prediction regarding the Macleods from an old man there, over eighty
years of age, who remembered seven proprietors of Raasay, and who sorely
lamented the fulfilment of the prophecy, and the decline of the good
old stock, entirely in consequence of their own folly and extravagance.
Since then, we had the prediction repeated by a Kintail man in identical
terms; and as it is hardly translatable, we shall give it in the original
vernacular:—“Dar a thig Mac-Dhomhnuill Duibh bàn; MacShimidh ceann-dearg;
Sisealach claon ruadh; Mac-Coinnich mor bodhar; agus Mac-Gille-challum
cama-chasach, iar-ogha Ian bhig à Ruiga, ’se sin a Mac-Gille-challum is
miosa ’thainig na thig; cha bhi mi ann ri linn, ’s cha’n fhearr leam
air a bhith.” (When we shall have a fair-haired Lochiel; a red-haired
Lovat; a squint-eyed, fair-haired Chisholm; a big deaf Mackenzie; and a
bow-crooked-legged Mac-Gille-challum, who shall be the great-grand-son
of John Beg, or little John, of Ruiga: that Mac-Gille-challum will be
the worst that ever came or ever will come; I shall not be in existence
in his day, and I have no desire that I should.) Ruiga is the name
of a place in Skye. When the last Macleod of Raasay was born, an old
sage in the district called upon his neighbour, and told him, with an
expression of great sorrow, that Mac-Gille-challum of Raasay now had an
heir, and his birth was a certain forerunner of the extinction of his
house. Such an event as the birth of an heir had been hitherto, in this
as in all other Highland families, universally considered an occasion
for great rejoicing among the retainers. The other old man was amazed,
and asked the sage what he meant by such unusual and disloyal remarks.
“Oh!” answered he, “do you not know that this is the grand-grandson of
John Beg of Ruiga whom Coinneach Odhar predicted would be the worst of
his race.” And so he undoubtedly proved himself to be, for he lost for
ever the ancient inheritance of his house, and acted generally in such a
manner as to fully justify the Seer’s prediction; and what is still more
remarkable, the Highland lairds, with the peculiar characteristics and
malformations foretold by Kenneth, preceded or were the contemporaries of
the last MacGille-challum of Raasay.
Here is a prediction of the downfall of another distinguished Highland
family—Clan Ranald of the Isles. “The day will come when the old wife
with the footless stocking (cailleach nam mogan) will drive the Lady
of Clan Ranald from Nunton House, in Benbecula.” We are informed that
this was fulfilled when the Macdonalds took the farm of Nunton, locally
known as “Baile na Caillich”. Old Mrs. Macdonald was in the habit of
wearing these primitive articles of dress, and was generally known in
the district as “Cailleach nam Mogan”. Clan Ranald and his lady, like
many more of our Highland chiefs, ultimately went to the wall, and the
descendants of the “old wife with the footless stocking” occupied,
and, for anything we know, still occupy the ancient residence of the
long-distinguished race of Clan Ranald of the Isles.
In the beginning of the seventeenth century, and during the Seer’s
lifetime, there lived in Kintail an old man—Duncan Macrae—who was curious
to know by what means he should end his days. He applied to a local
female Seer, who informed him that he “would die by the sword” (le bàs a
chlaidheamh). This appeared so improbable in the case of such an old man,
who had taken part in so many bloody frays and invariably escaped unhurt,
that the matter was referred to the greater authority, Coinneach Odhar.
He corroborated the woman, but still the matter was almost universally
discredited in the district, and by none more so than by old Duncan
himself. However, years after, conviction was forced upon them; for,
according to the “Genealogy of the Macraes,” written by the Rev. John
Macrae, minister of Dingwall, who died in 1704—“Duncan being an old man
in the year 1654, when General Monk, afterwards Duke of Albemarle, came
to Kintail, retired from his house in Glenshiel to the hills, where,
being found by some of the soldiers who had straggled from the body of
the army in hopes of plunder, and who, speaking to him roughly, in a
language he did not understand, he, like Old Orimanus, drew his sword,
&c., and was immediately killed by them. This was all the blood that
General Monk or his soldiers, amounting to 1500 men, had drawn, and all
the opposition he met with, although the Earl of Middleton and Sir George
Monro were within a few miles of them, and advertised of their coming,
Seaforth having been sent by Middleton to the Isle of Skye and parts
adjoining, to treat with the Macdonalds and the Macleods, &c.”
Regarding the evictions which would take place in the Parish of Petty, he
said, “The day will come, and it is not far off, when farm-steadings will
be so few and far between, that the crow of a cock shall not be heard
from the one steading to the other”. This prediction has certainly been
fulfilled, for, in the days of the Seer there were no fewer than sixteen
tenants on the farm of Morayston alone.
On the south of the bay, at Petty, is an immense stone, of at least
eight tons weight, which formerly marked the boundary between the
estates of Culloden and Moray. On the 20th of February, 1799, it was
mysteriously removed from its former position, and carried about 260
yards into the sea. It is supposed by some that this was brought about
by an earthquake; others think that the stone was carried off by the
action of ice, combined with the influence of a tremendous hurricane,
which blew from the shore, during that fearful and stormy night. It was
currently reported, and pretty generally believed at the time, that his
Satanic Majesty had a finger in this work. Be that as it may, there is
no doubt whatever that the Brahan Seer predicted “that the day will come
when the Stone of Petty, large though it is, and high and dry upon the
land as it appears to people this day, will be suddenly found as far
advanced into the sea as it now lies away from it inland, and no one
will see it removed, or be able to account for its sudden and marvellous
transportation”.
The Seer was at one time in the Culloden district on some important
business. While passing over what is now so well known as the Battlefield
of Culloden, he exclaimed, “Oh! Drummossie, thy bleak moor shall, ere
many generations have passed away, be stained with the best blood of
the Highlands. Glad am I that I will not see that day, for it will be a
fearful period; heads will be lopped off by the score, and no mercy will
be shown or quarter given on either side.” It is perhaps unnecessary to
point out how literally this prophecy has been fulfilled on the occasion
of the last battle fought on British soil. We have received several
other versions of it from different parts of the country, almost all in
identical terms.
“The time will come when whisky or dram shops will be so plentiful that
one may be met with almost at the head of every plough furrow.” (Thig
an latha ’s am bi tighean-oil cho lionmhor ’s nach mor nach fhaicear
tigh-osda aig ceann gach claise.) “Policemen will become so numerous in
every town that they may be met with at the corner of every street.”
“Travelling merchants” [pedlars and hawkers] “will be so plentiful that a
person can scarcely walk a mile on the public highway without meeting one
of them.”
The following is from “A Summer in Skye,” by the late Alex. Smith, author
of “A Life Drama”. Describing Dunvegan Castle and its surroundings, he
says:—“Dun Kenneth’s prophecy has come to pass—‘In the days of Norman,
son of the third Norman, there will be a noise in the doors of the
people, and wailing in the house of the widow; and Macleod will not have
so many gentlemen of his name as will row a five-oared boat round the
Maidens’. If the last trumpet had been sounded at the end of the French
war, no one but a Macleod would have risen out of the churchyard of
Dunvegan. If you want to see a chief (of the Macleods) now-a-days you
must go to London for him.” There can be no question as to these having
been fulfilled to the letter.
“The day will come when a fox will rear a litter of cubs on the
hearthstone of Castle Downie.” “The day will come when a fox, white as
snow, will be killed on the west coast of Sutherlandshire.” “The day will
come when a wild deer will be caught alive at Chanonry Point, in the
Black Isle.” All these things have come to pass.
With respect to the clearances in Lewis, he said—“Many a long waste
feannag (rig, once arable) will yet be seen between Uig of the Mountains
and Ness of the Plains.” That this prediction has been fulfilled to the
letter, no one acquainted with the country will deny.
The following would appear to have been made solely on account of the
unlikelihood of the occurrence:—“A Lochalsh woman shall weep over the
grave of a Frenchman in the burying-place of Lochalsh.” People imagined
they could discern in this an allusion to some battle on the West Coast,
in which French troops would be engaged; but there was an occurrence
which gave it a very different interpretation. A native of Lochalsh
married a French footman, who died, shortly after this event, and was
interred in the burying-ground of Lochalsh, thus leaving his widow to
mourn over his grave. This may appear a commonplace matter enough, but
it must be remembered that a Frenchman in Lochalsh, and especially a
Frenchman whom a Highland woman would mourn over, in Coinneach’s day,
was a very different phenomenon to what it is in our days of railways,
tourists, and steamboats.
The Seer also predicted the formation of a railway through the Muir of
Ord, handed down in the following stanza:—
Nuair a bhios da eaglais an Sgire na Toiseachd,
A’s lamh da ordaig an I-Stian’,
Da dhrochaid aig Sguideal nan geocaire,
As fear da imleag an Dunean,
Thig Miltearan a Carn a-chlarsair,
Air Carbad gun each gun srian,
A dh-fhagas am Blar-dubh na fhasach,
’Dortadh fuil le iomadh sgian;
A’s olaidh am fitheach a thri saitheachd
De dh-fhuil nan Gaidheal, bho clach nam Fionn.
Here is a literal translation:—
When there shall be two churches in the Parish of Ferrintosh,
And a hand with two thumbs in ‘I-Stiana,’
Two bridges at “Sguideal” (Conon) of the gormandizers,
And a man with two navels at Dunean,
Soldiers will come from “Carn a Chlarsair” (Tarradale)
On a chariot without horse or bridle,
Which will leave the “Blar-dubh” (Muir of Ord) a wilderness,
Spilling blood with many knives;
And the raven shall drink his three fulls
Of the blood of the Gael from the Stone of Fionn.
We already have two churches in the Parish of Ferrintosh, two bridges
at Conon, and we are told by an eye-witness, that there is actually at
this very time a man with two thumbs on each hand in “I-Stiana,” in the
Black Isle, and a man in the neighbourhood of Dunean who has two navels.
The “chariot without horse or bridle” is undoubtedly the “iron horse”.
What particular event the latter part of the prediction refers to, it is
impossible to say; but if we are to have any faith in the Seer, something
serious is looming not very remotely in the future.
Mr. Macintyre supplies the following, which is clearly a fragment of
the one above given:—Coinneach Odhar foresaw the formation of a railway
through the Muir of Ord which he said “would be a sign of calamitous
times”. The prophecy regarding this is handed down to us in the following
form:—“I would not like to live when a black bridleless horse shall pass
through the Muir of Ord.” “Fearchair a Ghunna” (Farquhar of the Gun, an
idiotic simpleton who lived during the latter part of his extraordinary
life on the Muir of Tarradale) seems, in his own quaint way, to have
entered into the spirit of this prophecy, when he compared the train,
as it first passed through the district, to the funeral of “Old Nick”.
Tradition gives another version, viz.:—“that after four successive dry
summers, a fiery chariot shall pass through the ‘Blar Dubh,’” which has
been very literally fulfilled. Coinneach Odhar was not the only person
that had a view beforehand of this railway line, for it is commonly
reported that a man residing in the neighbourhood of Beauly, gifted
with second-sight, had a vision of the train, moving along in all its
headlong speed, when he was on his way home one dark autumn night,
several years before the question of forming a railway in those parts was
mooted.
Here are two other Gaelic stanzas having undoubted reference to the
Mackenzies of Rosehaugh:—
Bheir Tanaistear Chlann Choinnich
Rocus _bàn_ ás a choille;
’S bheir e ceile bho tigh-ciuil
Le a mhuinntir ’na aghaidh;
’S gum bi’ n Tanaistear mor
Ann an gniomh ’s an ceann-labhairt,
’Nuair bhios am Pap’ anns an Roimh
Air a thilgeadh dheth chathair,
Thall fa chomhar Creag-a-Chodh
Comhnuichidh taillear caol odhar;
’S Seumas gorach mar thighearn,
’S Seumas glic mar fhear tomhais—
A mharcaicheas gun srian
Air loth fhiadhaich a roghainn;
Ach cuiridh mor-chuis gun chiall
’N aite siol nam fiadh siol nan gobhar;
’S tuitidh an t-Eilean-dubh briagha
Fuidh riaghladh iasgairean Aŭch.
Literal translation:—
The heir (or chief) of the Mackenzies will take
A _white_ rook out of the wood,
And will take a wife from a music house (dancing saloon),
With his people against him:
And the heir will be great
In deeds and as an orator,
When the Pope in Rome
Will be thrown off his throne.
Over opposite _Creag-a-Chow_
Will dwell a diminutive lean tailor,
Also Foolish James as the laird,
And Wise James as a measurer.
Who will ride without a bridle
The wild colt of his choice;
But foolish pride without sense
Will put in the place of the seed of the deer the seed of the goat;
And the beautiful Black Isle will fall
Under the management of the fishermen of Avoch.
We have not learnt that any of the Rosehaugh Mackenzies has yet taken a
_white_ rook from the woods; nor have we heard anything suggested as to
what this part of the prophecy may refer to. We are, however, credibly
informed that one of the late Mackenzies of Rosehaugh had taken his wife
from a music saloon in one of our southern cities, and that his people
were very much against him for so doing. One of them, Sir George, no
doubt was “great in deeds and as an orator,” but we fail to discover any
connection between the time in which he lived and the time “when the
Pope in Rome will be thrown off his throne”. We were unable in the first
edition to suggest the meaning of the first six lines of the last stanza,
but Mr. Maclennan supplies us with the following explanation:—“I have
been hearing these lines discussed since I was a boy, and being a native
of Rosehaugh, I took a special interest in everything concerning it. The
first two lines I was repeatedly informed, referred to a pious man who
lived on the estate of Bennetsfield, opposite Craigiehow, when ‘Seumas
Gorach’ (Foolish James referred to in the third line), was proprietor
of Rosehaugh. This godly man, who was contemporary with Foolish James,
often warned him of his end, and predicted his fate if he did not mend
his ways; and as he thus _cut_ his bounds for him, he is supposed to
be the ‘diminutive lean tailor’. He is still in life. We all knew
‘Foolish James’. The fourth line refers to James Maclaren, who lived at
Rosehaugh most of the time during which the last two Mackenzies ruled
over it, and only died two years ago. He was an odd character, but a
very straightforward man; often rebuked ‘Foolish James’ for the reckless
and fearless manner in which he rode about, and set bounds before the
‘foolish laird,’ which he was not allowed to pass. Maclaren was, on that
account, believed to be the ‘measurer’ referred to by the Seer. The fifth
and sixth lines are supposed to apply to the wife fancied by Mackenzie
in a ‘dancing saloon,’ who was always considered the ‘wild colt,’ at
whose instigation he rode so recklessly and foolishly.” We wish the
realizations of our prophet’s predictions in this case were a little less
fanciful.
Those in the seventh and eighth lines have been most literally fulfilled,
for there can be no doubt that “foolish pride without sense” has brought
about what the Seer predicted, and secured, for the present at least,
the seed of the goat where the seed of the deer used to rule. The deer,
and the deer’s horns, as is well known, are the armorial bearings of the
Mackenzies, while the goat is that of the Fletchers, who now rule in
Rosehaugh, on the ruins of its once great and famous “Cabair-feidh”.
Part of the beautiful Black Isle has already fallen under the management
of the son of a fisherman of Avoch; and who knows but other fishermen
from that humble village may yet amass sufficient wealth to buy the
whole. The old proprietors, we regret, are rapidly making way with their
“foolish pride without sense,” for some one to purchase it.
We are informed that the present proprietor of Rosehaugh is the son of
an Avoch fisherman—the son of a Mr. Jack, who followed that honourable
avocation in this humble village for many years; afterwards left the
place and went to reside in Elgin, where he commenced business as a small
general dealer, or “huckster”; that some of the boys—his sons—exhibited
a peculiar smartness while in school; that this was noticed by a
lady relative of their mother, an aunt, of the name of Fletcher, who
encouraged and helped on the education of the boys, and who took one or
more of them to her own home, and brought them up; afterwards they found
their way south, and ultimately became successful merchants and landed
proprietors.[1] These are facts of which we were entirely ignorant when
first writing down the stanzas already given. The verses were sent to
us from various quarters, and they have undoubtedly been floating about
the country for generations. So much for the Seer’s prophetic power in
this instance. Were we better acquainted with the history of the other
families referred to in the stanzas, it is probable that more light could
be thrown upon what they refer to than we are at present able to do.
While we are dealing with the “wonderful” in connection with the House
of Rosehaugh, it may not be out of place to give a few instances of the
somewhat extraordinary experiences of the famous Sir George Mackenzie
of Rosehaugh already referred to. He was one of the most distinguished
members of the Scottish Bar, was Lord-Advocate for Scotland in the
reign of Charles the Second, and was, indeed, a contemporary of the
Brahan Seer. His “Institutes” are still considered a standing authority
by the legal profession:—On one occasion, while at Rosehaugh, a poor
widow from a neighbouring estate called to consult him regarding her
being repeatedly warned to remove from a small croft which she held
under a lease of several years; but as some time had yet to run before
its expiry, and being threatened with summary ejection from the croft,
she went to solicit his advice. Having examined the tenor of the lease,
Sir George informed her that it contained a flaw, which, in case of
opposition, would render her success exceedingly doubtful; and although
it was certainly an oppressive act to deprive her of her croft, he
thought her best plan was to submit. However, seeing the distressed state
of mind in which the poor woman was on hearing his opinion, he desired
her to call upon him the following day, when he would consider her case
more carefully. His clerk, who always slept in the same room as his
lordship, was not a little surprised, about midnight, to discover him
rising from his bed fast asleep, lighting a candle which stood on his
table, drawing in his chair, and commencing to write very busily, as if
he had been all the time wide awake. The clerk saw how he was employed,
but he never spoke a word, and, when he had finished, he saw him place
what he had written in his private desk, locking it, extinguishing
the candle, and then retiring to bed as if nothing had happened. Next
morning at breakfast, Sir George remarked that he had had a very strange
dream about the poor widow’s threatened ejectment, which, he could now
remember, and he had now no doubt of making out a clear case in her
favour. His clerk rose from the table, asked for the key of his desk, and
brought therefrom several pages of manuscript; and, as he handed them to
Sir George, enquired—“Is that like your dream?” On looking over it for
a few seconds, Sir George said, “Dear me, this is singular; this is my
very dream!” He was no less surprised when his clerk informed him of the
manner in which he had acted; and, sending for the widow, he told her
what steps to adopt to frustrate the efforts of her oppressors. Acting
on the counsel thus given, the poor widow was ultimately successful, and,
with her young family, was allowed to remain in possession of her “wee
bit croftie” without molestation.
Sir George principally resided at this time in Edinburgh, and, before
dinner, invariably walked for half-an-hour. The place he selected for
this was Leith Walk, then almost a solitary place. One day, while taking
his accustomed exercise, he was met by a venerable-looking, grey-headed
old gentleman, who accosted him and, without introduction or apology,
said—“There is a very important case to come off in London fourteen
days hence, at which your presence will be required. It is a case of
heirship to a very extensive estate in the neighbourhood of London, and
a pretended claimant is doing his utmost to disinherit the real heir,
on the ground of his inability to produce proper titles thereto. It is
necessary that you be there on the day mentioned; and in one of the
attics of the mansion-house on the estate there is an old oak chest with
two bottoms; between these you will find the necessary titles, written
on parchment.” Having given this information, the old man disappeared,
leaving Sir George quite bewildered; but the latter, resuming his walk,
soon recovered his previous equanimity, and thought nothing further of
the matter.