FOOTNOTES:
[1] No Highlander praises any living creature without adding this benediction. It is not confined, in its application, to human beings. If the subject of it belong to the speaker, this expression of dependence is intended to exclude boasting; if you commend what is the property of another, the Highland dread of an evil eye obliged you to intimate that you praise without envy. To be vain of a possession is justly considered as provoking Heaven to withdraw it, or to make it an instrument of punishment; and no true Highlander ever expected comfort in what had been envied or greedily desired by another.
Upon the same account, it is not judged polite to ask, nor safe to tell the number of a flock, or of a family. I once asked a countrywoman the number of a fine brood of chickens. 'They're as many as were gi'en,' said she; 'I'm sure I never counted them.'
[2] Mo cuilean ghaolach.—Gaelic.
[3] 'The tract of country which has been described appears, however, to have enjoyed a considerable degree of tranquillity, till about the year 1746. At that time it became infested with a lawless band of depredators, whose fortunes had been rendered desperate by the event of 1745, and whose habits had become incompatible with a life of sobriety and honesty. These banditti consisted chiefly of emigrants from Lochaber and the remoter parts of the Highlands.'
'In convenient spots they erected temporary huts, where they met from time to time, and regaled themselves at the expense of the peaceable and defenceless inhabitants. The ruins of these huts are still to be seen in the woods. They laid the country under contribution; and whenever any individual was so unfortunate as to incur their resentment, he might lay his account with having his cattle carried off before morning.'—Graham's Sketches of Perthshire.
[4] Black beauty—pronounced tu voiach.
[5] Is fuar gaoth nan coimheach.
[6] The down of a plant.
[7] Sgoltich suil a chlach.
[8] Elfin arrow; more properly, elfin 'bolt.' The Gaelic term signifies, 'that which can be darted with destructive force;' there is, therefore, no reason to expect, that these weapons should be feathered and barbed like common arrows. These bolts are believed to be discharged by fairies with deadly intent. Nevertheless, when once in the possession of mortals, they are accounted talismans against witchcraft, evil eyes, and elfish attacks. They are especially used in curing all such diseases of cattle as may have been inflicted by the malice of unholy powers.
The author is in possession of one of these talismans; which connoisseurs affirm to be no common elfin arrow, but the weapon of an elf of dignity. It was hurled at a country beauty, whose charms had captivated the Adonis of the district. The elf being enamoured of this swain, projected a deadly attack upon her rival. But these arrows are lethal only when they smite the uncovered skin. This proved the security of the Gaelic Phillis. The weapon struck her petticoat; she instantly possessed herself of the talisman, and was ever afterwards invulnerable to the attacks of fairies.
Within these twenty years, a staunch Highlander contrived to make her way into a bridal chamber; and, slitting the bride's new corsets, introduced an elfin arrow between the folds. The lady, feeling some inconvenience from this unusual addition to her dress, removed the charm; in consequence of which rash act she has proved childless!
[9] A common term of endearment—literally, 'Calf of my heart.'
[10] Low-spirited.
[11] Cut her turf for firing.
[12] Related.
[13] One who has the second-sight.
[14] Until very lately, no unmarried woman in the Highlands wore any covering on the head; not even at church, or in the open air. A snood, or bandeau of riband or worsted tape, was the only head-dress for maidens. On the morning after marriage, the cap or curch was put on with great ceremony, and the matron never again appeared without this badge of subjection.
In some parts of the Highlands it is still customary to delay the wedding for weeks, often for months after the ceremony of marriage has taken place. The interval is spent by the bride in preparing her bed, bedding, &c. which it is always her part to supply. The wedding is, with a coolness of calculation which might satisfy Mr Malthus, generally postponed till the end of harvest, when labour is scarce, and provisions plentiful. About a week before the bride's removal to her new home, the bridegroom and she go separately to invite their acquaintance, sometimes to the number of hundreds, to the wedding. The bride's approach to her future dwelling is preceded by that of her household stuff; which affords the grand occasion of display for Highland vanity. The furniture is carefully exhibited upon a cart; always surmounted by a spinning-wheel, the rock loaded with as much lint as it can carry. It is accompanied by the bride's nearest female relative, and attended by a piper to announce its progress. The procession is met and welcomed by the bridegroom and a few select friends.
The ceremonial of the wedding is conducted exactly according to Cecil's statement.
The next morning, the matrons of the neighbourhood commence a visiting acquaintance, by breakfasting with the married pair; each bringing with her a present suited to her means, such as lint, pieces of linen, or dishes of various sorts. Some of these good women generally 'busk the bride's first curch.' The hair, which the day before hung down in tresses mixed with riband, is now rolled tightly up on a wooden bodkin, and fixed on the top of the head. It is then covered with the curch; a square piece of linen doubled diagonally, and passed round the head close to the forehead. Young women fasten the ends behind; the old wear them tied under the chin. The corner behind hangs loosely down. Thus attired, the bride sits in state, without engaging in any occupation whatever, until she be 'kirked.' If, however, it happens that the parish church is vacant, or if it be otherwise inconvenient to attend public worship, this ceremony can be supplied by her walking three times round the church, or any of the consecrated ruins with which the Highlands abound.
[15] Household furniture.
[16] Latewake. Watching a corpse before interment. Dancing on these occasions was once customary, though this practice is now discontinued.
'It was a mournful kind of movement, but still it was dancing. The nearest relation of the deceased often began the ceremony weeping; but did, however, begin it, to give the example of fortitude and resignation.'—Mrs Grant's Essays on the Superstitions of the Highlanders, vol. i, p. 188.
[17] The Dark Den.
[18] Garlands of flowers for the neck.
[19] Miss Percy's description is far, indeed, from exaggerating the horrors of some lunatic asylums in Edinburgh, as they existed twenty years ago. One of these, which was even more recently the disgrace of Scotland and of human nature, is now managed with great attention to the health and cleanliness of its miserable inmates.
[20] 'Near adjoining are the parks; that is, one large tract of ground, surrounded with a low wall of loose stones, and divided into several pans by partitions of the same. The surface of the ground is all over heath, or, as they call it, heather, without any trees; but some of it has lately been sown with a seed of firs, which are now grown about a foot and a half high, but are hardly to be seen for the heath.
'An English captain, the afternoon of the day following his arrival here, desired me to ride out with him and show him the parks of Culloden, without telling me the reason of his curiosity. Accordingly we set out; and when we were pretty near the place, he asked me; "Where are these parks? for," says he, "there is nothing near in view but heath, and at a distance rocks and mountains." I pointed to the enclosures; and, being a little way before him, heard him cursing in soliloquy; which occasioned my making a halt, and asking if any thing displeased him? Then he told me, that, at a coffee-house in London, he was one day commending the park of Studley in Yorkshire, and those of several gentlemen in other parts of England, when a Scots Captain who was by, cried out, "Ah, sir, but if you were to see the parks of Culloden in Scotland!"'—Letters from a Gentleman in the North of Scotland to his Friend in London, vol. i, p. 297.
[21] Whoever recollects the inns at C——i——gh and B——rr——le, and no doubt many others, as they stood two-and-twenty years ago, will be at no loss for the prototypes of Miss Percy's house of entertainment. Later travellers in the Highlands may not find her description agree with their experience. The 'land of the mountain and the flood' has of late been the fashionable resort of the lovers of the picturesque, and of grouse-shooting; the refuge of those who wish to skulk or to economise; of fine gentlemen and fine ladies, who find the world not quite bad enough for them. The accommodations for travellers are of course improved. It were devoutly to be wished that this had been the only change effected by such visitants.
[22] A packer.
[23] Gille cumsrian.
[24] The said Breadalbane spring once existed in Atholl; but its guardian Saint having been offended by some failure in respect, or in liberality, removed it to its present site. This neglect was the more unpardonable, because Highland saints have a very saint-like facility of propitiation. A halfpenny is considered as a profuse offering; a nail, a pin, or a rag, is all that the saints exact in return for the benefit of these healing waters. The saints' wells can generally be distinguished by the shreds of cloth hung upon the impending bushes; and other offerings of like value dropped into the basin.
Some of these springs are resorted to annually by way of preventative; others are visited as occasion requires. Some of the waters are taken as a medicine. Others—and these, I apprehend, the most useful—are externally applied. In this case, the ablutions must be repeated for three years successively; and if the patient die in the interim, a friend must complete this ceremony in his stead, bringing away at the same time a bottle of water, to be poured upon the grave of the deceased. Within these few years, an old woman, for this pious purpose, twice performed a journey of nearly a hundred miles.
[25] See Scott's Border Minstrelsy.
[26] Messages from the living to the dead are not uncommon in the Highlands. The Gael have such a ceaseless consciousness of immortality, that their departed friends are considered as merely absent for a time; and permitted to relieve the hours of separation by occasional intercourse with the objects of their earliest affection.
[27] Falbh bi falbh.
[28] Extemporary songs are common among the Highlanders. With these they beguile their labours; often, of course, at small expense of taste or invention. The readiness with which they apply their verses to compliment, to banter, often to graver purposes, is, however, very remarkable; and Cecil is far from furnishing a rare or exalted specimen of the powers of Highland improvisatori.
I have been told, that an Argyllshire woman, one evening, while expecting her husband's return, was surprised by a visit from some persons whom she guessed to be officers of justice sent to apprehend him. Finding the man absent, they determined to wait his arrival in the hut; taking care, of course, that his wife should not go out to apprise him of his danger. She contrived, however, to hush her baby with an extemporary song, which, without alarming the vigilance of the guards, warned her husband from his perilous threshold, and he escaped. Other instances, somewhat of a similar kind, suggested the incident in the text.
Indeed, the only merit which the Highland scenes in Discipline presume to claim, is, that, however inartificially joined, they are all borrowed from fact.
[29] Although, in the remoter parts of Scotland, chastity is by no means the universal virtue of unmarried persons, instances of conjugal infidelity are still rare. Within the present generation they were almost unknown.
About twenty years ago, it happened, in a remote country town, that two persons of the lower rank were accused of adultery. The charge, whether true or false, had such an effect, that the man was driven like a wild beast from human converse. The very children pelted him with mud in the street; crying out, 'There goes the adulterer.'
[30] Hamlet,—Town.