CHAPTER XXXVII.

The Delights of Beltane Tide—Bishop Gawin Douglas—His Translation of the Æneid—The Fat of Deer—“Light and Shade” from the Gaelic—Mackworth Praed—Discovery of an old Flint Manufactory in the Moss of Ballachulish.

In the poetry and proverbs of our country you constantly meet with references which go to prove that alternations of sunshine and shower [April 1873] have for ages been held to be the meteorological characteristics of an April day throughout the British Islands, and most of all, perhaps, in Scotland. To go no further, you will remember Scott’s concluding lines in Rokeby—

“Time and Tide had thus their sway,

Yielding, like an April day,

Smiling noon for sullen morrow,

Years of joy for hours of sorrow.”

This, however, has been the driest April known in the West Highlands for at least a score of years past. Hardly any rain has fallen during the month, and with a bright sun overhead, and drying north-easterly winds, rivers and streams have seldom been at a lower ebb even in midsummer, while in some places you hear complaints of an absolute scarcity of water even for ordinary household purposes—a very rare thing, indeed, in the West Highlands at this season of the year, or for that matter of it at any season. There was, however, such a superabundance of moisture in the ground, from the heavy rains of the past winter, that vegetation has as yet suffered little or nothing from the drought, and the country is beautiful exceedingly in all its greenery of leaf and gaiety of expanding blossom and bursting bud. Our wild-birds never had a finer nesting season, and they are now literally as merry as the day is long, for with the first flush of dawn in the east they begin their rich and varied song, which, with a short interval of quiescence and repose about mid-day, is continued without interruption until long after the sun has set and the earlier stars are already twinkling through the twilight gloom. April will be succeeded by the “merry month of May,” which, with the exception of two, or at most three, cold days, with frost at night, about the 10th, is pretty sure to be an unusually fine month even for May. It was an article of belief in the hygienic code of the old Highlanders, and which you come across occasionally even at the present day, that the invalid, suffering under no matter what form of internal ailment, upon whom the sun of May once fairly shed its light, was pretty sure of a renewed lease of life until at least the next autumnal equinox, and how fine, by the way, and lightsome and cheery withal, Bishop Gawin Douglas’ apostrophe (circa 1512):—

“Welcum the lord of licht, and lamp of day,

Welcum fosterare of tender herbis grene,

Welcum quickener of flurest flouris schene,

Welcum supporte of every rute and vane,

Welcum comfort of all kind frute and grane,

Welcum the birdis beild upon the brier,

Welcum maister and ruler of the yeare,

Welcum weilfare of husbands at the plewis,

Welcum repairer of woddis, treis, and bewis,

Welcum depainter of the blomyt medis,

Welcum the lyf of every thing that spedis,

Welcum storare of all kind bestial,

Welcum be thy bricht beams gladand all!”

(Prologue to “xii. Buke of Eneados of Virgill.”)

The Æneid has been often translated into English, both in prose and verse, since the days of Gawin Douglas, but we doubt if the Mantuan bard has ever been more happily rendered than by the good Bishop of Dunkeld. The following is his rendering of perhaps the best known and perhaps the most frequently quoted passage in Virgil:—

“Facilis descensus Averni,

Noctes atque dies patet atri janua Ditis;

Sed revocare gradum, superasque evadere ad auras

Hoc opus, hic labor est,” &c.

“It is richt facill and sith gate, I thè tell,

For to descend and pass on doun to hell:

The black yettis of Pluto and that dirk way,

Standis evir open and patent nycht and day:

But therefra to return agane on hicht,

And bere aboue recouir this airis light,

That is difficill werk, there labour lyis;

Full fewe there bene quhom heich aboue the skyis,

Thare ardent vertew has rasit and upheit,

Or yet quhame squale Jupiter deifyit,

Thay quhilkis bene gendrit of goddis may thidder attane.

All the midway is wilderness vnplane,

Or wilsum forrest; and the laithly flude

Cocytus with his dresy bosom vnrude

Flowis enuiron rounde about that place.”

Warton (History of English Poetry) says of Bishop Douglas’ Æneid, that “it is executed with equal spirit and fidelity, and is a proof that the Lowland Scotch and English languages were then nearly the same.” We may state that Douglas’ Æneid, irrespective of its many and great intrinsic merits, is especially interesting, as being the first translation of a Roman classic into the English language either in verse or prose. We have quoted above an old Highland belief in the exceeding efficacy, even in the most serious ailments, of the kindly beams of a May-day sun. Another belief of theirs was this—

“Geir fèidh air a ghabhail ’n ad bhroinn, ’s air a shuathadh ri d’ dhruim ’s ri d’ thaobh—

Am fear nach leighis sid, cha’n ’eil leagheas ann.”

That is—the fat of deer applied internally and externally, the invalid whose sickness that does not heal, why, then, there is no healing for him. The old Highlanders, you see, knew the value of deer: they hadn’t a good word to say of sheep.

A few days ago we went into a cottage where a woman was sitting spinning, and singing a song we had not heard for many years, though we recollect hearing it frequently sung in boyhood. The soft and plaintive air was an old favourite, and her style of singing pleasing. With a very sweet voice and much feeling, she sang it all on requesting her to do so; and after tea in the evening we threw the verses into English, as follows. It is, however, rather an imitation than a translation. The original, which is probably known to many of our readers, beginning—

“Tha’n oidhche dorcha, dubh, gun reult

Tha aibh’s na speur fo ghruaman,” &c.

is old; how old we know not. Nor have we any clue to the name of the author, or more probably authoress. Of the authors, indeed, of many of our very finest Gaelic songs may be said what was said of the old nameless border-bard, that they—

“Nameless as the race from whence they sprung,

Saved other names and left their own unsung.”

The song in Gaelic has no particular title. It is known by the two first lines quoted above, just as we say, “Of a’ the airts the wind can blaw,” and “Ye banks and braes o’ bonnie Doon.” In default of anything better, our English version may perhaps appropriately enough be entitled—