NETHER LOCHABER:
THE NATURAL HISTORY,
LEGENDS, AND FOLK-LORE
OF THE WEST HIGHLANDS.
BY
The Rev. ALEXANDER STEWART, F.S.A. Scot.;
MINISTER OF THE PARISH OF BALLACHULISH AND ARDGOUR.
EDINBURGH:
WILLIAM PATERSON.
MDCCCLXXXIII.
EDINBURGH: BURNESS AND COMPANY, PRINTERS TO HER MAJESTY.
TO
DONALD CAMPBELL, Esq., M.D.,
OF
CRAIGRANNOCH, BALLACHULISH,
IN PLEASANT RECOLLECTION OF HAPPY HOURS AT ONICH AND CRAIGRANNOCH,
AND
OF MANY A DELIGHTFUL MIDSUMMER RAMBLE,
THIS VOLUME IS INSCRIBED
WITH MUCH AFFECTIONATE REGARD BY HIS FRIEND
THE AUTHOR.
PREFATORY NOTE.
The contents of this volume made their first appearance in the shape
of a series of papers from "Nether Lochaber" in the Inverness Courier,
a well-known Northern Journal, long and ably conducted by the late
Dr. Robert Carruthers. They are now presented to the public in book
form, in the hope that they may meet with a friendly welcome from
a still larger constituency than gave them kindly greeting in their
original shape, as from fortnight to fortnight they appeared.
At one time it was the Author's intention to rewrite and rearrange
all, or almost all, these papers, adding, altering, or expunging as
might be considered best. On second thoughts, however--second thoughts,
besides, approved of by many literary and scientific friends, in whose
judgment and good taste the Author has the utmost confidence--it was
resolved to let them retain very much the form in which they first
attracted attention, in the belief that any good that could result
from a rewriting and reconstructing of them would be dearly purchased
if it interfered, as it was almost certain to interfere, with their
prima cura directness of phrase and freshness of local colouring.
In a volume dealing so largely with the Folk-Lore of the West Highlands
and Hebrides, there are necessarily many Gaelic rhymes and phrases
which at the first blink may tend to startle and repel the southern
reader. These Gaelic quotations, however, the Author has taken care
to translate into fairly equivalent English, so that even in this
regard it is to be hoped the volume may prove equally acceptable to
the Saxon, who is ignorant of the language of the mountains, as to
the Celt, who knows and loves it as his mother tongue.
Nether Lochaber,
June 1883.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
Primroses and Daisies in early March--"The Posie"--Burns--"The
Ancient Mariner"--William Tennant, Author of "Anster
Fair"--Hebridean Epithalamium--A Bard's Blessing--A
Translation--Macleod of Berneray, 1
CHAPTER II.
Autumnal Tints--Solomon and the Queen of Sheba--Sortes
Sacræ--Sortes Virgilianæ--Charles the First and Lord
Falkland--Virgilius the Magician--Thomas of Ercildoune, 8
CHAPTER III.
An old Gaelic MS.--"The Bewitched Bachelor Unbewitched"--Fairy
Lore--Lacteal Libations on Fairy Knowes, 18
CHAPTER IV.
Transit of Mercury--Improperly called an "Eclipse" of--November
Meteors--Mr. Huggins--Spectrum Analyses of Cometary
Light--Translation of a St. Kilda Song, 23
CHAPTER V.
Bird Music--The Skylark's Song--Imitation of, by a French
Poet--Alasdair Macdonald--Scott, 29
CHAPTER VI.
Severe Drought--The Drive by Coach from Fort-William to
Kingussie--Breakfast at Moy--Where did Scott find Dominie Sampson's
"Pro-di-gi-ous!"?--Professor Blackie's Poem on Glencoe, 33
CHAPTER VII.
O the Barren, Barren Shore--Brilliant Auroral Display--Intense
Cold--Birds--Glanders--Scribblings on the Back of One Pound
Notes, 39
CHAPTER VIII.
A Wet February--A Good Time coming--Sir Walter Scott--Mr
Gladstone--Death of Sir David Brewster, 44
CHAPTER IX.
Long-Line Fishing--Scarcity of Fish--Their Fecundity--Large
Specimen of the Raia Chagrinea--The Wolf Fish--The Devil Fish, 50
CHAPTER X.
Birds--Contest between a Heron and an Eel, 54
CHAPTER XI.
Sea-Fishing--Loch and Stream Fishing--"Brindled
Worms"--Rush-Lights--Buckie-Shell Lamps--The Weasel killing a
Hare--Killing a Fallow Deer Fawn, 58
CHAPTER XII.
Extraordinary aspect of the Sun--Sunset from
Rokeby--Mr. Glaisher--"Demoiselle" or Numidian Crane at
Deerness--The Snowy Owl in Sutherlandshire--Does the Fieldfare
breed in Scotland?--The Woodcock, 66
CHAPTER XIII.
Extraordinary Heat and Drought--Plentifulness of Fungi--Cows fond
of Mushrooms--Shoals of Whales--A rippling breeze, and a Sail on
Loch Leven, 70
CHAPTER XIV.
Herrings--Chimæra Monstrosa--Cure for Ringworm--Cold Tea Leaves for
inflamed and blood-shot Eyes--An old Incantation for the cure of
Sore Eyes--A curious Dirk Sheath--A Tannery of Human Skins, 73
CHAPTER XV.
The Ring-Dove--A Pet Ring-Dove--Its Death--Shenstone--The
Belone Vulgaris or Gar-Fish--A Rat and a Kilmarnock
Night-cap--Extraordinary Roebuck's Head at Ardgour, 79
CHAPTER XVI.
The "Annus Mirabilis" of Dryden--1870 a more wonderful Year
in its way than 1666--Winter--Number of Killed and Wounded
in the Franco-Prussian War--Battles of Langside, Tippermuir,
Cappel--Carrier Pigeons--The Velocity with which Birds fly, 86
CHAPTER XVII.
Signs of a severe Winter--The Little Auk or Auklet--The
Gadwall--Falcons being trained by the Prussians to intercept
the Paris Carrier Pigeons--Ballooning--The King of Prussia's
Piety--John Forster--Solar Eclipse of 22d December 1870--The
Government and the Eclipse--Large Solar Spots--Visible to the
naked eye--Rev. Dr. Cumming--November Meteors, 94
CHAPTER XVIII.
November Rains: 1500 tons per Imperial Acre!--Rainfall in Skye--An
old Gaelic Apologue--The Drover and his Minister--Grand Stag's
Head--Scott as a Poet--Mr. Gladstone and Scott--An old Lullaby
from the Gaelic, 99
CHAPTER XIX.
Winter--Auroral Displays in the West Highlands always indicative
of a coming Storm--Corvus Corax--Wonderful Ravens--Edgar Allan
Poe, 106
CHAPTER XX.
Along the Shore after Birds--An Otter in pursuit of a Fish--Tame
Otter at Bridge of Tilt: Employed in Fishing--His hatred of
all sorts of Birds--"The Otter and Fox," a translation from the
Gaelic, 114
CHAPTER XXI.
Storms--An "inch" of Rain--Atherina Presbyter--Lophius
Piscatorius--Mr. Mortimer Collins' misquotation from the Times, 121
CHAPTER XXII.
Aurora Borealis--Unfavourable weather for Birds about
St. Valentine's Day--The Water-Vole in the Rhi--In the Eden in
Fifeshire--In the Black Water, Kinloch Leven--Does it feed
on Salmon Fry and Ova?--The Kingfisher--Character of the
Water-Vole--Note about the Hedgehog, 127
CHAPTER XXIII.
March--The Story of a Spanish Dollar--The Spanish Armada--The
"Florida"--Faire-Chlaidh, or Watching of the Graveyard--Molehill
Earth for Flowers, 133
CHAPTER XXIV.
The Beauty of the West Highland Seaboard--Dr. Aiton of
Dolphinton--Dr. Norman Macleod--Specimen of Turtle-Dove (Columba
Turtur) shot in Ardgour--The belief on the Continent of its
value as a Household Pet--Bechstein--Male Birds dropping Eggs in
confinement, 140
CHAPTER XXV.
Thunderstorm--Potato Field in Bloom--The Hazel Tree--Hazel
Nuts--Potato Shaws for Cattle--Ferns for Bedding
Cattle--Marmion--Scott, 144
CHAPTER XXVI.
Harvest--Scythe and Sickle v. Reaping Machines--Potatoes--Garibaldi
and Potatoes at Caprera--Fishing--Platessa Gemmatus, or Diamond
Plaice--Mushrooms--The Poetry of Fairy Rings--Harvest-Home, 150
CHAPTER XXVII.
The disappearance of the glories of Autumn, and the advent
of Winter--Innovations and Innovators--New Version of the
Scriptures--The Milkmaid and her Fairy Lover, translated from
the Gaelic, 159
CHAPTER XXVIII.
Wild Birds' Nests in early April--Rook stealing Eggs frightened
and almost captured--The Domestic Cock--What he was, and what he
is--Sadly demoralised by intermixture with "Cochin-Chinas" and
"Bramahpootras," 165
CHAPTER XXIX.
The Vernal Equinox--Beauty of Loch Leven--Astronomical Notes--How
an old Woman supposed to possess the Evil Eye escaped a cruel
death, 172
CHAPTER XXX.
Midges and other Bloodsuckers--The Tsetse of South Africa--The
Abyssinian Zimb--Livingstone--Adders and Grass Snakes--Lucan's
Pharsalia--Celsus--Legend of St. John ante Portam Latinam, 178
CHAPTER XXXI.
The Leafing of the Oak and Ash--Splendid Stags' Heads--Edmund
Waller--Old Silver-Plate buried for preservation in the
'45--Mimicry in Birds--An accomplished Goldfinch, 185
CHAPTER XXXII.
Potato Culture--Sensibility of the Potato Shaw to Weather
changes--The Carline Thistle--Burns--The true Carduus
Scotticus--The old Dog-Rhyme, 192
CHAPTER XXXIII.
A non-"Laughing" Summer--Rheumatic Pains--Old Gaelic Incantation
for Cattle Ailments, 199
CHAPTER XXXIV.
Early sowing recommended--Vitality of
Superstitions--Capnomancy--Hazel Nuts: Frequent References to
in Gaelic Poetry--How best to get at the full flavour of a ripe
Hazel Nut, 204
CHAPTER XXXV.
Strength of Insects--Necrophorus Vespillo, or
Burying-Beetle--Foetid smell of--How Willie Grimmond earned an
Honest Penny in Glencoe, 210
CHAPTER XXXVI.
Seaweed as a Fertiliser--Homer, Horace, Virgil--November
Meteors--Gaelic Folk-Lore--A Curfew Prayer--A Bed Blessing--A
Cattle Blessing--Rhyme to be said in driving Cattle to
Pasture--"Luath," Cuchullin's Dog--Notes from the Outer
Hebrides, 217
CHAPTER XXXVII.
The Delights of Beltane Tide--Bishop Gawin Douglas--His
Translation of the Æneid--The Fat of Deer--"Light and Shade"
from the Gaelic--Mackworth Praed--Discovery of an old Flint
Manufactory in the Moss of Ballachulish, 225
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
Warm showery Summer disagreeable for the Tourist, but pastorally
and agriculturally favourable--Xiphias Gladius, or Sword-Fish,
cast ashore during a Mid-summer Gale--Garibaldi dining on Potatoes
and Sword-Fish steaks at Caprera--The General's Drink--Medicinal
virtues of an Onion--Nettle Broth--Translation of a New Zealand
Maori Song, 233
CHAPTER XXXIX.
Mountains--The Lochaber Axe, Ancient and Modern, 238
CHAPTER XL.
Sea-Fowl--Weather Prognostics--Goosander (Mergus Merganser,
Linn.)--Gales of Wind--January Primroses--Lachlan Gorach, the Mull
"Natural"--A Dancing Rhyme, 244
CHAPTER XLI.
Plague of Thistles in Australia and New Zealand--How to deal
with them--Cnicus Acaulis, Great Milk Thistle, or Stemless
Thistle--Fierce Fight between two Seals, "Nelson" and
"Villeneuve," 250
CHAPTER XLII.
Wounds from Stags' Antlers exceedingly dangerous--The old Fingalian
Ballads--Number of Dogs kept for the Chase--Dr. Smith's "Ancient
Lays" of modern manufacture--The Spotted Crake (Crex Prozana)
at Inverness--Its Habits, 258
CHAPTER XLIII.
Whelks and Periwinkles--An Ossianic Reading--The Sea-shore
after a Storm--The Rejectamenta of the deep--An amusing
Story of a Shore-Searcher--Severity of Winter--Wild-Birds'
Levee--Woodcock--Snipe--Blue Jay, 264
CHAPTER XLIV.
A "Blessed Thaw" after a Severe Frost--Longevity in Lochaber--A
ready "Saline draught"--A probatum est Recipe for Catarrh and
Colds--Egg-shell Superstition--Curious old Gaelic Poem, 272
CHAPTER XLV.
"Albert," a famous Labrador Dog--As a Water Dog--His
intelligence--Takes to Sheep-Stealing--Death! 278
CHAPTER XLVI.
An old Fingalian Hero--His keenness of Sight and sharpness of
Ear--Foresters and Keepers--Foxhunters--Donald MacDonald--His
Dogs--Sandy MacArthur the Mole-catcher, 286
CHAPTER XLVII.
Autumnal Night--Meteors--The Spanish Mackerel--Professor Blackie's
Translations from the Gaelic--The "Translations" of the Gaelic
Society of Inverness, 293
CHAPTER XLVIII.
Crops--Potato Slug--Fern Slug--Brackens: How thoroughly to
extirpate them--The Merlin, Falcon, and Tringa, 299
CHAPTER XLIX.
The Hedgehog an Egg and Bird Eater?--Bird-catching--"Old
Cowie"--Mackenzie--Lanius Excubitor--The Butcher-Bird or
Shrike--Tea-Drinking and Sobriety, 305
CHAPTER L.
Superstition amongst the People--Difficulty of dealing
with it--Examples of Superstitions still prevalent in the
Highlands--Cock-crowing at untimely hours--Itching of the
Nose--Ringing in the Ears--The "Dead-Bell"--Sir Walter
Scott--Hogg--Mickle, 313
CHAPTER LI.
Welcome Rain in May--Plague of Mice in Upper Teviotdale--Arvicola
Agrestis--Field-Mice in Ardgour--How exterminated--A Singing
Mouse--Farmers' Mistakes--Mackenzie the Bird-catcher, 319
CHAPTER LII.
Tourist Grumblers; how to deal with them--Sea Fishing--Superstition
about a Gull--Josephus--Story of Mosollam and the Augur, 327
CHAPTER LIII.
Heat in Mid-August--Early Planting and Sowing--Over-ripening of
Crops--Medusæ--Stinging Jelly-Fish--The amount of solid matter
in Jelly-Fish, 334
CHAPTER LIV.
Approach of Winter--Contentedness of the People--Poets and
Wild-Bird Song--Differences in the Colouring and Markings of
Birds' Eggs--Late Nest-building--Anecdote of Provost Robertson
of Dingwall, Mr. Gladstone's Grandfather, 341
CHAPTER LV.
Spring--Hood's Parody of Thomson's Invocation--The excellence
of Nettle-Top Soup--Cock-crowing--Birds'-nesting--Professor
Geikie--Curious Story of an old Pipe-Tune, 348
CHAPTER LVI.
Rain in Lochaber--An Apple Tree in bloom by Candle-light--Mackenzie
the Bird-catcher--A Badenoch "Wise Woman" spitting in a Child's
Face to preserve it from the Fairies, 355
CHAPTER LVII.
Caught in a Squall on Loch Leven--Potatoes and Herrings: How
to cook them--A day in Glen Nevis--A visit to Uaimh Shomhairle,
or Samuel's Cave--The Cave-Men, 361
CHAPTER LVIII.
Showers in Harvest Time--Magnificent Sunset--Night sometimes
seeming not to descend but to ascend--Death of M. Leverrier--The
Discovery of Neptune--Pigeon cooing at Midnight--The Owl at
Noon--Cage-Birds singing at Night, 370
CHAPTER LIX.
October Storms--Cablegram Predictions--Indications of
coming Storms--Geordie Braid, the St. Andrews and Newport
Coach-driver--The Naturalist in Winter--Drowned Hedgehogs: Spines
become soft and gelatinous--Lophius Piscatorius--Disproportion
between head and body in the Devil-Fish a puzzle--An Itinerant
Fiddler, 379
CHAPTER LX.
A Trip to Glasgow--Kelvin Grove Museum--Highland Association--A
run to Rothesay--Rothesay Aquarium, 387
CHAPTER LXI.
Overland from Ballachulish to Oban on a "Pet Day" in
February--Story of Clach Ruric--Castle Stalker: an old
Stronghold of the Stewarts of Appin--James IV.--Charles
II.--Magpies--Dun-Mac-Uisneachan, 394
CHAPTER LXII.
Nest-building--Cunningham's objection to Burns' Song, "O were
my Love yon Lilac fair"--Birds and the Lilac Tree--Rivalries of
Birds--Birds and the Poets--The Nightingale, 402
CHAPTER LXIII.
March Dust--Moons of Mars--Planetoids--Occultation of Alpha
Leonis--Zodiacal Light--Snow Bunting--Old Gaelic Ballad of
"Deirdri:" Its Topography, 410
NETHER LOCHABER.
CHAPTER I.
Primroses and Daisies in early March--"The Posie"--Burns--"The
Ancient Mariner"--William Tennant, Author of Anster Fair--Hebridean
Epithalamium--A Bard's Blessing--A Translation--Macleod of
Berneray.
The weather [March 1868] with us here still continues wonderfully
genial and mild: taken all in all, the season may be noted as in this
respect perhaps without precedent in our meteorological annals. The
sun, with nearly eight degrees of southern declination, is not yet
half-way through Pisces; we are still three weeks from the vernal
equinox, and yet on our table before us, as we write these lines,
there is as pretty a posy of wild-flowers as you could wish to see,
consisting of daisies, primroses, and other modest beauties, the
"firstlings of the year," culled from bank and brae at a date when
in ordinary seasons the country, snow-covered or ice-bound, is but
a bleak and barren waste. Older and wiser people than ourselves
confidently predict "a winter in mid-spring" as yet in store for us;
but meliora speramus, we had rather believe that to one of the mildest
winters on record will succeed a genial spring, a splendid summer,
and an abundant harvest. In any case, as somebody said of Scaliger
and Clavius, Mallem cum Scaligero errare quam cum Clavio rectè sapere:
I had rather, that is, be a partaker in the errors of Scaliger, than
a sharer in all the wisdom of Clavius. Even so, we had rather err
with the optimists than be ranked with the pessimists, even when their
predictions turn out the truest. In our forenoon ramble on Friday last
did we not find a merle's nest in the close and well-guarded embrace
of an old thorn root, with its pretty treasure of four brown-spotted,
greyish-green eggs? and with our wild-flower bouquet before us,
are we not better employed in crooning one of Burns' sweetest lyrics
than in predicting evil, even if we were certain that our prediction
should become true?--said lyric being that entitled The Posie, which,
dear reader, if you do not know it already, you should incontinently
get by heart. Here is a verse or two:--
"Oh, luve will venture in where it daurna weel be seen;
Oh, luve will venture in, where wisdom ance has been;
But I will down yon river rove, amang the wood sae green--
And a' to pu' a posie to my ain dear May.
"The primrose I will pu', the firstling o' the year,
And I will pu' the pink, the emblem o' my dear;
For she's the pink o' womankind, and blooms without a peer--
And a' to be a posie to my ain dear May.
"The lily it is pure, and the lily it is fair,
And in her lovely bosom I'll place the lily there;
The daisy's for simplicity and unaffected air--
And a' to be a posie to my ain dear May.
"The hawthorn I will pu', wi' its locks o' siller grey,
Where, like an aged man, it stands at break o' day;
But the songster's nest within the bush I winna tak away--
And a' to be a posie to my ain dear May."
Mark that line in italics, and ponder its exquisite tenderness. How it
must have irradiated, like a sudden flood of sunshine over a mountain
landscape, the poet's heart as he penned it! Here you have the germ
of the doctrine afterwards more broadly taught by Coleridge in the
well-known lines of the Ancient Mariner:--
"Farewell, farewell, but this I tell
To thee, thou Wedding Guest,
He prayeth well, who loveth well
Both man, and bird, and beast.
He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things, both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all."
We love The Posie of Burns for its own sake, but we love it all
the more, perhaps, because our attention was first directed to its
sweet simplicity and tender beauty by one of our earliest and kindest
friends, himself a poet of no mean order, the late Professor William
Tennant, author of Anster Fair, in all its fantastical gaiety and
homely mirth the most original poem, perhaps, to be found in the
literature of our country.
A gentleman who resides at present in Cheltenham, a cadet of one of
the oldest and most respectable families on the West Coast, and himself
the head of a house not unknown in Highland story, has been so good as
to send us a short Gaelic poem in manuscript, with a request that we
should give an English version of it. With this request we very readily
comply, such a task being to us a labour of love; the poem itself,
besides, being very beautiful, and the history of its composition
extremely interesting, as throwing some light on the manners and
customs of the olden times. The following prefatory note from the
MS. itself sufficiently explains the origin of this quaint and curious
Hebridean Epithalamium:--"It was the custom in the West Highlands of
Scotland in the olden time to meet the bride coming forth from her
chamber with her maidens on the morning after her marriage, and to
salute her with a poetical blessing called Beannachadh Bàird. On the
occasion of the marriage of the Rev. Donald Macleod of Durinish, in the
Isle of Skye, this practice having then got very much into desuetude,
and none being found prepared to salute his bride agreeably to it,
he himself came forward and received her with the following beautiful
address." We present our readers with the original lines verbatim et
literatim, precisely as they stand in the MS., only omitting two lines
that are partly illegible from their falling into the sharp foldings
of the sheet. The sense and tenor of these lines, however, we have
ventured to guess at and to incorporate with our English version:--
Beannachadh Bàird.
Mìle fàilte dhuit le 'd bhrèid,
Fad' a rè gu'n robh thu slàn,
Moran laithean dhuit as sìth,
Le d' mhaitheas as le d' nì 'bhith fàs.
A chulaidh cheiteas a chaidh suas.
'S tric a thairin buaidh air mnaoi--
Bithse gu suilceach, ceiteach,
O thionnseain thu fhein 'san treubh.
An tùs do choiruith 's tu òg,
An tùs gach lò iarr Righ nan Dùl;
Cha'n' eagal nach dean e gu ceart
Gach dearbh-bheachd a bhios 'nad rùn,
Bithsa fialuidh--ach bith glic.
Bith misneachail--ach bith stolt.
Na bith brith'nach, 's na bith balbh,
Na bith mear na marbh 's tu òg;
Bith gleidhteach air do dhea ainm,
Ach na bith duinte 's na bith fuar;
Na labhair fòs air neach gu olc,
'S ged labhras ort, na taisbean fuath.
Na bith gearannach fo chrois,
Falbh socair le cupan làn;
Chaoidh dh' an olc na tabhair spèis--
As le 'd bhrèid ort, mìle fàilt!
Whether with the sense of the above we have succeeded in catching
anything of its quaint beauty and tenderness in the following lines,
is for the reader to judge:--
A Bard's Blessing.
Comely and kerchief'd, blooming, fresh and fair,
All hail and welcome! joy and peace be thine;
Of happiness and health a bounteous share
Be shower'd upon thee from the hand divine.
Wearing the matron's coif, thou seem'st to be
Even lovelier now than erst, when fancy-free,
Thou in thy beauty's strength did'st steal my heart from me.
Though young in years thou 'rt now a wedded wife;
O seek His guidance who can guide aright.
With aid from Him, the rugged path of life
May still be trod with pleasure and delight;
For He who made us bids us not forego
A single, sinless pleasure in this world of woe.
Be open-hearted, but be eident too,
Be strong and full of courage, but be staid;
Aught like unseemly folly still eschew--
Be faultless wife as thou wast faultless maid!
Guard against hasty speech and temper violent,
And knowing when to speak, know also to be silent.
Guard thy good name and mine from smallest stain;
In manner still be kindly, frank, and free;
If thou 'rt reviled, revile not thou again;
In hour of trial calm and patient be;
And when thy cup is full, walk humbly still,
A careless, proud, rash step the blissful cup may spill!
With this bard's blessing on thy wedded morn,
All at thy bridal chamber-door we greet thee;
May every joy of truth and goodness born
Through all thy life-long journey crowd to meet thee;
And may the God of Peace now richly shed
A blessing on thy kerchief-cinctured head!
The word breid in the original, which we have rendered kerchief
and coif, was in the olden times the peculiar head-dress of married
females, while virgins wore their braided locks uncovered, a simple
ribbon to bind the hair, and occasionally a sprig of heather or modest
flower by way of ornament, being the only head-dress that could with
propriety be worn by a maiden in the good old anti-chignon days of
our grandmothers. The Highland maiden's narrow ribbon for binding
the hair was in the south of Scotland called a snood, probably from
the old English snod--"neat, handsome"--a word still in use in the
English border counties. In the south, even more pointedly than in
the north, the emblematical character of the maiden ribbon or snood
was recognised. It was only when a maiden became an honest, lawful
wife that the coif--also called curch and toy--could be worn with
propriety. If a damsel was so unfortunate as to lose pretentions
to the name of maiden, without acquiring a right to that of matron,
she was neither permitted to wear that emblem of virgin purity, the
snood, nor advanced to the graver dignity of the coif or curch. In
old Scottish songs there occur many sly allusions to such misfortunes,
as in the original words of the popular tune of "Ower the muir amang
the heather"--
"Down amang the broom, the broom,
Down among the broom, my dearie,
The lassie lost her silken snood,
That gart her greet till she was wearie."
And in a verse of a curious old ballad that we took down some years
ago from the recitation of a grey-headed Paisley weaver--
"And did ye say ye lo'ed me weel?
Then, kind sir, ye maun marrie me;
For that I maunna wear my snood
Aft brings the saut tear to my ee."
The reverend author of the above lines was probably born about the
year 1700, or perhaps ten or twenty years earlier, for we find
that he died a man well advanced in years in 1760. In the Scots
Magazine of that year there is the following notice of Mr Macleod's
death:--"Jan. 12th.--At Durinish, in the Isle of Skye, the Rev. Donald
Macleod, minister of that parish, a gentleman, says our correspondent,
who adorned his profession, not so much by a literary merit, of which
he possessed a considerable share, as by a consistent practice of the
most useful and excellent virtues. To do good was the ruling passion
of his heart; in composing differences, in diffusing the spirit of
peace and friendship, in relieving the distressed, in promoting the
happiness of the widow and orphan, his zeal was almost unexampled,
his activity unmeasured, his success remarkable. It is almost
unnecessary to add that he lived with a most amiable character,
and died universally regretted."
A somewhat curious circumstance is the following:--One of the
Rev. Mr. Macleod's daughters was married to Macleod of Berneray, she
being that gentleman's third wife. Berneray was at the date of this
third marriage seventy-five years of age, notwithstanding which he
became by this lady the father of nine children. He lived a hale and
hearty old man till he was upwards of ninety. He was reckoned in his
day a splendid specimen of the stalwart, sterling, straight-forward,
and chivalrous Highland gentleman, "all of the olden time."