III. BROWNIE.
The term Brùnaidh, signifying a supernatural being, haunting the abodes of the affluent and doing work for the servants, seems to have made its way into the Highlands only in recent times and along with south country ideas. It is generally applied only to a big, corpulent, clumsy man, ‘a fine fat fodgel wight,’ and in many districts has no other reference. Its derivation is Teutonic and not Celtic, and Brownies are mostly heard of in places to which, as in the south of Argyllshire, southern ideas have penetrated, or where, as in the Orkneys and Shetland, a Teutonic race is settled.
In the islet of Càra, on the west of Cantyre, the old house, once belonging to the Macdonalds, was haunted by a Brownie that drank milk, made a terrific outcry when hurt, and disliked the Campbell race. In the old castle of Largie, on the opposite coast of Cantyre, which belonged to the same Macdonalds, there was also a Brownie, supposed to be the same as the Càra one. Since the modern house was built Brownie has not been seen or heard. In Càra he is still occasionally heard. It is not known exactly what he is like, no one having ever seen more than a glimpse of him. Before the arrival of strangers he put the house in order. He disliked anything dirty being left in the house for the night. Dirty bed-clothes were put out by him before morning. Dogs had to be put outside at night, as he often killed those left in the house. He was much addicted to giving slaps in the dark to those who soiled the house; and there are some still alive who can testify to receiving a slap that left their faces black. He tumbled on the floor water-stoups left full over-night. A man was lifted out of bed by him, and found himself ‘bare naked,’ on awakening, at the fire. A woman, going late in the evening for her cows, found Brownie had been before her, and tied them securely in the barn.
In one of the castles in the centre of Argyllshire, Brownie came to the bedside of a servant woman who had retired for the night, arranged the clothes, and, pulling them above her, said: “Take your sleep, poor creature” (dean cadal, a chreutair). He then went away.
In character Brownie was harmless, but he made mischief unless every place was left open at night. He was fed with warm milk by the dairy-maid.
A native of the Shetland Isles writes me that Brownie was well known in that locality. He worked about the barn, and at night ground with the handmill for those to whom he was attached. He could grind a bag or two of grain in a night. He was once rewarded for his labours by a cloak and hood left for him at the mill. The articles were away in the morning, and Brownie never came back. Hence the bye-word, such a man is like Brownie,
“When he got his cloak and hood,
He did no more good.”
The same story is told of the ‘Cauld Lad of Hilton,’ in the valley of the Wear in England (Keightley’s Fairy Myth, p. 296), of Brownies in the Scottish Lowlands (p. 358), and of one in Strathspey (p. 395), who said, when he went away—
“Brownie has got a coat and cap,
Brownie will do no more work.”
It also made its way to Tiree, and was there told as follows:
GUNNA.
In olden times the tillage in Tiree was in common, the crop was raised here and there throughout the farm, and the herding was in consequence very difficult to do. In Baugh, or some farm in the west of the island (tradition is not uniform as to the locality), the cows were left in the pastures at night, and were kept from the crops by some invisible herdsman. No one ever saw him, or knew whence he came, nor, when he went away, whither he went. A taibhseir or seer (i.e. one who had the second-sight or sight of seeing ghosts) remained up to see how the cattle were kept. He saw a man without clothes after them, and taking pity upon him made him a pair of trews (triubhas[58]) and a pair of shoes. When the ghostly herdsman put the trews on, he said (and his name then, for the first time, became known):
“Trews upon Gunna,
Because Gunna does the herding,
But may Gunna never enjoy his trews,
If he tends cattle any more.”[59]
When he said this he went away and was never more heard of.
Beings of this class seem to have had a great objection to presents of clothes. A pair of shoes made the Glaistig at Unimore leave; a cap, coat, and breeches the Phynnodderee in the Isle of Man (Keightley, Fairy Myth, p. 203); in the Black Forest of Germany, a new coat drove away a nix, one of the little water-people, with green teeth, that came and worked with the people all day (ibid., p. 261); and Brownie, as already mentioned, in several places.
THE OLD MAN OF THE BARN.
In the Highlands of Perthshire, previous to the ‘45, each farm or village had its own bodachan sabhaill, ‘the little old man of the barn,’ who helped to thresh the corn, made up the straw into bundles, and saw that everything was kept in order. These Brownies had the appearance of old men and were very wise. They worked always at night, and were never mischievous, but highly useful.
The Glaisein (lit. grey-headed man) of the Isle of Man bears a strong resemblance to them. He was very strong, frequented farms, threshed corn, and went to the sheep-folds (Campbell’s West Highland Tales, Introd. liii.).
These house-spirits have many relations, the Nis of Scandinavia, Kobold of Germany, Niägruisar of the Faroe Islands, and it is said the English Hobgoblin. The Hinzelman that haunted Hudemuhlen Castle in Lüneberg had ‘curled yellow hair,’ also a characteristic of the Glaistig; and the difference between one household tutelary being and another is only such as might be expected from differences of country and society.
The oldest member of the family is the Lar Familiaris of the Romans. There is a noticeable resemblance between lar, the Roman household deity, and làrach (from làr, the ground), the Gaelic for the stance or site of a building, to which, and not to the tenants, the Celtic household apparition attached itself. The lares of the Romans were the departed spirits of ancestors, which were believed to watch over their dependents. The Glaistig was held to have been a woman of honourable position, a former mistress of the house, the interests of the tenants of which she now attended to. Small waxen images of the lares, clothed with the skin of a dog, were placed in the hall. The Glaistig had the Fairy aversion to dogs (an aversion which was reciprocal), but many of the actions ascribed to her savour strongly of her being in some way identical with the herdsman’s dogs. This would very well explain the pouring of milk for her in the evening in the hollow of a stone. The Glaistig of Ardnadrochit had the shape of a dog (see p. 175).
A satisfactory explanation of the origin of the superstition does not readily suggest itself. In days when men did not know what to believe in regarding the spirit world, and were ready to believe anything, a fancy may have arisen, that it secures the welfare of a house, and adds to its dignity, to have a supernatural being attached to it and looking after its interests. It had its origin after the tribes, among whom it is to be found, ceased to be roving and unsettled barbarians. In a large establishment a being of the kind was very useful. The master would not discredit its existence, as it helped to frighten idle and stupid servants into attending to their work and into clean and tidy habits. Shrewd servants would say as little against it when it served so well to screen their own knavery or faults, and to impose on a credulous and facile, or careless master. Unless it was sometimes seen or heard, or some work was mysteriously done, the delusion, either of master or servant, could not be long continued; and, when men have little else to do, there are many who take a pleasure in imposing on their more simple-minded fellows, and are quite ready, as much from sport as interest, to carry on a delusion of the kind. Besides, when the mind is nervously anxious, engrossed with the fear of a coming misfortune or the hope of a coming joy, it is apt to listen to the whispers of fancy and the confidently-told tales of others. When it broods alone, during the sleepless night, over the future it is not surprising if the imagination converts the weird sounds of night—the melancholy moaning of the wind, its fitful gusts in the woods and round the house, the roar of the waterfall, the sound of the surf-beaten shore, and many noises, of which the origin is at the time unknown and unsought—into the omens of that which makes itself sleepless, or hears in them the song of the house-spirit, prescient of the coming event. It must also be remembered that there are people who will see and hear anything if their story is believingly listened to, and they are themselves at the time objects of interest.
Pennant (Tour, p. 330) says Brownie was stout and blooming, had fine long flowing hair, and went about with a switch in his hand. He cleaned the house, helped to churn, threshed the corn, and belaboured those who pretended to make a jest of him. He says (p. 331) the Gruagach was in form like the Brownie, and was worshipped by libations of milk; and “milkmaids still retain the custom of pouring some on certain stones, that bear his name.” He is thought, it is added, to be an emblem of Apollo and identical with χρυσοκομος.
Mr. Campbell (Tales of the West Highlands, 1. xciii.) supposes the Gruagach of superstition to be a Druid fallen from his high estate, and living on milk left for him by those whose priest he had once been. In another place (ii. 101) he supposes him to be a half-tamed savage, hanging about the house, with his long hair and skin clothing.
These explanations are not satisfactory. The character, dress, and actions ascribed to the Gruagach and his congeners are incongruous to the idea of Druid, heathen deity, or savage wild or reclaimed.