We are in a West Coast village or township, cut off from all
communication with the outer world, without Steamers, Railways, even
Roads. We grow our own corn, produce our own beef, our mutton, our
butter, our cheese, and our wool. We do our own carding, our spinning,
and our weaving. We marry and are taken in marriage by, and among,
our own kith and kin. In short, we are almost entirely independent
of the more civilized and more favoured South. The few articles we
do not produce—tobacco and tea—our local merchant, the only one in
a district about forty square miles in extent, carries on his back,
once a month or so, from the Capital of the Highlands. We occasionally
indulge in a little whisky at Christmas and the New Year, at our
weddings and our balls. We make it, too, and we make it well. The
Salmon Fishery Acts are, as yet, not strictly enforced, and we can
occasionally shoot—sometimes even in our gardens—and carry home,
without fear of serious molestation, the monarch of the forest. We are
not overworked. We live plainly but well, on fresh fish, potatoes and
herring, porridge and milk, beef and mutton, eggs, butter, and cheese.
Modern pickles and spices are as unknown as they are unnecessary. True,
our houses are built not according to the most modern principles of
architecture. They are, in most cases, built of undressed stone and
moss (coinneach), thatched with turf or divots, generally covered over
with straw or ferns held on by a covering of old herring nets, straw,
and rope, or siaman.
The houses are usually divided into three apartments—one door in the
byre end leading to the whole. Immediately we enter, we find ourselves
among the cattle. A stone wall, or sometimes a partition of clay and
straw separates the byre from the kitchen. Another partition, usually
of a more elegant description, separates the latter from the “culaist,”
or sleeping apartment. In the centre of the kitchen a pavement of three
or four feet in diameter is laid, slightly raised towards the middle,
on which is placed the peat fire. The smoke, by a kind of instinct
peculiar to peat smoke, finds its way to a hole in the roof called
the “falas,” and makes its escape. The fire in the centre of the room
was almost a necessity of the good old Ceilidh days. When the people
congregated in the evening, the circle could be extended to the full
capacity of the room, and occasionally it became necessary to have
a circle within a circle. A few extra peats on the fire would, at
any time, by the additional heat produced, cause an extension of the
circle, and at the same time send its warming influences to the utmost
recesses of the apartment. The circle became extended by merely pushing
back the seats, and this arrangement became absolutely necessary in the
houses which were most celebrated as the great Ceilidh centres of the
district.
The Ceilidh rendezvous is the house in which all the folk-lore of the
country, all the old “sgeulachdan,” or stories, the ancient poetry
known to the bards, or Seanachaidhean, the old riddles and proverbs
are recited from night to night by old and young. All who took an
interest in such questions congregated in the evening in these centres
of song and story. They were also great centres of local industry.
Net-making was the staple occupation, at which the younger members of
the circle had to take a spell in turn. Five or six nets were attached
in different corners of the apartment to a chair, a bedstead, or to a
post set up for the purpose, and an equal number of young gossippers
nimbly plied their fingers at the rate of a pound of yarn a-day. Thus,
a large number of nets were turned out during the winter months, the
proceeds of which, when the nets were not made for the members of the
household, went to pay for tobacco and other luxuries for the older and
most necessitous members of the circle.
We shall now introduce the reader to the most famous Ceilidh house
in the district. It is such as we have above described. The good-man
is bordering on five-score. He is a bard of no mean order, often
delighting his circle of admiring friends with his own compositions,
as well as with those of Ossian and other ancient bards. He holds a
responsible office in the church, is ground-officer for the laird as
well as family bard. He possesses the only Gaelic New Testament in the
district. He lives in the old house with three sons whose ages range
from 75 to 68, all full of Highland song and story, especially the
youngest two—John and Donald. When in the district, drovers from
Lochaber, Badenoch, and all parts of the Highlands find their way to
this noted Ceilidh house. Bards, itinerants of all sorts, traveling
tinkers, pipers, fiddlers, and mendicants, who loved to hear or
tell a good story, recite an old poem or compose a modern one, all
come and are well received among the regular visitors in the famous
establishment. In the following pages strangers and local celebrities
will recite their tales, those of their own districts, as also those
picked up in their wanderings throughout the various parts of the
country.
It was a condition never deviated from, that every one in the house
took some part in the evening’s performance, with a story, a poem,
a riddle, or a proverb. This rule was not only wholesome, but one
which almost became a necessity to keep the company select, and the
house from becoming overcrowded. A large oak chair was placed in a
particular spot—“where the sun rose”—the occupant of which had to
commence the evening’s entertainment when the company assembled, the
consequence being that this seat, although one of the best in the
house, was usually the last occupied; and in some cases, when the house
was not overcrowded, it was never occupied at all. In the latter case,
the one who sat next to it on the left had to commence the evening’s
proceedings.
It was no uncommon thing to see one of the company obliged to coin
something for the occasion when otherwise unprepared. On one occasion
the bard’s grandson happened to find himself in the oak chair, and was
called upon to start the night’s entertainment. Being in his own house
he was not quite prepared for the unanimous and imperative demand made
upon him to carry out the usual rule, or leave the room. After some
hesitation, and a little private humming in an undertone, he commenced,
however, a rhythmical description of his grandfather’s house, which
is so faithful that, we think, we cannot do better than give it. The
picture was complete, and brought down the plaudits of the house upon
the “young bard” as he was henceforth designated.