MORRAR NA SHEAN, OR THE LORD OF THE VENISON.
Far away in the north of Caithness stands the castle of Braal, on an
eminence above the river Thurso. It is a vast square tower, with
walls of great thickness, having the narrow stairs which lead to its
various stories formed in the heart of them. A deep fosse lies on
its north side, and the remains of various other ditches and outworks
are traceable around it.
In the days of William I. of Scotland, surnamed the Lion, because he
first put that emblem on his banners and seals, this castle was one
of the many residences of Harold Earl of Caithness and Count of
Orkney, Lord of Kirkwall, Braal, and Lochmore, who was otherwise
named Morrar na Shean, or Lord of the Venison, from his passionate
love of hunting and all rural sports.
Yet his character was cruel, fierce, morose, and savage; and he loved
hunting chiefly because it was a means of indulging in bloodshed,
slaughter, and destruction.
He brained with his axe every hound which proved faulty; and on more
than one occasion, huntsmen who had erred, violated the rules of the
chase, or otherwise incurred his displeasure, were tied to trees and
left to be devoured by wolves. One, named Magnus of Staneland, he
chained to a low rock in the sea, and left there to perish miserably
by drowning as the tide rose.
Harold was a handsome and stately man, of great stature and strength.
His fair hair and beard were curly and flowing; but his eyes were
keen and wicked in expression, and his brows were ever knitted as if
in perpetual defiance or wrath, unless at times when, gorged with
food or flushed with wine, he joined in the chorus of the harpers who
sang his praises at his banquets and festivals.
He could bend a stronger bow than three men could bend together. He
was wont to twirl three sharp swords at once, catching each by its
hilt in turn; and he could walk lightly and agilely along the oars of
his great birlinn, or galley, when it was being propelled by the
rowers, most of whom were Finns or Wends, whom he had captured in the
Baltic and chained to its benches as slaves.
Though he gave vast sums towards the completion of the cathedral
church of St. Magnus, which had been founded at Kirkwall by his
predecessor, Count Rognwald of Orkney, in 1138, he was averred to be
at heart an infidel; and Adam Bishop of Caithness, an amiable and
gentle prelate, who frequently reproved his excesses, once said to
him,--
"Earl Harold, are you a heathen or a believer? Do you hope for the
Valhalla of Odin or the Heaven of the Christians?"
"I believe in my strong arm and sharp sword," said he, haughtily.
"Am I a woman or a boy, that thou, a mitred monk, shouldst question
me thus? Moreover, remember that I would rather be addressed as
Morrar na Shean--Lord of the Venison--than as lord of all our
uncounted isles."
And from that time he hated the old bishop in his heart; so much so,
that John of Harpidale, one of his chief followers, proposed to have
the prelate boiled alive in the great hunting cauldron, and given in
broth to their hounds.
The earl's galley had thirty benches of rowers; its prow was adorned
by the head of a horse, richly gilded, and its sides and stern shone
with gilding and plates of burnished brass; its sails were purple,
and along its sides hung the shields of John of Harpidale, Thorolf
Starkadder, and others, who were his vassals. In its prow sat twenty
bearded harpers, with their harps, and to their songs the long sweeps
of the rowers kept time.
Wolves are said to have followed this great war-galley along the
shore, and screaming eagles, carrion crows, and other birds ventured
out to sea in expectation of the banquet that awaited them; for in
his quarrels and feuds with his island neighbours, Morrar na Shean
carried havoc and dismay wherever he went, and frequently
appropriated, without inquiry, the ships that sailed between the
Baltic coasts, the Elbe, and Flanders.
Then when his galley, with its purple sails shining in the sun, and
its long red streamers floating on the wind, was seen cleaving with
gilded prow the stormy seas that roll round the Orcades and Thule, it
spread terror, for the simple people of the isles believed it had
been built by the gnomes who abode in the sea-riven caves of Cape
Wrath, and that they had constructed it with such powerful spells,
that whenever the sails were spread, they directed its course
wherever the earl wished, without an order being issued.
On the 16th of April, 1150, the festival of St. Magnus the Martyr,
John of Harpidale and Thorolf Starkadder, on feeling some unpleasant
twinges of temporary compunction for their misdeeds, urged the earl
to visit either Rome or Kirkwall; for so great was the sanctity of
the Patron of the Isles, that the Orcadians were long wont to decide
by a throw of the dice whether they should pay their devotions at the
shrine of St. Peter or the Martyr of Orkney.
But Morrar na Shean laughed at them, and swore with a great oath that
he would visit neither, as he had merrier work to do. Then,
collecting a great train of followers, he sailed away north, up the
Cattegat, to the assistance of the King of Denmark, Waldemar the
Great, who had recently repaired the wall of Gotrick, subdued the
pagans of Rugen, and called himself lord of all the countries
northward of the Elbe.
Earl Harold was long gone, and silence and emptiness reigned in the
hall and chambers of Braal; but there were peace and repose in
Caithness and the Isles. The red deer roamed on the hills, unscared
by the bay of hound or the blast of horn; without fear, the fishers
put forth to cast their nets in Scapa Flow and the Sound of Yell, to
hunt the huge whale in the sandy bays, or the tusky walrus on the
seaweedy rocks; and the white-haired Bishop of Caithness began to
hope that they had all seen the last of the terrible Morrar na Shean.
But lo! one day, when the dark scud was driving fast across the
northern sky, when the boiling foam rose high on every storm-beat
cape and bluff, when the wild sea-fowl were flying far inland, and
the hissing waves rolled white as snow over the Skerries of the
Pentland Firth and the black Boars of Dungisbay Head, the well-known
purple sails of the great birlinn were seen, as she came flying
through the mist and spray, with her long sweeps flashing and the
sheen of helmets and bucklers glittering above her bulwarks in the
partial gleams of a stormy setting sun.
Then fast went the news over continent and isle that Morrar na Shean
had come again, and that he had brought with him, out of the distant
north, the Princess Gunhilda as his wife--the only daughter of
Waldemar, the Danish king; so many who feared more than they loved
him, crowded to see the dame who was now to be the lady of Braal and
mother of the future Earls of Caithness and Counts of Orkney.
With the wiry tinkle of harps, the blare of brass trumpets and of
hunting-horns, the voices of the rowers mingling with the regular
plash of the long sweeps to which they were chained, the great galley
came into the Bay of Inver-thorsa (or the mouth of the great river of
Thor), whence Thurso takes its name; and all the people of Caithness
were crowding on the shore, as thickly as the gulls and cormorants
that cluster on the rocky Clett, which guards the entrance of the
haven.
As she stepped ashore, the grace and beauty of the Danish princess
charmed all; but she seemed pale and sad, for she had espoused the
warlike Harold in obedience only to her father's will. Yet they
seemed a stately pair.
She wore a blue silk tunic, a long flowing mantle of fine white
cloth, adorned by ribands and tassels of gold; a veil of rich lace
flowed from under the half-diadem which she wore above her golden
tresses in virtue of her rank as a king's daughter and an earl's
wife; and she had massive bracelets and armlets of gold.
The fierce Harold wore his lurich, or shirt of mail, that reached to
his knees, which were bare. It was formed of fine rings of the
brightest steel. He had long sandal-like boots of thick leather,
studded with gilt knobs; and a golden serpent surmounted his helmet,
which was of polished steel. His mantle was of purple silk, and hung
from his shoulders by two sparkling brooches.
Massive bracelets of gold and silver were on his wrists. He carried
a sword, a spear, a round shield of steel burnished like a mirror,
and wore at his right side a mattacuslash, or long Scottish arm-pit
dagger.
John of Harpidale, Thorolf Starkadder, and others, all similarly
armed, leaped noisily ashore, with helmets and hauberks ringing, and
brandished their swords in token of greeting to the people, and to
express joy on treading their native soil again.
And now the gathered multitude divided like the waves of the sea to
make way for an aged man who approached with a gilded pastoral staff
in his hand, but whose garments were humble as those of a cowled
friar. He was Adam, Bishop of Caithness, and lately Abbot of
Melrose, who, preceded by his crossbearer, and followed by many
ecclesiastics of his diocese, came to bless the newly-married pair.
The countess, though the daughter of a powerful king, knelt
reverently and humbly to receive the old man's benison; but not so
the haughty earl, who had sworn never to bow his head to mortal man,
so he passed proudly on, and repaired to his castle of Braal.
On the very day after his arrival, he quitted the countess, and,
accompanied by John of Harpidale, by Thorolf Starkadder, and other
favourite companions, departed on one of his great hunting
expeditions.
There were with him more than five hundred huntsmen, armed with bows,
arrows, knives, and spears; and they had with them at least two
hundred of the strong, wiry, rough-haired Scottish hounds, to scour
the hills for game.
For many days the sport was carried over hill and through valley; and
every night the hunters formed a camp. A fire was lighted of fuel
piled up as high a house, and often the houses of the poor were
unroofed for the purpose.
The glare of this great fire was visible at midnight from the
mountains of Pomona and the Pentland Skerries far away out in the
lonely ocean. Around it were scores of pots and kettles boiling
salmon and chickens; and thereat were heathcocks, capercailzie,
ptarmigan, venison, boars' hams, and partridges, being baked,
broiled, roasted, or stewed; while ale, usquebaugh, and wines from
Burgundy and the Flemings of Ostende were drunk by the roystering
huntsmen, who often danced hand in hand round the vast roaring
pyramid of flame, as their pagan sires were wont to do at the
Baal-tein feasts of old, and if one by chance fell in, the fun was
all the greater.
At times they would fill their cups to the brim. and standing in a
circle round Morrar na Shean, whose goblet was full of wine, of ale,
and of usquebaugh mixed together, they shouted,--
"Oh! Lord, let the world be turned upside down, that brave men may
make bread out of it!"
And then the cups were drained and, amid wild hurrahs, flung high
into the air.
Morrar na Shean, though he lived in so early an age of Scottish
history, was not without some skill in mechanics, for we are informed
that "there was a chest or some kind of machine fixed in the mouth of
the stream below the castle (of Lochmore), for catching salmon in
their ingress into the loch, or their egress out of it, and that
immediately on the fish being entangled in the machine, the capture
was announced to the family by the ringing of a bell, which the
struggles of the fish set in motion, by means of a fine cord, one end
of which was attached to a bell in the middle of an upper room, and
the other end to the machine in the stream below."
This was an ingenious fish-trap; but while the Lord of the Venison
pursued his more furious sports and drunken orgies, the poor Princess
Gunhilda was left in utter loneliness at the castle of Braal; and the
long nights which her husband spent in roystering among his wild
followers, were passed by her, often in tears, and at the deeply
arched windows of the lofty hall or of her bower chamber, watching
the merry dancers, the streamers of the northern lights, which made
her think of her Danish home, of her mother's farewell kiss, of the
castle of Axel-huis, and the green, waving woods of Zealand.
Harold was soon weary of his wife, for her extreme gentleness tired
him, and he loved her not, though he longed for a son--a little Count
of Orkney--to heir his vast possessions, and in whose baby face he
might see his own ferocious visage reflected.
He prayed at holy wells, and, candle in hand, he went bare-foot in
sackcloth garments, with ashes on his head, to every shrine of
sanctity in the Northern Isles; he sent gifts to Adam the bishop, and
offerings to the altar of St. Magnus at Kirkwall, with silver lamps,
rich garments, candles of perfumed wax, and jars of oil and wine;
seeking in return of the prebendaries only their prayers that he
might have a son; but on the Yule-day of 1153, the countess had a
daughter, whom she named after her mother the queen, Algiva.
Morrar na Shean was furious with disappointment; he reviled Bishop
Adam, and threatened to burn his cathedral, where prayers had proved
of so little avail. Then for days and nights he sat drinking with
John of Harpidale and Thorolf Starkadder; and thereafter ordering his
great galley to be got in readiness, they put to sea, and were driven
by a storm so far as Rona, a lonely isle which lies far amid the
Atlantic sea, thirty leagues westward of the Orcades. In Rona was a
little chapel, dedicated by a chief of the isles to St. Ronan, and it
was said to be guarded by an unseen spirit; for if any person in the
island died and a shovel was placed near the altar overnight, a grave
was found ready dug in the morning.
The place was lonely and solemn, for no sound was ever heard there
but the sough of the gusty sea-breeze, and the mournful moan of the
white waves as they clomb the echoing rocks.
Sad and soothing as was the scene, yet in sheer despite at being
driven so far away, Morrar and his followers ravaged this poor place,
destroyed the chapel, and slew some of the people on the adjacent
island of Suliska. But the vengeance of Heaven pursued them; for
when returning, the great galley struck upon the Clett, a rock four
hundred feet in height, near the entrance of Thurso Bay, and many of
her crew were drowned.
Prior to this, Morrar na Shean had ceased to address Heaven, and now
appealed to the idols of his forefathers. He visited the Temple of
the Moon in Innistore, and at midnight, with strange barbaric rites,
on his bare knees, spilt some of his blood by the self-inflicted stab
of a dagger, on the central stone of Power.
This was a great obelisk carved with serpents, and the jormagundror
great sea-snake, the emblem of eternity; and with many mystic emblems
and Runic inscriptions; and there between midnight and morn, he
prayed for the assistance of the Moon, of Odin, and Thor. But all
this mummery was vain; for on his return he found that the countess
had given birth to _a second daughter_, whom she had named Erica; and
in the blindness of his wrath the earl struck her with his hand
clenched in his steel glove, and threatened to toss the child from
the windows of Braal into the Thurso.
Again with John of Harpidale, with the long-bearded Thorolf, and
other roysterers, he put to sea in the great galley, and sailed into
the Baltic, where they aided King Waldemar in the destruction of the
famous city of Iomsberg, the stronghold of the northern pirates, whom
on his return the earl imitated, for he destroyed several towns on
the shores of the Baltic, and robbed the churches of their holy
vessels. Then the earl sought the aid of enchanters and wizards, and
passed whole nights in dark caverns and pine forests, where Druid
circles stood, hoping to see elves, demons, gnomes, or fairies, but
sought in vain.
He next sailed to the Isle of Rugen, where the Wends were still, in
the twelfth century, unbaptized pagans, who worshipped Svantavit, the
God of Light, in their capital, Arcona, which is situated on a high
rock above the waves of the Baltic.
Svantavit was a monstrous idol having four heads; but he was
consulted as an oracle, and the captain of every merchant ship which
made a good voyage was compelled to pay tribute to the priests of his
temple.
In the hands of this idol was a cornucopia, which in the first month
of every year was filled with precious wine; by looking into what
remained of it at Yule-tide, the chief-priest could predict peace or
war, dearth or plenty for the ensuing year; and this absurd paganism
existed in Rugen until the middle of the thirteenth century. Ratzo,
King of the Isle, was a famous but aged warrior, who had destroyed
the flourishing city of Lubeck in 1134; so to him, and to the
chief-priest, the earl appealed, and laid at the foot of their
hideous idol in Arcona all the plunder of the Christian
churches--chalices of gold, lamps of silver, croziers studded with
precious stones, and altar-cloths covered with embroidery.
The priest accepted the plunder, ascended a ladder, and peeped into
the horn in the hands of the idol, where, as he averred, he could see
amid the wine the figure of a little boy, with an earl's coronet on
his head, and a sword in each hand. So Morrar na Shean with joy
spread his purple sails upon the northern sea, and came home to find
that the countess had brought into the world _a third daughter_, whom
she named Thora. The earl was ready to expire with passion.
"Let us return to Arcona!" said Thorolf Starkadder.
"For what purpose, fool?" asked the earl, gruffly.
"To destroy the temple of Svantavit, hang the false priest, and burn
his idol."
"Nay," said Morrar na Shean, grinding his teeth. "I shall take other
vengeance upon fate, for fate has conspired against me."
"How--how?" asked his followers.
"Anon, ye shall hear!"
"Shall we not see?" asked Thorolf, grimly, for he was a lover of
mischief and cruelty.
"No," replied Morrar, briefly, as he gnawed his yellow moustaches in
wrath.