"The Goblin Hall.—A vaulted hall under the ancient castle of Gifford or Yester (for it bears either name indifferently), the construction of which has from a very remote period been ascribed to magic.... 'Upon a peninsula, formed by the water of Hopes on the east, and a large rivulet on the west, stands the ancient castle of Yester. Sir David Dalrymple, in his annals, relates that "Hugh Gifford de Yester died in 1267; that in his castle there was a capacious cavern, formed by magical art, and called in the country Bo-Hall, i.e., Hobgoblin Hall." A stair of twenty-four steps led down to this apartment, which is a large and spacious hall, with an arched roof.... From the floor of this hall another stair of thirty-six steps leads down to a pit which hath a communication with Hopeswater....'"
In this instance, the "pit" which communicated with the neighbouring stream was probably the original underground dwelling; and if the arch of the "vaulted hall" above it is not of the "Pelasgic" order, it is to be presumed that the "goblins"[248] who built it had received fresh ideas from a race possessed of a more advanced civilization.
The castle of Doune, in Perthshire, is another probable instance of the mediæval castle evolved from the primitive mound. What is nowadays known as the castle of "Doune," was formerly spoken of as "The Dùn (or Doon) of Menteith." "Doune (Dun, no doubt) had once, where its castle now stands, an ancient fortress; but the name is all that now remains to bespeak it," says a lady-writer on this subject.[249] It is very probable, therefore, that the original "Doon of Menteith" was the mound upon which the present building now stands; and that this was at one time the chief stronghold of the district of Menteith. One doon, which has apparently never advanced from its earliest stage, is that of Rothiemurchus, in the district of Badenoch (Inverness-shire). "A mound which has every appearance of having been used in ancient times for purposes of defence stands at the Doun of Rothiemurchus, and is properly the Doun or Dun," says a modern historian of that district.[250] Such a structure as this seems to combine the dwelling and the fort; the "hollow hill" having presumably been so constructed as to render the "crater" on its summit a place of defence. That this Doon of Rothiemurchus was once inhabited seems clearly indicated. In speaking of the ban-sithe, or fairy woman, already referred to as the appanage of old Milesian families, Sir Walter Scott states that "most great families in the Highlands" were thus distinguished, and that "Grant of Rothiemurcus had an attendant called Bodach-an-dùn";[251] in other words, "The Goblin of the Doon." And when Scott states, in the note immediately preceding that just quoted, that "a goblin, dressed in antique armour, and having one hand covered with blood, called from that circumstance Lamh-dearg, or Red-hand, is a tenant of the forests of Glenmore and Rothiemurcus," he indicates a tradition that seems to be connected with the "goblins" of the Doon of Rothiemurchus.[252]
However, although referred to in passing, the Rothiemurchus mound is not one of those on which a stone castle has been subsequently reared. But of the latter class an example is furnished by the "Castle Hill" of Clunie, in Perthshire. It is thus described in Sir John Sinclair's "Statistical Account":—
"On the western shore of the loch of Clunie stands the old castle-hill, a large, green mound, partly natural and partly artificial, on the top of which are the ruins of a very old building. Some aged persons still alive [in the end of last century] remember to have seen a small aperture, now invisible, at the edge of one of the fragments of the ruins, where, if a stone was thrown in, it was heard for some time, as if rolling down a staircase. From this it seems probable that were a section of the hill to be made, some curious discoveries might be the consequence."
Resembling Fierna's Hillock, near Limerick, in its having this "small aperture," communicating with an unexplored vault below, this Perthshire mound is also celebrated, like Knock-Fierna, for its association with the "fairies." The castle which once crowned its summit has more historical memories.
Of this castle, in which, it is said, King Edward I. of England passed a night, in the course of his triumphant progress through Scotland in 1296, almost nothing now remains. But a tradition relating to an earlier period asserts that this place was once a hunting-seat of Kenneth McAlpin, the ninth-century conqueror of the Picts (whose king he subsequently became). Although Kenneth, and his son after him, bore the title of "King of the Picts," it is tolerably clear that he was a Scot or Milesian by race, and it is certain that he broke up the power of the Pechts in Central Scotland. As he was not one of this latter race himself, it is probable that any "hunting-seat" possessed by him at this place took the shape of an above-ground building, and that therefore the memories of the "supernatural" inhabitants of this mound date back to the time when it was still an unconquered stronghold of the Pechts. As, however, the suggested "section of the hill" has never yet been made, nothing definite is at present known regarding the interior of this mound.
One of the incidents relating to the "goblin" of Rothiemurchus is included by Mr. J. F. Campbell among the traditions obtained by him from the district of Badenoch, in Inverness-shire. "The Badenoch account of the fairies" is stated to be "much the same" as those from other parts of the Highlands, and they show "that according to popular belief, fairies commonly carried off men, women and children, who seemed to die, but really lived underground." A tale of this kind, "now commonly believed in Badenoch," is to this effect:—A man who, returning home after a short absence, found that his wife had disappeared and that another woman had taken her place, demanded from the latter, on pain of death, to tell him where his wife had been conveyed to. "She told him that his wife had been carried to Cnoc Fraing, a mountain on the borders of Badenoch and Strathdearn." "The man went to Cnoc Fraing. He was suspected before of having something supernatural about him; and he soon found the fairies, who told him his wife had been taken to Shiathan Mor, a neighbouring mountain. He went there and was sent to Tom na Shirich, near Inverness. There he went, and at the 'Fairy Knoll' found his wife and brought her back."[253]
Mr. Campbell adds that "the person who related this story pretended to have seen people who knew distant descendants of the woman"—but beyond indicating that the tradition is very old, this does not place these events in any particular century. The localities named, however, are full of suggestiveness. Of Cnoc Fraing, nothing is known to the present writer. But "Shiathan Mor," to which the woman is said to have been first taken, signifies "The Great Hill of the Fairies." Such a name is of very frequent occurrence in the Highlands. One who is well versed in these matters says: "There is perhaps not a hamlet or township in the Highlands or Hebrides without its shian or green fairy knoll so-called. Within half a mile of our own residence, for example, there is a Sithean Beag and a Sithean Mor, a Lesser and Greater Fairy Knoll."[254] In the Hebridean island of Colonsay, where Martin, the eighteenth-century traveller, found that "the natives have a tradition among them of a very little generation of people that lived once here, called Lusbirdan, the same with pigmies," one finds a "Sheean Mor" and a "Sheean Beg," along with many other traces of those people.[255] But it is unnecessary to multiply special instances. It was to a Great Knoll of the Fairies, then, that the woman was taken, and thereafter to "Tom na Shirich, near Inverness." This name also signifies "Hill of the Fairies." Shirich, more correctly Sibhreach, is apparently a less common form, equivalent to Sidhfear, Duine Sith, etc., but it occurs more than once in the "West Highland Tales,"[256] both as a singular and a plural. When the initial "s" of sibhreach or sithreach, becomes aspirated, after the common Gaelic fashion, the sibilant is no longer heard; and this is exemplified in the case of "Tom na Shirich," which is nowadays spelt as it is pronounced—Tomnahurich (or Tomnaheurich, etc.)[257] Of this Inverness hill much has been written.