Two bridges at “Sguideal” (Conon) of the gormandizers,
And a man with two navels at Dunean,
Soldiers will come from “Carn a Chlarsair” (Tarradale)
On a chariot without horse or bridle,
Which will leave the “Blar-dubh” (Muir of Ord) a wilderness,
Spilling blood with many knives;
And the raven shall drink his three fulls
Of the blood of the Gael from the Stone of Fionn.
We already have two churches in the Parish of Ferrintosh, two bridges at Conon, and we are told by an eye-witness, that there is actually at this very time a man with two thumbs on each hand in “I-Stiana,” in the Black Isle, and a man in the neighbourhood of Dunean who has two navels. The “chariot without horse or bridle” is undoubtedly the “iron horse”. What particular event the latter part of the prediction refers to, it is impossible to say; but if we are to have any faith in the Seer, something serious is looming not very remotely in the future.
Mr. Macintyre supplies the following, which is clearly a fragment of the one above given:—Coinneach Odhar foresaw the formation of a railway through the Muir of Ord which he said “would be a sign of calamitous times”. The prophecy regarding this is handed down to us in the following form:—“I would not like to live when a black bridleless horse shall pass through the Muir of Ord.” “Fearchair a Ghunna” (Farquhar of the Gun, an idiotic simpleton who lived during the latter part of his extraordinary life on the Muir of Tarradale) seems, in his own quaint way, to have entered into the spirit of this prophecy, when he compared the train, as it first passed through the district, to the funeral of “Old Nick”. Tradition gives another version, viz.:—“that after four successive dry summers, a fiery chariot shall pass through the ‘Blar Dubh,’” which has been very literally fulfilled. Coinneach Odhar was not the only person that had a view beforehand of this railway line, for it is commonly reported that a man residing in the neighbourhood of Beauly, gifted with second-sight, had a vision of the train, moving along in all its headlong speed, when he was on his way home one dark autumn night, several years before the question of forming a railway in those parts was mooted.