent men on shore to burn the stranded ships, which likewise appears
to have been effected without any hindrance from the enemy. On the
same day he removed with the whole fleet to Lamlash harbour."
With what a curious particularity the Saga relates the events of this
smokeless ancient combat--so different from modern ones, where "the
ranks are rolled in vapour, and the winds are laid with sound"--and
how Piers of Curry, "who had ridden twice through the Norwegian
ranks," towers amongst the combatants! As the describer of battles,
since the invention of gunpowder, Homer would be no better than Sir
Archibald Alison. We have more explicit information as to this
skirmish on the Ayrshire coast in the thirteenth century than we have
concerning the battle of Solferino; and yet King Hacon has been in
his grave these five centuries, and Napoleon III. and Kaiser Joseph
yet live. And "Our Own Correspondent" had not come into the world at
that date either.
[2] For this translation I am indebted to my learned and accomplished
friend the Rev. Mr Macpherson of Inverary.
_THE SECOND SIGHT._
[Sidenote: Quirang.]
The Quirang is one of the wonderful sights of Skye, and if you once
visit it you will believe ever afterwards the misty and spectral
Ossian to be authentic. The Quirang is a nightmare of nature; it
resembles one of Nat Lee's mad tragedies; it might be the scene of a
Walpurgis night; on it might be held a Norway witch's Sabbath.
Architecture is frozen music, it is said; the Quirang is frozen
terror and superstition. 'Tis a huge spire or cathedral of rock some
thousand feet in height, with rocky spires or needles sticking out of
it. Macbeth's weird sisters stand on the blasted heath, and Quirang
stands in a region as wild as itself. The country around is strange
and abnormal, rising into rocky ridges here, like the spine of some
huge animal, sinking into hollows there, with pools in the
hollows--glimmering almost always through drifts of misty rain. On a
clear day, with a bright sun above, the ascent of Quirang may be
pleasant enough; but a clear day you seldom find, for on spectral
precipices and sharp-pointed rocky needles, the weeping clouds of the
Atlantic have made their chosen home. When you ascend, with every
ledge and block slippery, every runnel a torrent, the wind taking
liberties with your cap and making your plaid stream like a meteor to
the troubled air, white tormented mists boiling up from black chasms
and caldrons, rain making disastrous twilight of noon-day,--horror
shoots through your pulses, your brain swims on the giddy pathway,
and the thought of your room in the vapoury under world rushes across
the soul like the fallen Adam's remembrance of his paradise. Then
you learn, if you never learned before, that nature is not always
gracious; that not always does she out-stretch herself in low-lying
bounteous lands, over which sober sunsets redden and heavy-uddered
cattle low; but that she has fierce hysterical moods in which she
congeals into granite precipice and peak, and draws around herself
and her companions the winds that moan and bluster, veils of livid
rains. If you are an Englishman you will habitually know her in her
gracious, if a Skye man in her fiercer, moods.
[Sidenote: The Saxon and the Celt.]
No one is independent of scenery and climate. Men are racy of the
soil in which they grow, even as grapes are. A Saxon nurtured in fat
Kent or Sussex, amid flats of heavy wheat and acorn-dropping oaks,
must of necessity be a different creature from the Celt who gathers
his sustenance from the bleak sea-board, and who is daily drenched by
the rain-cloud from Cuchullin. The one, at his best, becomes a
broad-shouldered, clear-eyed, ruddy-faced man, slightly obese, who
meets danger gleefully, because he has had little experience of it,
and because his conditions being hitherto easy, he naturally assumes
that everything will go well with him;--at worst, a porker contented
with his mast. The other, take him at his best, of sharper spirit,
because it has been more keenly whetted on difficulty; if not more
intrepid, at least more consciously so; of sadder mood habitually,
but _when_ happy, happier, as the gloomier the cloud the more
dazzling the rainbow;--at his worst, either beaten down, subdued, and
nerveless, or gaunt, suspicious, and crafty, like the belly-pinched
wolf. On the whole, the Saxon is likely to be the more sensual; the
Celt the more superstitious: the Saxon will probably be prosaic,
dwelling in the circle of the seen and the tangible; the Celt a poet:
while the anger of the Saxon is slow and abiding, like the burning of
coal; the anger of the Celt is swift and transient, like the flame
that consumes the dried heather: both are superior to death when
occasion comes--the Saxon from a grand obtuseness which ignores the
fact; the Celt, because he has been in constant communion with it,
and because he has seen, measured, and overcome it. The Celt is the
most melancholy of men; he has turned everything to superstitious
uses, and every object of nature, even the unreasoning dreams of
sleep, are mirrors which flash back death upon him. He, the least of
all men, requires to be reminded that he is mortal. The howling of
his dog will do him that service.
[Sidenote: Superstitious feelings.]
In the stories which are told round the island peat-fires it is
abundantly apparent that the Celt has not yet subdued nature. In
these stories you can detect a curious subtle hostility between man
and his environments; a fear of them, a want of absolute trust in
them. In these stories and songs man is not at home in the world.
Nature is too strong for him; she rebukes and crushes him. The
Elements, however calm and beautiful they may appear for the moment,
are malign and deceitful at heart, and merely bide their time. They
are like the paw of the cat--soft and velvety, but with concealed
talons that scratch when least expected. And this curious relation
between man and nature grows out of the climatic conditions and the
forms of Hebridean life. In his usual avocations the Islesman rubs
clothes with death as he would with an acquaintance. Gathering wild
fowl, he hangs, like a spider on its thread, over a precipice on
which the sea is beating a hundred feet beneath. In his crazy boat
he adventures into whirlpool and foam. He is among the hills when
the snow comes down making everything unfamiliar, and stifling the
strayed wanderer. Thus death is ever near him, and that
consciousness turns everything to omen. The mist creeping along the
hill-side by moonlight is an apparition. In the roar of the
waterfall, or the murmur of the swollen ford, he hears the water
spirit calling out for the man for whom it has waited so long. He
sees death-candles burning on the sea, marking the place at which a
boat will be upset by some sudden squall. He hears spectral hammers
clinking in an outhouse, and he knows that ghostly artificers are
preparing a coffin there. Ghostly fingers tap at his window, ghostly
feet are about his door; at midnight his furniture cries out as if it
had seen a sight and could not restrain itself. Even his dreams are
prophetic, and point ghastly issues for himself or for others. And
just as there are poets who are more open to beauty than other men,
and whose duty and delight it is to set forth that beauty anew; so in
the Hebrides there are seers who bear the same relation to the other
world that the poet bears to beauty, who are cognisant of its
secrets, and who make those secrets known. The seer does not inherit
his power. It comes upon him at haphazard, as genius or as personal
beauty might come. He is a lonely man amongst his fellows;
apparitions cross his path at noon-day; he never knows into what a
ghastly something the commonest object may transform itself--the
table he sits at may suddenly become the resting-place of a coffin;
and the man who laughs in his cups with him may, in the twinkling of
an eye, wear a death-shroud up to his throat. He hears river voices
prophesying death, and shadowy and silent funeral processions are
continually defiling before him. When the seer beholds a vision his
companions know it; for "the inner part of his eyelids turn so far
upwards that, after the object disappears, he must draw them down
with his fingers, and sometimes employs others to draw them down,
which he finds to be much the easier way." From long experience of
these visions, and by noticing how closely or tardily fulfilment has
trodden upon their heels, the seer can extract the meaning of the
apparition that flashes upon him, and predict the period of its
accomplishment. Other people can make nothing of them, but _he_
reads them, as the sailor in possession of the signal-book reads the
signal flying at the peak of the High Admiral. These visions, it
would appear, conform to rules, like everything else. If a vision be
seen early in a morning, it will be accomplished in a few hours,--if
at noon, it will usually be accomplished that day,--if in the
evening, that night,--if after candles are lighted, certainly that
night. When a shroud is seen about a person it is a sure
prognostication of death. And the period of death is estimated by
the height of the shroud about the body. If it lies about the legs,
death is not to be expected before the expiry of a year, and perhaps
it may be deferred a few months longer. If it is seen near the head,
death will occur in a few days, perhaps in a few hours. To see
houses and trees in a desert place is a sign that buildings will be
erected there anon. To see a spark of fire falling on the arms or
breast of a person is the sign that a dead child will shortly be in
the arms of those persons. To see a seat empty at the time of
sitting in it is a sign of that person's death being at hand. The
seers are said to be extremely temperate in habit; they are neither
drunkards nor gluttons; they are not subject to convulsions nor
hysterical fits; there are no madmen amongst them; nor has a seer
ever been known to commit suicide.
[Sidenote: The second sight.]
The literature of the second sight is extremely curious. The writers
have perfect faith in the examples they adduce; but their examples
are far from satisfactory. They are seldom obtained at first hand,
they almost always live on hearsay; and even if everything be true,
the professed fulfilment seems nothing other than a rather singular
coincidence. Still these stories are devoutly believed in Skye, and
it is almost as perilous to doubt the existence of a Skyeman's ghost
as to doubt the existence of a Skyeman's ancestor. In "Treatises on
the Second Sight," very curious tracts, compiled by Theophilus
Insulanus, Rev. Mr Frazer, Mr Martin, and John Aubrey, Esq., F.R.S.,
and which hint that a disbelief in apparitions is tantamount to
disbelief in the immortality of the soul, the following stories are
related:--
"John Campbell, younger of Ardsliguish, in Ardnamorchuann, in the
year 1729, returning home with Duncan Campbell, his brother, since
deceased, as they drew near the house, in a plain surrounded with
bushes of wood, where they intended to discharge their fusees at a
mark, observed a young girl, whom they knew to be one of their
domestics, crossing the plain, and having called her by name, she did
not answer, but ran into the thicket. As the two brothers had been
some days from home, and willing to know what happened in their
absence, the youngest, John, pursued after, but could not find her.
Immediately, as they arrived at home, having acquainted their mother
they saw the said girl, and called after her, but she avoided their
search, and would not speak to them; upon which they were told she
departed this life that same day. I had this relation from James
Campbell in Girgudale, a young man of known modesty and candour, who
had the story at several times from the said John Campbell."
"Mr Anderson assured me, that upon the 16th of April 1746, (being the
day on which his Royal Highness the Duke of Cumberland obtained a
glorious victory over the rebels at Culloden,) as he lay in bed with
his spouse towards the dawning of the day, he heard very audibly a
voice at his bed-head inquiring if he was awake; who answered he was,
but then took no further notice of it. A little time thereafter, the
voice repeated, with greater vehemence, if he was awake. And he
answering, as formerly, he was, there was some stop, when the voice
repeated louder, asking the same question, and he making the same
answer, but asking what the voice had to say; upon which it replied,
The prince is defeated, defeated, defeated! And in less than
forty-eight hours thereafter an express carried the welcome tidings
of the fact into the country."
"Captain Macdonald of Castletown (allowed by all his acquaintances to
be a person of consummate integrity) informed me that a Knoydart man
(being on board of a vessel at anchor in the sound of the Island
Oransay) went under night out of the cabin to the deck, and being
missed by his company, some of them went to call him down; but not
finding him, concluded that he had dropt from the ship's side. When
day came on, they got a long line furnished with hooks, (from a
tenant's house close by the shore,) which having cast from the ship's
side, some of the hooks got hold of his clothes, so that they got the
corpse taken up. The owner of the long line told Captain Macdonald
that for a quarter of a year before that accident happened, he
himself and his domestics, on every calm night, would hear lamentable
cries at the shore where the corpse was landed; and not only so, but
the long lines that took up the corpse being hung on a pin in his
house, all of them would hear an odd jingling of the hooks before and
after going to bed, and that without any person, dog, or cat touching
them; and at other times, with fire light, see the long lines covered
over with lucid globules, such as are seen drop from oars rowing
under night."
The foregoing are examples of the general superstitions that prevail
in the islands; those that follow relate to the second sight.