Overland from Balluchulish 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.
With all their tendency, in their every reference to the past,
to become laudatores temporis acti, the sturdy upholders of the
superiority of all that was, in comparison with anything and everything
that is, our weather-wise octogenarian friends here are all agreed that
so summer-like a February [1878] month they never knew before. It is
true that in making this admission they shake their heads sapiently,
and hint that no good can come of such an unnatural commingling of
the times and seasons. It will be well, they add, if before cuckoo day
(mun d'thig latha na cuaig) we haven't to pay for it all in the shape
of storm and cold at a time when these are as unseasonable and out
of place as is summer calm and summer sunshine now. It was amusing
to see these honest old croakers selecting the coziest nooks air chùl
gaoithe's air aodain gréine, as the Fingalian tale has it,--that is,
at the back of the wind and in the face of the sun--and thoroughly
enjoying the calm and sunshine at the very moment that they would
impress upon us the unnaturalness and unseasonableness of it all. The
first fortnight of February was, indeed, wonderfully fine; from the
beginning of the month up to the evening of St. Valentine's Day, more
like the close of April or early May than anything usually looked
for while the sun is still in Aquarius. Driving overland to Oban on
the 11th, and, by the ferries of Ballachulish, Shian, and Connel,
a very beautiful drive it is, hardly to be equalled elsewhere even
in the West Highlands; the day was so bright, and calm, and clear,
that while mavis and merle, and hedge-accenter and chaffinch greeted
us from copse and hedgerow with their rich and mellow song, the driver,
sitting beside us, couldn't help observing as we passed by Appin House,
"Na 'n robh chuag again a nis, bha 'n samhradh fhein ann!" "If we had
but the cuckoo now, it would be summer its very self!" On the beach,
a little above high-water mark, just under Appin House, and within an
easy stone's cast of the public road, there is an immense spherical
boulder of granite, to which there is attached a curious old story,
which invests with additional interest an object deserving enough of
attention for its own sake--for the sake, that is, of its huge size
and almost perfect spherical form, this latter peculiarity, in the
huge solid mass, making it the most remarkable thing of the kind on
the mainland, at least of the West Highlands. The story of the Appin
House boulder, or Clach Ruric as it is called, is, dropping minor
and unessential details, to the following effect:--Long, long ago
a Prince of Lochlin or Scandinavia, with a formidable fleet of war
galleys, made a descent upon the Hebrides, killing and plundering
everywhere with a ruthlessness known only, even in those days of
rude lawlessness, to the Vikings of the north. Having thoroughly
devastated the islands, Ruric--for such was the Prince's name--steered
for the mainland of Morven, and took up his residence in the castle
of Mearnaig, in Glensanda. In this stronghold, the ruins of which
still exist, he resolved to pass the winter, with the intention of
over-running and plundering the adjoining districts in the spring,
and afterwards sailing homewards in the calm of summer seas, for his
galleys were so deeply laden with booty that he feared to encounter
the turbulence of the North Sea at any other season. In the early
spring the cruel Northman was betimes astir, killing and plundering
with but little opposition throughout the districts of Kingerloch,
Sunart, and Ardgour, to the head of Lochiel. While of his numerous
fleet a single galley showed more than a foot and a span (troidh agus
rèis were the words of the narrator) of gunwale unsubmerged, Ruric was
unsatisfied, and to complete his ill-gotten freight he resolved on the
plunder of the opposite district of Appin, the smoke of whose dwellings
could be seen, and the lowing of whose numerous herds could be heard
(when the summer morning was still and the Linnhe Loch was calm) by
the pirate prince from the battlements of the castle of Mearnaig. One
morning Ruric anchored his galleys in the Sound of Shuna, and landing,
erected his tents on the green knoll now occupied by Appin House. With
this spot as his head-quarters, it was his intention to plunder
the district north and south of him at his leisure, believing that
he would meet with as little opposition here as he had already met
with elsewhere. The inhabitants of Appin, however, were partly on
their guard, and determined to resist, and if possible chastise, the
invader. And first conveying their old men, women, and children, with
their flocks and herds, into the fastnesses of the upland glens, they
resolved to watch the movements of the Norsemen, ready to fall upon
them whenever a favourable opportunity should offer. That same night,
as some cattle herds, acting as scouts, were on the hill immediately
above the tents of the invaders, one of them directed the attention
of his companions to a huge granite boulder with so slight a hold of
the hill crest, that, with some little labour, it might be let loose
at any time--a terrible messenger of wrath--amongst the tents of the
enemy below, whose shouts of laughter at that moment, and snatches
of rude song, proved that they had feasted plentifully and had no
apprehension of immediate death or danger in any form. After much
labour, the herdsmen managed so to dig about and undermine and loosen
the boulder in its bed on the hill-face, that, on a given signal,
their united strength sufficed to tilt it headlong over the steep,
leaping and thundering on its terrible path. The largest trees in
its course snapped before the boulder like reeds: when it came into
momentary contact with a rock, the sparks flew heavenward as if
from an exploded meteor! In a dozen of bounds it reached the tents
of the Norsemen, crushing, mangling, grinding into pulp or powder (a
pronnadh agus a bruanadh, are the Gaelic words) everything it touched,
and finally stopping where it now stands, to be long regarded by the
people of the district with a feeling akin to superstitious awe, and
to be known by the name of Clach Ruric. In the morning, the Norsemen
could only know by the mangled fragments of their bodies that their
Prince, with his two sons, and many of those next to him in power,
had met with a terrible death. Before the Appin men could gather in
sufficient force to attack them, the Norsemen unmoored their galleys,
chanting the death-song of their chief as they unmoored, and set sail
for Lochlin, never more to trouble the mainland of the West Highlands
with their invasions. The venerable seanachie from whom we picked up
this tradition, added that Castle Coefin, or Cyffin, in Lismore, is
so called after a Danish prince of that name, who also was connected
with Ruric's expedition, though in what manner he was unable to say.
Not far from Clach Ruric, on an island rock in the entrance to the
Sound of Shuna, are the ruins of another castle, of a later date,
however, and more recent interest than can be attached to the many
strongholds of the Viking period perched on the rocks and promontories
of this part of the West Highlands. This is Castle Stalker, or, in the
language of the district itself, Caisteal-an-Stalcaire, the Castle of
the Falconer or Fowler. The small rock-island on which it is built is
Sgeir-an-Sgairbh (the sea-rock, or skerry of the cormorant), from very
early times the gathering cry at once and rendezvous of the Stewarts
of Appin in all their maritime expeditions. Castle Stalker dates from
about the beginning of the reign of James IV., for whose convenience
and accommodation, when, as frequently happened, he extended his
hunting expeditions to this district, it was built. Stewart of Appin,
who was a great favourite with the king, was appointed hereditary
keeper, and the castle continued in the possession of the family until,
about the year 1645, the Mac Ian Stewart of that date, in a moment of
drunken folly, made it over to his wily neighbour, Donald Campbell of
the Airds, receiving in return the handsome and adequate equivalent
of an eight-oared birlinn, or small wherry! Stewart, when sober, would
have gladly cancelled so manifestly one-sided a barter-bargain at any
sacrifice, but Campbell, having got possession, kept it; while the
disgraceful transaction so stung the pride of the Stewarts that they
practically deposed the Baothaire (the silly one), as they nicknamed
the chief, from his chieftainship, by unanimously electing his cousins
of Invernahyle and Ardsheal to be their leaders in the subsequent
wars of Montrose. For a short time during Montrose's ascendancy in
the Highlands, and for a longer period towards the close of the reign
of Charles II., Castle Stalker was again in the possession of the
Stewarts; but at the Revolution the Campbells had it all their own way;
they repossessed themselves of the castle, and it has remained theirs
ever since. About forty years ago a gentleman of the family of Ailein
'Ic Rob of Appin, who had amassed a considerable fortune in the West
Indies, offered the then proprietor a large sum for the bare rock
and ruins of Castle Stalker, but the offer was refused.
From the wooded knoll to the left, as we entered the village
of Portnacroish, we heard some notes that, harsh as they were,
delighted us, for we had not heard them for many years; and the
reader will perhaps smile when we confess delight in association
with what was neither more nor less than the chattering of a pair
of magpies! Knowing that it must be magpie chattering and nothing
else, though the lively confabulators were for the moment invisible,
we got out of our conveyance, and on reaching an open glade we got
sight of a pair of these beautiful birds perched on the topmost
bough of an old ash tree; and so busy were they in the discussion
of what must have been a matter of grave and immediate importance,
that the usually shy and wary birds did not notice our approach till
we were quite close upon them, when, with a scream of alarm and an
indignant flirt of their tails, they glided in graceful curve, rather
than flew, over the tree tops and disappeared. So rare has the magpie
become in Lochaber and the immediately surrounding districts, that
a sight of a pair of these handsome and sagacious birds delighted
us exceedingly. We had little difficulty in concluding that their
lively chattering on that bright and beautiful morning was about no
less important a matter than the propriety of at once putting their
house in order and setting about the labours of incubation. If there
were any truth in popular superstition, that particular day ought to
have afterwards turned out a disagreeable one to us; for had we not
seen two magpies together, and what is more, did we not go out of our
way to see them, when we might have easily passed on unseen of them,
as they were invisible to us? In the south of Scotland the old pyet
rhyme is something like this--
"One's joy,
Two's grief,
Three a wedding,
Four death."
In the old sgeulachd the Gaelic rhyme is of similar import--
"Chunnaic mi pioghaid a's dh-éirich leam;
Chunnaic mi dhà 'sgum b'iargain iad;
Chunnaic mi tri a's b'aighearach mi;
Ach ceithir ri'm linn chan iarrainn iad."
In our own case, on that particular occasion, the superstition
could not have been more completely falsified by the event, for,
maugre the magpies, our trip to Oban was in its every circumstance as
agreeable and pleasant as it could well be. What a pity it is that
these beautiful birds, whose favourite residence, too, if they were
only permitted to live in peace, is the immediate vicinity of human
dwellings, should be of such evil repute that gamekeepers everywhere
consider themselves justified in accomplishing their utter destruction
by every means in their power. Their utter destruction we have said;
and it is only as to their total extirpation that we would venture on
a word of expostulation with gamekeepers and their employers. It is
true that the magpie is an enemy to winged game, being a cunning and
persistent nest-robber, an adroiter sucker of eggs than the proverbial
"grandmother" herself. That the gamekeeper should therefore dislike
them is the most natural thing in the world, and that, in gamekeeper's
own phrase, they should "be kept down" is proper enough. But we
cannot agree that it is necessary that the bird should be utterly
destroyed. Here and there on a wide estate an occasional pair of
magpies might surely be tolerated for the sake of their beauty and
amusingly lively manners, and on the divine principle of "live and
let live." For our own part, in approaching a gentleman's residence,
the sight of a pair of these birds flitting about "the old ancestral
elms" always intensifies our respect for the place and the owner.
Crossing Loch Creran, by the Ferry of Shian, we are in
Benderloch--classic ground, and archæologically the most interesting
spot, perhaps, in all the West Highlands. "Everything here is
beautiful," says Dr. Macculloch. "The distance between the ferries
of Shian and Connel is but five miles; but it is a day's journey for
a wise man." About half-way is Dùn-Mac-Uisneachain (the Fort of the
Son of Uisneach), one of the most interesting of our vitrified forts,
quâ such, and supposed to be the Beregonium of Hector Boethius, and
the site of the still older Selma, the "Hall of Swords" of Ossianic
song. That it was a place of importance long before the time of
the Dalriad Scots seems very certain; and, leaving Macpherson's
"Ossian" altogether out of the question, there occur in the old
Fingalian ballads, and tales of the Féinne, about the antiquity
of which there has never been dispute; numberless local references
which seem in a very remarkable manner to point to this spot as the
principal stronghold in Scotland (for they were of Ireland also) of
the Fingalians at one period, and that the most important, perhaps,
in their history. Within a short distance of Dun-Mac-Uisneachain,
and commanding it, is a steep, rocky eminence of considerable
height, called Dunvallary or Dunvallanry, the etymology of which
may be Dùn-bhail'-n-righ, the Fortified Place of the King's Town;
or Dùn-bhail' n 'fhrìth, the Fort of the Town on the verge of the
Hunting Forest. Stretching away towards Connel and Loch Etive is the
wide moorland flat of Achnacree, which, with its numerous cairns,
Druidical circles, monoliths, and other relics of the olden time, may
very well be the ancient "plains of Lora;" Lora itself, frequently
mentioned in Ossianic poetry, and meaning Luath shruth, the loud,
swift current, par excellence, meeting us face to face, so to speak,
in the turbulently impetuous rapids of Connel.