MAOL A’ CHLIOBAIN.
There was a widow once of a time, and she had three daughters, and they said to her that they were going to seek their fortunes. She prepared three bannocks. She said to the big daughter, “Whether do you like best the little half with my blessing, or the big half with my curse?” “I like best,” said she, “the big half with your curse.” She said to the middle one, “Whether do you like best the big half with my curse, or the little half with my blessing?” “I like best,” said she, “the big half with your curse.” She said to the little one, “Whether do you like best the big half with my curse, or the little half with my blessing?” “I like best the little half with your blessing.” This pleased her mother, and she gave her the other half likewise.
They left, but the two elder ones did not wish to have the younger one with them, and they tied her to a stone. They held on, and when they looked behind them whom did they see coming but her with the rock on her back. They let her alone for a while until they reached a stack of peats, and they tied her to the peat-stack. They held on for a while, when whom did they see coming but her with the stack of peats on her back. They let her alone for a while until they reached a tree, and they tied her to the tree. They held on, and whom did they see coming but her with the tree on her back. They saw that there was no use meddling with her. They loosed her and they let her come with them. They were travelling till night overtook them. They saw a light far from them, and if it was far from them they were not long reaching it. They went in. What was this but the house of a giant. They asked to remain overnight. They got that, and they were set to bed with the three daughters of the giant.
There were turns of amber beads around the necks of the giant’s daughters, and strings of hair around their necks. They all slept, but Maol a’ Chliobain kept awake. During the night the giant got thirsty. He called to his bald rough-skinned lad to bring him water. The bald rough-skinned lad said that there was not a drop within. “Kill,” said he, “one of the strange girls, and bring me her blood.” “How will I know them?” said the bald rough-skinned lad. “There are turns of beads about the necks of my daughters, and turns of hair about the necks of the rest.” Maol a’ Chliobain heard the giant, and as quickly as she could she put the strings of hair that were about her own neck and the necks of her sisters about the necks of the giant’s daughters, and the beads that were about the necks of the giant’s daughters about her own neck and the necks of her sisters, and laid herself quietly down. The bald rough-skinned lad came and killed one of the daughters of the giant, and brought him her blood. He bade him bring him more. He killed the second one. He bade him bring him more, and he killed the third. Maol a’ Chliobain wakened her sisters, and she took them on her back and went away. The giant observed her, and he followed her.
The sparks of fire which she was driving out of the stones with her heels were striking the giant in the chin, and the sparks of fire that the giant was taking out of the stones with the points of his feet, they were striking Maol a’ Chliobain in the back of her head. It was thus with them until they reached a river. Maol a’ Chliobain leaped the river, and the giant could not leap the river. “You are over, Maol a’ Chliobain.” “Yes, if it vex you.” “You killed my three bald red-skinned daughters.” “Yes, if it vex you.” “And when will you come again?” “I will come when my business brings me,” &c., &c.
The tale is a good deal longer; but the above portion will give an idea of the style and manner of the whole. Unlike many of the ballads, the language of these tales is thoroughly popular. Mr Campbell had in his possession, besides what he published, much material deposited after his recent death in the Advocates’ Library.
A Popular Rhyme, frequently occurring in the tales, is a great favourite as a boat song. It fills the same place in the popular romances that the “Banners” does in the heroic ballads. The original will be found in the second volume of Campbell’s “Tales,” and is regarded as very old. “The vigorous and elastic spirit that pervades the following verses must have strung the heart of many a hardy mariner who loved to feel the fresh and briny breeze driving his snoring Birlinn, bounding like a living creature over the tumbling billows of the inland loch, or the huge swell of the majestic main.” Pattison translates thus:—
We turned her prow unto the sea, her stern unto the shore,
And first we raised the tall, tough masts, and then the canvas hoar;
Fast filled our towering, cloud-like sails, for the wind came from the land,
And such a wind as we might choose, were the winds at our command:
A breeze that rushing down the hill would strip the blooming heather,
Or rustling through the green-clad grove, would whirl its leaves together.
It heaped the ruins on the land, though sire and sire stood by,
They could no help afford, but gaze with wan and troubled eye!
A flap, a flash, the green roll dashed, and laughed against the red;
Upon our boards, now here, now there, it knocked its foamy head.
The dun bowed whilk in the abyss, as on the galley bore,
Gave a tap upon her gunwale and a slap upon her floor.
She could have split a slender straw—so clean and so well she went—
As still obedient to the helm her stately course she bent.
We watched the big beast eat the small—the small beast nimbly fly,
And listen to the plunging eels—the sea-gulls’ clang on high—
We had no other music to cheer us on our way
Till round those sheltering hills we passed, and anchored in this bay.
When the hero or heroes of the tale had to undertake a sea voyage this rhyme was invariably introduced by the reciter as a fit description of how it was accomplished. Ghearradh i cuinnlein caol coirce le feabhas a stiuraidh appears to have been the highest conception of skilful steering, and we may readily believe that it would be hard to surpass such a marvellous feat. Much complaint has been made against these same “lying, worldly stories,” which the good bishop Carsuel found obstructing his reforming efforts. Several of his profession since have uttered the same complaint. But surely if the minds of the people were not filled with a better gospel, the wisest thing they could do was to extract any lessons of prudence and morality that they could find in these simple tales.
As to the preservation and age of these romances the question is excellently stated in the following sentences by [Standish O’Grady]: “Whatever it may be that has given vitality to the traditions of the mythic and elder historic period, they have survived to modern times; when they have been formed into large manuscript collections, of which the commonest titles, ‘Bolg an t-Salathair,’ answering to a ‘Comprehensive Miscellany.’ These were for the most part written by professional scribes and schoolmasters, and being then lent to, or bought by those who could read, but had no leisure to write, used to be read aloud in farmer’s houses on occasions when numbers were collected at some employment, such as wool-carding in the evenings; but especially at wakes. Thus the people became familiar with all these tales. The writer has heard a man who never possessed a manuscript, nor heard of O’Flanagan’s publication, relate at the fireside the death of the sons of Uisneach without omitting one adventure, and in great part retaining the very words of the written versions.” “It has been already said that some of these legends and poems are new versions of old; but it is not to be supposed that they are so in at all the same degree or the same sense as, for instance, the modernised Canterbury Tales are of Chaucer’s original work. There is this great difference, that in the former, nothing has been changed but some inflections and constructions, and the orthography which has become more fixed; the genius and idiom of the language, and in a very great measure the words, remaining the same; while in the latter all these have been much altered. Again the new versions of Chaucer are of the present day; whereas our tales and poems, both the modifications of older ones, and those which in their very origin are recent, are one with the other, most probably three hundred years old.”
It was the authors, writers, and preservers of these tales and romances that manufactured and handed down to us the fabulous chronicles in which the early migrations and history of the Gaelic clans lie embedded. Let us cast a glance at these interesting chronicles, the historical value of which has not yet been decided by our Celtic literati.
It has been a question much discussed, how the British islands were first peopled; whether some other nameless tribes landed before the Celts; and in what manner the Celts came into possession. It is admitted by some Cymri in traditions that their brother Gaels were before them, whoever had been in possession before the Gaels. Hu the Mighty, the great ancestor of the Welsh, being a wise ruler, entered into federal relations with the Gaels on his arrival, the land being extensive enough for the two Celtic tribes. This Hu Gadarn, who is said to have come with his people direct from the regions round about “where Constantinople now is,” is thus described in the poetry of his country:—
“The mighty Hu with mead would pay
The bard for his melodious lay;
The Emperor of land and sea
And of all living things was he.”
Irish annalists make a certain Milesius and others leaders of the Gaelic colonies by which Ireland was peopled. These colonies came from the East, and having rested in Spain, they sailed thence directly to Ireland. There are many historical romances extant regarding these colonies of Gaels and their wanderings and final settlement in Ireland. “The Chronicles of Eri” is among the most interesting. Dr Keating, in his legendary history of Ireland, gives the descent of the Gael from Gathelus, or Gaidheal Glas, as follows:—Gathelus, who started westward from Egypt, was the son of Niul, son of Fenius Farsa, son of Baath, son of Magog, son of Japhet, son of Noah! The force of reason could no further go. Niul was a man of much learning and wisdom, and was married to a daughter of Pharaoh, called Scoto. She was the mother of Gathelus, who, it is said, was an intimate friend of Moses. When the great exodus of Israel from Egypt took place Gathelus was in his eightieth year. After various adventures his descendants arrived in Spain, where they remained for some time masters of the country. Milidh or Milesius was an eminent warrior; greatly distinguished himself before leaving Egypt in a war with the Ethiopians; fought in Scythia, and became one of the kings of the descendants of Gathelus in Spain. He also was married to a Scota, a daughter of Pharaoh. His sons, in the year 500 before Christ, sailed to Ireland with a fleet of thirty vessels. They soon conquered the Tuatha de Danaan, and divided Ireland into two parts. Ebir was made king of the southern part of the island, and Eremon of the northern part.
The descendants of Gathelus in all their wanderings are supposed to have carried with them Jacob’s Stone, the famous Lia Fail, or stone of destiny, stolen from Scone by that royal robber of Scotch antiquities, Edward I., now in the coronation chair [in Westminster] Abbey. It is alleged that it was removed from Ireland to Scotland in 503 A.D. by Murtogh MacEarc that his brother Fergus Mor might be crowned on it. Science makes havoc at times with tradition. After examining the Lia Fail, Professor Geikie, according to Dr Skene, declares that it is merely a block of Perthshire sandstone. At the same time, it must be a stone of great antiquity, and lies at last in a safe and honourable resting-place, at whose shrine, and before the mightiest and most beloved Monarch that ever sat on an earthly throne, Celt and Saxon, Dane and Norman, bend the knee in loyal unity. There is an interesting prophecy of a very ancient origin connected with the Lia Fail. O’Hartigan, an Irish poet, who died in 975, speaks of it in the following couplet—
An cloch a ta fam dha shail,
Uaithe raidhtear Inis Fail.
The stone beneath my two heels,
From it, is said, the Isle of Fail.
Hector Boece, the Scottish historian, gives the following Latin couplet:—
Ni fallat fatum, Scoti, qnocunque locatum,
Invenient lapidem, regnare tenentur ibidem;
Of which Keating gives the following Gaelic:—
Cineadh Scuit saor an fine,
Mun budh breag an fhaisdine,
Mar a fuighid an liagh-fhail,
Dlighid flaitheas do ghabhail.
Rendered thus in English—
The Scots shall brook that realm as native ground,
If weirds fail not, where’er this chair is found.
So much for the Lia Fail.
There is a reluctance on the part of Irish writers to accept any theory that implies the colonisation of Ireland from Britain. On the contrary, they rather attempt to prove that the Scottish Gael emigrated from Ireland—a theory which appears to have been invented in the fifteenth century. It was afterwards adopted unquestioningly by Scottish antiquarians, with few exceptions, of whom James Macpherson of Ossianic fame was one. For some time the Highlanders generally accepted the theory, and almost all the Highland clans were somehow or other traced to an Irish original. MacMhaighstir Alastair thus sings of the original country of the clans according to the belief of last century:—
“There are thousands now in Alba
As stout as are in any land;
The grey Gaels from Scota,
Who cheerful round your colours stand.”
By Scota Ireland is meant. All the elaborate and romantic chronicles by which Milesian and Spanish colonies are made to land on Irish soil were mostly manufactured by monks in the Middle Ages, and have no defensible historical foundation; the same may be affirmed of the alleged colonisation of Argyllshire by Irish Gaels.
Some of the romances and the chronicles, however, suggest what appear to be reliable facts respecting the several races of Erin and Albin. Just as there were several tribes of Finians in ancient Eire, so there are different tribes of Celts in modern Ireland. A powerful pre-Celtic element, as in the north-west of Scotland, prevails in the south-west of Ireland. On the other hand a Norse element also prevails in the north-west of Scotland, which has largely entered into the population of the north of Ireland. The difference of character exhibited by the generic Irish and generic Scottish Celt is to be traced no doubt to the degrees of original difference in the blending of races.
The Norse element has always been recognised by the more intelligent of the Highlanders. We find Mary MacLeod, the Harris poetess, born in 1569, addressing the Dunvegan chief of the day in these words:—
“In counsel or fight, thy kindred
Know these should be thine—
Branch of Lochlin’s wide-ruling
And king-bearing line!
And in Erin they know it
Far over the brine;
No Earl would in Albin
Thy friendship decline.”
The matter of religion is, no doubt, an important factor in the later difference; but the sturdier Norse element in the Highlander’s constitution may account for much. In reading the literature of the two countries, we are at once struck with the different keys to which the bards attune their harps. An Irish bard, in English, sings thus of his country:—
“She sits alone on the cold gravestone,
And only the dead are nigh her;
In the tongue of the Gael she makes her wail;
The night wind rushes by her:
“‘Few, O few, are the leal and true,
And fewer shall be, and fewer;
The land is a corse;—no life, no force—
O wind with sere leaves strew her!
“‘Men ask what scope is left for hope
To one who has known her story;
I trust her dead! Their graves are red;
But their souls are with God in glory.’”
This note is not to be found in the whole range of Highland poetry. Perhaps it is because the retrospect of the past is not so full of sadness for the Highlander, who, notwithstanding his rebellions and their frequent non-success, has fairly maintained his ground in Scotland. He has had his share in the struggles for Scotland’s independence; and he now identifies himself with the whole nation, proud of the name, and rejoicing in her glorious history. The Jacobite bard, Alexander Macdonald, addresses the Scottish Lion thus:—
“Hail! thou rending Lion,
Of matchless force and rampant pride!
When up thy chieftains roused them
Gay banners fluttered far and wide.
Strong rock and everlasting,
Hard and old and undecayed,
High thy royal crest show,
For thousands gather in thy shade,
With mirth in their armour bright—
The dauntless race that never yield—
The spectres that stir panic flight,
When quick striking swords they wield.
Many gallant youths beneath thee,
With stout hands and shoulders great,
Go rushing on where’s honour won—
For wild fight they’re never late.
With steady foot and agile hand
To thrust or cut each weapon gleams;
Red on the ground death gasps around,
But gay o’erhead the Lion streams.
Thou roaring, frowning Lion!” &c.
This is the kind of poetry on which the Highland national spirit has been fed. Retrospects have less weight and prospects more with the Highlander. On the other hand the Irish Gael dwells intensely on the past, and thus grievously sins against his future. As appendix to this chapter on prose romances, I give some Irish literary facts and a Hibernian picture of Ossian in verse, as—