that he had four sons; that he survived them all; that the four great
Highland lairds who were his contemporaries were all distinguished by
the peculiar personal marks the seer predicted; that his estates were
inherited by a white-coifed or white-hooded lassie from the East; that
his great possessions passed into the hands of other races; and that his
eldest daughter and heiress was so unfortunate as to be the innocent
cause of her sister’s death. In this vary remarkable instance of family
fate, the prophecy was not found out after the events occurred; it had
been current for generations in the Highlands, and its tardy fulfilment
was marked curiously and anxiously by an entire clan and a whole county.
Seaforth was respected and beloved far and near, and strangers, as well
as friends and clansmen, mourned along with him the sorrows of his later
years. The gradual development of the doom was watched with sympathy and
grief, and the fate of Seaforth has been, during the last half-century
of his life, regarded as one of the most curious instances of that
second-sight for which the inhabitants of the Highlands of Scotland have
been so long celebrated. Mr. Stewart Mackenzie, the accomplished husband
of the heiress of Seaforth, after being for many years a distinguished
member of the House of Commons and a Privy Councillor, held several high
appointments in the Colonial Dominions of the British Crown. He was
successively Governor of Ceylon and Lord High Commissioner of the Ionian
Islands, and died, universally beloved and lamented, in the year 1843.
Lockhart in his Life of Scott, in reference to the Seaforth prediction,
says:—“Mr. Morrit can testify thus far—that he heard the prophecy quoted
in the Highlands at a time when Lord Seaforth had two sons alive, and in
good health, and that it certainly was not made after the event”; and he
goes on to tell us that Scott and Sir Humphrey Davy were most certainly
convinced of its truth, as also many others who had watched the latter
days of Seaforth in the light of those wonderful predictions.
The late Duncan Davidson of Tulloch, Lord-Lieutenant of the County of
Ross, on reading our Second edition, wrote to the author, under date of
May 21, 1878, as follows:—“Many of these prophecies I heard of _upwards
of 70 years ago, and when many of them were not fulfilled_, such as the
late Lord Seaforth surviving his sons, and Mrs. Stewart-Mackenzie’s
accident, near Brahan, by which Miss Caroline Mackenzie was killed.”
Tulloch was, he said, during the latter years of Lord Seaforth, a regular
visitor at Brahan Castle, and often heard the predictions referred to
among members of the family. The letter is in our possession, and it
was published, during Tulloch’s life, and by his special permission, in
Mackenzie’s _History of the Mackenzies_, p. 267.
An attempt was recently made to sell the remaining possessions of
the family, but fortunately, for the present, this attempt has been
defeated by the interposition of the Marchioness of Tweeddale and Mrs.
Colonel Stanley, daughters of the present nominal possessor of the
property. At the time a leading article appeared in the _Edinburgh Daily
Review_ giving an outline of the family history of the Seaforths. After
describing how the fifth Earl, with the fidelity characteristic of his
house, “true as the dial to the sun,” embraced the losing side in “the
Fifteen”; fought at the head of his clan at Sheriffmuir; how in 1719
he, along with the Marquis of Tullibardine, and the Earl Marischal,
made a final attempt to bring the “auld Stewarts back again”; how he
was dangerously wounded in an encounter with the Government forces at
Glenshiel, and compelled to abandon the vain enterprise; how he was
carried on board a vessel by his clansmen, conveyed to the Western Isles,
and ultimately to France; how he was attainted by Parliament, and his
estates forfeited to the Crown; how all the efforts of the Government
failed to penetrate into Kintail, or to collect any rent from his
faithful Macraes, whom the Seaforths had so often led victorious from
many a bloody conflict, from the battle of Largs down to the Jacobite
Rebellions of 1715 and 1719; and how the rents of that part of the
estates were regularly collected and remitted to their exiled chief in
France, with a devotion and faithfulness only to be equalled by their own
countrymen when their beloved “bonnie Prince Charlie” was a wanderer,
helpless and forlorn, at the mercy of his enemies, and with a reward
of £30,000 at the disposal of many a poverty-stricken and starving
Highlander, who would not betray his lawful Prince for all the gold in
England; the article continues:—But their (the Seaforth’s) downfall
came at last, and the failure of the male line of this great historical
family was attended with circumstances as singular as they were painful.
Francis, Lord Seaforth, the last Baron of Kintail, was, says Sir Walter
Scott, “a nobleman of extraordinary talents, who must have made for
himself a lasting reputation, had not his political exertions been
checked by painful natural infirmity”. Though deaf from his sixteenth
year, and inflicted also with a partial impediment of speech, he was
distinguished for his attainments as well as for his intellectual
activity. He took a lively interest in all questions of art and science,
especially in natural history, and displayed at once his liberality
and his love of art by his munificence to Sir Thomas Lawrence, in the
youthful straits and struggles of that great artist, and by his patronage
of other artists. Before his elevation to the peerage, Lord Seaforth
represented Ross-shire in Parliament for a number of years, and was
afterwards Lord-Lieutenant of the county. During the revolutionary war
with France, he raised a splendid regiment of Ross-shire Highlanders (the
78th, the second which had been raised among his clan), of which he was
appointed Lieutenant-Colonel Commandant, and he ultimately attained the
rank of Lieutenant-General in the Army. He held for six years the office
of Governor of Barbadoes, and, by his firmness and even-handed justice,
he succeeded in putting an end to the practice of slave-killing, which
at that time was not unfrequent in the Island, and was deemed by the
planters a venial offence, to be punished only by a small fine.
Lord Seaforth was the happy father of three (four) sons and six
daughters, all of high promise; and it seemed as if he were destined to
raise the illustrious house of which he was the head, to a height of
honour and power greater than it had ever yet attained. But the closing
years of this nobleman were darkened by calamities of the severest kind.
The mismanagement of his estates in the West Indies involved him in
inextricable embarrassments, and compelled him to dispose of a part of
his Kintail estates—“the gift-land” of the family, as it was termed—a
step which his tenantry and clansmen in vain endeavoured to avert, by
offering to buy in the land for him, that it might not pass from the
family. He had previously been bereaved of two of his sons, and about the
time that Kintail was sold, his only remaining son, a young man of talent
and eloquence, the representative in parliament of his native county,
suddenly died. The broken-hearted father lingered on for a few months,
his fine intellect enfeebled by paralysis, and yet, as Sir Walter Scott
says, “not so entirely obscured but that he perceived his deprivation as
in a glass, darkly.” Sometimes he was anxious and fretful because he
did not see his son; sometimes he expostulated and complained that his
boy had been allowed to die without his seeing him; and sometimes, in a
less clouded state of intellect, he was sensible of his loss in its full
extent. The last “Cabarfeidh” followed his son to the grave in January,
1815, and then—
Of the line of Fitzgerald remained not a male,
To bear the proud name of the Chiefs of Kintail.
The most remarkable circumstance connected with this sorrowful tale, is
the undoubted fact that, centuries ago, a Seer of the Clan Mackenzie,
known as Kenneth Oag (Odhar), predicted that when there should be a deaf
and dumb “Cabarfeidh” (Staghead, the Celtic designation of the chief
of the clan, taken from the family crest), the “gift-land” of their
territory (Kintail) would be sold, and the male line become extinct. This
prophecy was well known in the north long before its fulfilment, and
was certainly not made after the event. “It connected,” says Lockhart,
“the fall of the house of Seaforth not only with the appearance of a
deaf ‘Cabarfeidh,’ but with the contemporaneous appearance of various
different physical misfortunes in several of the other great Highland
chiefs, all of which are said to have actually occurred within the memory
of the generation that has not yet passed away.”
On the death of his lordship, his estates, with all their burdens and
responsibilities, devolved on his eldest daughter, Lady Hood, whose
second husband was James Stewart Mackenzie, a member of the Galloway
family, and whose son has just been prevented from selling all that
remains of the Seaforth estates. “Our friend, Lady Hood,” wrote Sir
Walter Scott to Mr. Morritt, “will now be ‘Cabarfeidh’ herself. She has
the spirit of a chieftainess in every drop of her blood, but there are
few situations in which the cleverest women are so apt to be imposed
upon as in the management of landed property, more especially of a
Highland estate. I do fear the accomplishment of the prophecy that, when
there should be a deaf ‘Cabarfeidh,’ the house was to fall.” The writer
concludes thus:—“Scott’s apprehensions proved only too well founded.
One section after another of the estates had to be sold. The remaining
portion of Kintail, the sunny braes of Ross, the church lands of
Chanonry, the barony of Pluscarden, and the Island of Lews—a principality
itself—were disposed of one after the other, till now nothing remains
of the vast estates of this illustrious house except Brahan Castle, and
a mere remnant of their ancient patrimony (and that in the hands of
trustees), which the non-resident, nominal owner has just been prevented
from alienating. _Sic transit._”
Leaving these extraordinary prophecies with the reader, to believe,
disbelieve, or explain away on any principle or theory which may satisfy
his reason, his credulity, or scepticism, we conclude with the following
LAMENT FOR “THE LAST OF THE SEAFORTHS”.
BY SIR WALTER SCOTT.
In vain the bright course of thy talents to wrong
Fate deaden’d thine ear and imprison’d thy tongue,
For brighter o’er all her obstructions arose
The glow of the genius they could not oppose;
And who, in the land of the Saxon, or Gael,
Might match with Mackenzie, High Chief of Kintail?
Thy sons rose around thee in light and in love,
All a father could hope, all a friend could approve;
What ’vails it the tale of thy sorrows to tell?
In the spring time of youth and of promise they fell!
Of the line of MacKenneth remains not a male,
To bear the proud name of the Chief of Kintail.
And thou, gentle Dame, who must bear, to thy grief,
For thy clan and thy country the cares of a Chief,
Whom brief rolling moons in six changes have left,
Of thy husband and father and brethren bereft;
To thine ear of affection, how sad is the hail
That salutes thee—the heir of the line of Kintail!
_Na ’m biodh an t’ earball na bu ruighne bhiodh mo sgialachd na b’
fhaide._
[Illustration]
ON HIGHLAND SUPERSTITION.
[Illustration]
THE REV. ALEXANDER MACGREGOR, M.A., ON HIGHLAND SUPERSTITION, DRUIDS,
FAIRIES, WITCHCRAFT, SECOND-SIGHT, HALLOWE’EN, SACRED WELLS, AND OTHER
PECULIAR PRACTICES AND BELIEFS, WITH SEVERAL CURIOUS INSTANCES.
It is lamentable that mankind in all ages of the world have been prone
to the most degrading superstitions. The enlightened ages of antiquity
were no more exempt from them than the most ignorant. We know from the
Bible how difficult it was to restrain the Jews from the most idolatrous
and superstitious observances, and to confine them to the worship of the
only living and true God. This remarkable tendency of the Hebrew nation
was caused, in all likelihood, by their sojourning for the long period
of 400 years among the Egyptians, whose system of religion was a mass of
idolatrous observances. They had a number of ideal gods, to whom they
erected temples of prodigious size and architectural splendour. Their
principal deities, were Osiris and Isis, whom they considered typical of
the sun and moon. But they had a great variety of other deities, animals
of all kinds—(hence the golden calf of the Hebrews), the dog, the wolf,
the hawk, the stork, the cat, and several other creatures. They also
adored their great river, the Nile, personifying it in the crocodile,
to which they erected temples and appointed priests to serve at their
altars. The Egyptians also believed in dreams, lucky and unlucky days,
charms, omens, and magic—in short, they were grossly superstitious!
The absurdities of Egyptian superstition formed the basis of what
followed in Greece and Rome. Fifteen hundred years before the birth of
our blessed Saviour, Egypt was at the height of its civilisation, but
then, too, it was at the height of its superstition. The mythology and
superstitious observances of the Greeks deserve to be noticed, both as a
matter of amusement and instruction, but we can, in the meantime, hint
at but a few particulars. They had no idea of the only living and true
God. Their notions of Divinity were grovelling and contemptible. Their
gods were, as they believed, at one time heroes and rulers on earth,
but still having their habitation somewhere within the boundaries of
the Grecian territories. We are made acquainted with the character of
these imaginary deities by the numerous allusions made to them in the
works of the Greek and Roman poets, as well as by the various sculptured
figures which have been brought to light in modern times. Jupiter, the
son of Saturn, was the chief God. But even the great Jupiter himself did
not enjoy unmolested his supreme dignity, for the offspring of Titan,
a race of terrible giants, set Jupiter at defiance. They piled the
mountains of Pelion and Ossa on the top of each other, and endeavoured
to ascend into heaven, and to pull Jupiter down from his throne. The
gods, in great alarm, fled from Mount Olympus into Egypt, where they
concealed their true character by assuming the form of various animals;
but Jupiter, assisted by Hercules, succeeded in destroying the giants,
and in reasserting his sovereign sway. And hence he is always represented
on a throne, with a thunderbolt in his hand, and an eagle by his side.
Jupiter’s brothers and children were the gods and goddesses of a great
variety of distinct things—in fact, under the complicated mythology of
Greece, every imaginable thing had its god or goddess. For example,
Jupiter’s brother Neptune was god of the ocean, and is painted as a
majestic figure, with a crown on his head, and a trident in his hand,
and drawn in a car over the sea by powerful water-horses. Neptune has
often appeared in his stately chariot on the decks of ships when crossing
the Equator. Then all on board who had never crossed the line before
were brought into his presence, laid hold of, and plunged into a bath
of water, where they received a smart shave, with tar for soap, and a
rusty hoop for a razor. Only the ladies on board were exempted from this
unpleasant treatment, not because they had no beards, but by the powerful
talismanic effect of slipping a few sovereigns into the hands of the
seamen for grog.
The superstitions of the European Northmen, or Scandinavians (the early
inhabitants of Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Iceland), were of a kind
remarkably accordant with the cold and stern character of the regions
which they occupied. The dread names of their gods Odin, Thor, and
other deities of the north are now only perpetuated in the names given
to some of the days of the week. Thus, our term “Wednesday” is derived
from “Oden’s” or “Woden’s” day—the day of the week on which the northern
Jupiter was specially worshipped. Our Thursday is from Thor, the second
dignity among the fabulous gods. As this day was called “Dies Jovis”
by the Romans, we have a confirmation that Thor, the thunderer, was
equivalent to the thundering Jove of the Grecian mythology. Friday takes
its name from Freya, the beautiful daughter of Niord, and corresponds
with the “Dies Venevis,” or “Venus-day” of the Greeks and Romans.
Saturday is derived in the same manner from the god “Saeter” of the
Scandinavians, or Saturn of the Greeks. Tuesday, or anciently “Tiesday”
(a pronunciation still preserved in many parts in Scotland), is from
“Tisa,” the wife of Thor; Sunday and Monday were named from the sun and
moon, both by the northern and southern nations of Europe, from a remote
period.
DRUIDISM.—Interesting as are the ancient superstitions of Greece, Rome,
and the northern regions of Europe, we feel a greater interest in the
history of Druidism, the great superstition which flourished peculiarly
among our own forefathers, the aboriginies of the British Islands.
Druidism was the religion of the ancient Celts or Gauls, and prevailed
in France, and everywhere, indeed, wherever that ancient race had formed
settlements. Several learned inquirers into the native Druidism have
cavilled much about the etymology of the word. Some writers, as Pliny,
derive “Druidh” from the Greek “Drus” an oak; but we think that the
proper etymon is the ancient Celtic vocable, “Drù” an oak tree, from
which no doubt “Drus” was taken. The Druids, we believe, had their name
before the Greek language was in existence, and it is well known that
the Greek itself is partly at least of Celtic origin. As far as can
be gathered from the statements of Cæsar, Diodorus Siculus, Strabo,
and others, the Druids not only formed the priesthood of the Celts,
but appointed to themselves all the offices now usually discharged
by the several learned professions. There appears to have been three
orders among their priests—the Druids proper, the Vates, and the
Bards—who severally performed different functions. The Bards sung,
in heroic verse, the brave actions of eminent men; the Vates studied
the productions of nature and the laws; while the Druids directed the
education of youth, and officiated in the affairs of religion and
justice. In their hands they commonly carried a long wand, and their
arms and necks were decorated with golden chains and bracelets. But
the most notable of their ornaments was an artificial egg set in gold,
and of miraculous virtues. They asserted that every one of these eggs,
which they sold at enormous prices, was formed by a number of serpents,
mysteriously conjoining for its production. When made, it was raised
up in the air by the hissing of these reptiles, and was to be caught
in a clean white cloth when falling to the ground. The person who was
fortunate enough to catch it had instantly to mount a swift horse, and
escape from the angry serpents. Procured in this way, the egg possessed
the property of making the owner successful in all his undertakings. The
open sky was the canopy under which they worshipped. A wood or grove,
fenced in by large stones, constituted the scenes where their rites were
performed. In the centre of the groves was an open area, encompassed
by large, erect stones, closely set together. Here there were circles
within circles, and in the centre of the inner one there was a stone
of prodigious size, on which the victims were slain, and offered up to
the Supreme Being. The fruit of the oak, and especially the mistletoe
bough, were thought to possess a divine virtue. The mistletoe is perhaps
one of the most remarkable parasitic plants in the world, hence it
became an object of superstitious regard. It grows chiefly on the oak
and chesnut. It is an evergreen, and appears strange in winter, with
its brilliant green leaves on an otherwise leafless tree. It is thought
that it springs from a seed carried by birds from tree to tree, landed
in a crevice of the bark, where it sprouts, and derives its nourishment
from the living wood, like a graft in a fruit tree. The mistletoe bough
grows sometimes as large as a bushel basket—sometimes four or five
feet in diameter—of a roundish form, and covered with leaves of the
brightest green. Two white bulls were brought and fastened to a tree by
the horns, then the arch-Druid ascended the tree, cropped the mistletoe
with his golden knife, and received it in his robe, amid the shouts of
the people. Then the bulls were sacrificed on the large stone, and the
deity was invoked to bless the gift. The Druids had an idol of gigantic
size, formed of wicker-work in the rude likeness of a human being. They
filled it with human victims, men and women. Straw and wood were piled
around it, and the unfortunate creatures within perished in the flames
by a slow, horrible death. It is said by some historians that women were
more frequently the victims of these superstitious cruelties than the
men. Young, innocent, beautiful maidens were dragged to the altar, and
sacrificed to the powers above.
Many Druidical relics still exist. By far the most extraordinary of these
remains are those at Stonehenge, on Salisbury plain, in Wiltshire. They
are numerous on the Western Isles, and some are near Inverness, such as
the relics at Clava, on Nairnside, and the circles at Strathnairn and
at Culduthel. Mona, or Anglesea, as it is now called, was their chief
settlement; but it is in North Britain that the Druidical monuments
are most abundant. As a specimen of a Druidical cairn, we may mention
that on the Moor of Strathardle, in Perthshire—a stoney mound, ninety
yards in circumference, and twenty-five feet high. Such monuments are
numerous along the Grampian range. There are also curious stones, called
rocking-stones, supposed to be of Druidical origin. In the parish of
Kells, in the Stewarty of Kirkcudbright, there is a rocking-stone
called the “Logan-stone,” about ten tons in weight; and it is so nicely
balanced upon another stone that the pressure of a child’s hand can set
it in motion. A similar stone may be seen on the glebe of the parish of
Strath, in Skye. The artifices of the Druids to deceive the ignorant were
numerous. For example, among the ancient Britons a meteor was supposed to
be a vehicle for carrying to paradise the soul of some departed Druid. So
well did they engraft their absurd ideas on the minds of the ignorant,
that, even at this distant day, the appearance of a ball of fire, meteor,
or of what are called falling stars, creates, among the more credulous
Highlanders, a belief that some illustrious spirit has taken its flight
to eternity. From this circumstance we may infer, with Dr. Smith, that
“Dreug,” the Gaelic for a meteor, is a contraction for “Druidh-eug”—a
Druid’s death. This ingenious antiquarian thinks that this Druidical
fantasy had its origin in a tradition of Elijah’s fiery chariot. While
Druidical superstitions were at one time prevalent over the continent
of Europe and the adjacent Isles, their extinction is enveloped in the
mystery of the dark ages. Up to a late period, however, some traces of
Druidical customs were perceivable among the Scottish Celts. Dr. Jamieson
mentions that an old Highlander, so lately as the end of the eighteenth
century, was in the habit of addressing the Deity by the title of
Arch-Druid.
Dr. Smith says that the British Druids owed their decline to the
following circumstances:—Trathal, the grandfather of Fingal, being
chosen generalissimo of the Caledonian army sent against the Romans, did
not feel disposed, on his return, to resign his authority, even at the
command of the Druids; hence arose a civil war, in which the army of the
church was defeated in several battles. These overthrows were fatal to
the Druids. They made several attempts to regain their dominions, but all
were ineffectual. They retired to the I-thonn (the isle of waves), that
is Iona, where their order was not quite extinct on the arrival of St.
Columba on that island, in the sixth century.