WE are in a west coast village or township, cut off from all
communication with the outer world, without Steamers, Railways, or even
Roads. We grow our own corn, and produce our 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_, and 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 post set up for the
purpose, and an equal number of young gossipers 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.
With these preliminary remarks we shall now introduce the readers of the
_Celtic Magazine_ to the most famous _Ceilidh_ house in the district,
and ask them to follow us from month to month while we introduce the
principal members of the celebrated circle. We shall make each re-appear
in these pages to repeat their old stories, recite old poems, never
published elsewhere, propound riddles, and in this way we shall be able
to lay before our readers a vast amount of the legends, clan feuds, and
traditional family history, connected with the Highlands, a large amount
of unpublished poetry, _duans_, riddles, proverbs, and Highland customs.
It will be necessary to give a great part in the original Gaelic,
especially the poetry; but translations of the legends, riddles, and
proverbs, will be given when convenient.
The house is such as we have above described. The good-man is bordering
upon 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, travelling 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. As we proceed, each of the
strangers and local celebrities will recite their own tales, not only
those of their own districts but 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 became
almost 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 taken up 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 here,
although chronologically it should be given further on. The picture was
complete, and brought down the plaudits of the house upon the "young
bard" as he was henceforth designated.