Apart from the appropriateness and almost absolute faultlessness of the rhythm and language in which they are couched, nothing about these old Hebridean “Blessings” seems to us so beautiful and striking as the nearness with which they bring Heaven and its active, ceaseless beneficence, to the very firesides and commonest affairs of men. Nothing is too small or insignificant to be placed, not in a general way observe, but in the most literal particular sense, under the Divine guardianship. With these old people, in their ocean-girt and storm-swept islands, God was not merely the creator, but the ever present, ever near father, protector, and friend, while to them His angels were in very truth “ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation”—not merely in spiritual matters, we are to remark, but in all the affairs of common, every-day life. Since the days of the ancient Hebrews, nowhere shall we find so firm and fixed a belief in a direct and constant intercourse and communion for good between Heaven and Earth.
The following “Blessing,” to be said over cattle when being led to pasture of a morning, is exceedingly interesting:—
Rann Buachailleachd.
Siubhal beinne, siubhal coille,
Sinbhal gu rèidh fada, farsuinn,
Banachag Phadruig ma ’n casan,
’S gu faic mise slàn a rithisd sith.
An seun a chuir Moire mu ’buar,
Moch ’us anmoch ’sa tigh’n bhuaidh’,
Ga’n gleidheadh o pholl, o eabar.