Mankind in all ages have been prone to superstitious beliefs and
hero-worship. The most enlightened nations of ancient or modern times
have not been more exempt from them than the most ignorant. The ancient
Chaldeans, Babylonians, and Egyptians were grossly superstitious,
believing in magic, omens, and dreams. The Jews possessing intimate
knowledge of a Supreme Being, universally ruling, were not free from
similar practices acquired during their four hundred years contact with
the Egyptians while sojourning on the banks of the Nile. The Greeks and
Romans were not a whit better; they deified their heroes, put faith in
oracles, divinations and dreams. They imagined that bees, ants, and
various birds, beasts, and reptiles had the power of giving omens of
good or bad fortune. They had gods celestial and gods terrestrial, and
subterranean gods. The appearance of eclipses and comets were to them
ominous of public disasters. The Scandinavians had their own fanciful
mythology, their Odens, their Thors, their Balders, their Niords,
their Triggas, and their Treyas, and a vast dread of the Elfin, Dwarf,
and Great tribes. The Anglo-Saxon, in common with the Scandinavian,
believed in these deities, and in others peculiar to the Goths. They
had idols emblematical of the sun, moon, earth, and the various
seasons. The Easter festivals of the Christian Church are supposed to
have been derived from the name of the Anglo-Saxon goddess Eastre, to
whom they made sacrifices in the month of April. The burning of the
log of wood in December was a sacrifice to the sun, as an emblem of
returning light, the days then beginning to lengthen; and from this
ancient practice may be traced the custom of burning the yule log at
Christmas, a practice still common, I believe, in parts of England.
They had also their beliefs in giants, elfs, and dwarfs, which haunted
the fields, woods, mountains, rivers, and lakes, alike in character
to the demi-gods and other imaginary spirits of the Grecian and Roman
superstitions; but worse still, to the Anglo-Saxon is ascribed the
introduction to England and Scotland of the more dangerous doctrine of
witchcraft and divinations, before which the reasoning power of the
people quailed, and all intellectual advancement was impeded.
The Celts are credited with originating the fairy superstition, though
it is unknown from what cause. In Scotland and other countries in
which Celtic traditions predominate, the fairies were regarded on the
whole as little given to malevolence; on the contrary, ready to help
mankind at times, though when offended they exhibited an admixture of
the malignant spirit of the elf and the dwarf of the Scandinavian,
who introduced the belief in them to the Celts. Most spirits were
supposed to have the attribute of enlarging or contracting their bulk
at will; the fairy alone was regarded as essentially diminutive in
size, the miniature of a human being, perfect in form, clad in pure
green, brilliant and rich beyond conception, inhabiting subterranean
palaces of indescribable splendour, and innumerable in numbers. They
were represented as continually feasting, dancing, and making merry, or
moving in procession amongst the shady green grass and verdant lawns of
earth, entertained with the most harmonious and melodious music that
mortal ear ever listened to, observant of the doings of mankind, and
not unwilling to help them to overcome such unusual or extraordinary
difficulties, if called upon, as my story tells.
Donald Duaghal having returned from the wars in Germany to his own
country, where his fame preceded him, was a great hero, in the
estimation of his retainers. His extraordinary valour, his feats of
daring, his fearless conduct, his escaping comparatively scathless of
wounds out of all the skirmishes, sieges, and battles in which he took
a leading share; all this, magnified by the stories related of him by
the few retainers who survived and returned home with him into the
Reay country, threw around the man a halo of romance that gave rise
to the belief that he must have had a charmed life, and, it might be,
some occult relations with the ‘Droch Spiorad’ and the ‘Black art’ in
his travels abroad. ‘Nach robh e san Edailt for an d’iunnsaich e an
sgoil dubh?’—Italy being the country above all others in which the
‘black art’ was to be acquired. But Donald was never in Italy. It did
not matter to Clann Mhic Aoidh. They did not trouble themselves much
about correct geography; their chief was abroad; he might have been in
Italy; and that was sufficient for the unsophisticated and unlettered
people surrounding their beloved chief who had seen much in his travels
and campaigns in Norway, Sweden, Germany, and Poland. He had crossed
rivers and estuaries, and transported his soldiers over them by bridges
of boats constructed by Swedish and Danish military engineers in very
little time, even while his soldiers were taking a hasty meal, Donald
himself urging on the work and lending a hand—all this was related in
Tongue, much to the astonishment of the natives around, who could not
believe it. They could not understand how an estuary like the Kyle of
Tongue could be bridged in half-an-hour. The feat was too marvellous
to be true, and if true there must have been some supernatural
assistance. But could he not do anything? Did he not learn the ‘black
art’ in Italy? Rumour went and was magnified, till in the long run it
was believed that nothing was impossible to Donald. It was rumoured
that he intended to throw a bridge over the estuary from Tongue to
Melness. This report got wings and was believed. The knowing ones were
incredulous, but the credulous had no doubt he could and would do it.
Has he not the ‘black art?’ besides, can he not send to the ‘Cailleach
Mhor’ in Dornoch? get her to send him the fairies, and the bridge will
be built before morning. This was so much talked about that it became
a received opinion that Donald Duaghal was supposed to have actually
attempted the feat. He sent his Gille to Dornoch to the Cailleach
requesting her as a special favour to send him fairies to construct
a bridge across the Kyle of Tongue. The Cailleach Mhor consulted the
fairy queen, and she, willing to do anything for so brave a man as
Donald Duaghal, gave the Cailleach a box to be conveyed to Donald.
The Cailleach gave the box to the Gille with strict and peremptory
injunctions not to open it till he had delivered it into his master’s
hands. Alas! for weak humanity, always prying into secrets, always
doing the forbidden—the greater the restriction, the greater the
temptation to disobey. In an unlucky moment, going over the Crask, he
opened the box, when lo! in an instant, around him and about him on all
sides were myriads of tiny creatures, hammer in hand, shrilly
clamouring ‘Obair, obair, obair’ (Work, work, work). Nonplused with
the extraordinary sight, confounded for a moment with the effect of
his disobedience of orders, Mackay’s man was equal to the occasion.
Rapidly recovering his presence of mind and appreciating his position,
he ordered his importunate companions to set to work and pluck up the
heather off the whole hillside upon which they were. No sooner ordered
than it was done, and the same clamour was resumed of ‘Obair, obair,
obair.’ Driven by this almost to desperation he ordered his little
companions to fly away to Dornoch Firth opposite Tain, and there build
a bridge for the accommodation of the lieges of Dornoch and Baile
Dhuthaich. Instantly they went, and commenced operations, throwing up
the sand in clouds to form an embankment, but as ill-luck would have
it, some person passing the way about cock-crowing time, hearing the
noise and uproar exclaimed ‘Dhia beannaich mis, ciod e an obair tha’n
so’(God bless me, what work is this). Work was instantly suspended
never to be resumed, in consequence of God’s name being mentioned,
and a blessing asked on the work; and well would it have been, had it
never been commenced, for the sand accumulated by the fairies in that
night’s work forms the dangerous shoals between Dornoch and Tain to
this day, the sea roaring over them at every tide, and the noise of the
waves heard at the distance of many a mile, portends to the natives the
advent of foul weather. To this day the place is called Drochaid na
h’Aogh, or the Elfin Bridge.
It is lamentable to contemplate how such vain imaginations as these
should have so long weighed upon the intelligence and perception of the
people; but it may be asked, were they not fostered in a great measure
after the introduction of Christianity? when, through persecution,
religion assumed the garb of gloom and fanaticism, when belief in the
personal appearance of the devil was universal, and continued till
within recent years in the vulgar mind?
Ignorance is justly termed the mother of superstition. Wherever mankind
are least accustomed to trace events to natural causes superstitious
notions flourish most luxuriantly. When the mind once allows that
matters of ordinary and natural occurrence may take place by the
interference of the supernatural, there is obviously no limit to the
actions they are supposed to perform. In the present age of comparative
intelligence it is difficult to comprehend how human beings could be
so deplorably ignorant of natural causes and effects as to entertain
for a moment such gross notions of the supernatural, and yet, in
this nineteenth century, we can observe similar forces at work even
in the most respectable ranks of society—Mormonism, Southcotism,
spirit-rapping, table-turning. The Saxon of modern days has more
superstitious notions in his composition than the Celt, notwithstanding
his boastful superiority and pride in being more enlightened and freer
from prejudice than any other. He calls his superstitions ‘customs,’
and so reconciles himself to them. Does he like to sit down the
thirteenth person at the table or festive board? Does he believe in
lucky and unlucky days? Does he believe in the appearance, as a good
or evil omen, of two or three magpies when setting out upon a journey?
Does he like a hare to cross his path? or the upsetting of salt on the
table? the howling of dogs, the cracking of furniture, the tickling
noise of an insect in old furniture, the putting on the left shoe
first? When he relinquishes these he may hurl his stone of scorn at the
Celt for his belief in the Sithichean.