THE FAIRIES AND
DONALD DUAGHAL MACKAY.
Mankind in all ages have been prone to superstitious beliefs and hero-worship. The most enlightened nations of ancient or modern times have not been more exempt from them than the most ignorant. The ancient Chaldeans, Babylonians, and Egyptians were grossly superstitious, believing in magic, omens, and dreams. The Jews possessing intimate knowledge of a Supreme Being, universally ruling, were not free from similar practices acquired during their four hundred years contact with the Egyptians while sojourning on the banks of the Nile. The Greeks and Romans were not a whit better; they deified their heroes, put faith in oracles, divinations and dreams. They imagined that bees, ants, and various birds, beasts, and reptiles had the power of giving omens of good or bad fortune. They had gods celestial and gods terrestrial, and subterranean gods. The appearance of eclipses and comets were to them ominous of public disasters. The Scandinavians had their own fanciful mythology, their Odens, their Thors, their Balders, their Niords, their Triggas, and their Treyas, and a vast dread of the Elfin, Dwarf, and Great tribes. The Anglo-Saxon, in common with the Scandinavian, believed in these deities, and in others peculiar to the Goths. They had idols emblematical of the sun, moon, earth, and the various seasons. The Easter festivals of the Christian Church are supposed to have been derived from the name of the Anglo-Saxon goddess Eastre, to whom they made sacrifices in the month of April. The burning of the log of wood in December was a sacrifice to the sun, as an emblem of returning light, the days then beginning to lengthen; and from this ancient practice may be traced the custom of burning the yule log at Christmas, a practice still common, I believe, in parts of England. They had also their beliefs in giants, elfs, and dwarfs, which haunted the fields, woods, mountains, rivers, and lakes, alike in character to the demi-gods and other imaginary spirits of the Grecian and Roman superstitions; but worse still, to the Anglo-Saxon is ascribed the introduction to England and Scotland of the more dangerous doctrine of witchcraft and divinations, before which the reasoning power of the people quailed, and all intellectual advancement was impeded.
The Celts are credited with originating the fairy superstition, though it is unknown from what cause. In Scotland and other countries in which Celtic traditions predominate, the fairies were regarded on the whole as little given to malevolence; on the contrary, ready to help mankind at times, though when offended they exhibited an admixture of the malignant spirit of the elf and the dwarf of the Scandinavian, who introduced the belief in them to the Celts. Most spirits were supposed to have the attribute of enlarging or contracting their bulk at will; the fairy alone was regarded as essentially diminutive in size, the miniature of a human being, perfect in form, clad in pure green, brilliant and rich beyond conception, inhabiting subterranean palaces of indescribable splendour, and innumerable in numbers. They were represented as continually feasting, dancing, and making merry, or moving in procession amongst the shady green grass and verdant lawns of earth, entertained with the most harmonious and melodious music that mortal ear ever listened to, observant of the doings of mankind, and not unwilling to help them to overcome such unusual or extraordinary difficulties, if called upon, as my story tells.
Donald Duaghal having returned from the wars in Germany to his own country, where his fame preceded him, was a great hero, in the estimation of his retainers. His extraordinary valour, his feats of daring, his fearless conduct, his escaping comparatively scathless of wounds out of all the skirmishes, sieges, and battles in which he took a leading share; all this, magnified by the stories related of him by the few retainers who survived and returned home with him into the Reay country, threw around the man a halo of romance that gave rise to the belief that he must have had a charmed life, and, it might be, some occult relations with the ‘Droch Spiorad’ and the ‘Black art’ in his travels abroad. ‘Nach robh e san Edailt for an d’iunnsaich e an sgoil dubh?’—Italy being the country above all others in which the ‘black art’ was to be acquired. But Donald was never in Italy. It did not matter to Clann Mhic Aoidh. They did not trouble themselves much about correct geography; their chief was abroad; he might have been in Italy; and that was sufficient for the unsophisticated and unlettered people surrounding their beloved chief who had seen much in his travels and campaigns in Norway, Sweden, Germany, and Poland. He had crossed rivers and estuaries, and transported his soldiers over them by bridges of boats constructed by Swedish and Danish military engineers in very little time, even while his soldiers were taking a hasty meal, Donald himself urging on the work and lending a hand—all this was related in Tongue, much to the astonishment of the natives around, who could not believe it. They could not understand how an estuary like the Kyle of Tongue could be bridged in half-an-hour. The feat was too marvellous to be true, and if true there must have been some supernatural assistance. But could he not do anything? Did he not learn the ‘black art’ in Italy? Rumour went and was magnified, till in the long run it was believed that nothing was impossible to Donald. It was rumoured that he intended to throw a bridge over the estuary from Tongue to Melness. This report got wings and was believed. The knowing ones were incredulous, but the credulous had no doubt he could and would do it. Has he not the ‘black art?’ besides, can he not send to the ‘Cailleach Mhor’ in Dornoch? get her to send him the fairies, and the bridge will be built before morning. This was so much talked about that it became a received opinion that Donald Duaghal was supposed to have actually attempted the feat. He sent his Gille to Dornoch to the Cailleach requesting her as a special favour to send him fairies to construct a bridge across the Kyle of Tongue. The Cailleach Mhor consulted the fairy queen, and she, willing to do anything for so brave a man as Donald Duaghal, gave the Cailleach a box to be conveyed to Donald. The Cailleach gave the box to the Gille with strict and peremptory injunctions not to open it till he had delivered it into his master’s hands. Alas! for weak humanity, always prying into secrets, always doing the forbidden—the greater the restriction, the greater the temptation to disobey. In an unlucky moment, going over the Crask, he opened the box, when lo! in an instant, around him and about him on all sides were myriads of tiny creatures, hammer in hand, shrilly clamouring ‘Obair, obair, obair’ (Work, work, work). Nonplused with the extraordinary sight, confounded for a moment with the effect of his disobedience of orders, Mackay’s man was equal to the occasion. Rapidly recovering his presence of mind and appreciating his position, he ordered his importunate companions to set to work and pluck up the heather off the whole hillside upon which they were. No sooner ordered than it was done, and the same clamour was resumed of ‘Obair, obair, obair.’ Driven by this almost to desperation he ordered his little companions to fly away to Dornoch Firth opposite Tain, and there build a bridge for the accommodation of the lieges of Dornoch and Baile Dhuthaich. Instantly they went, and commenced operations, throwing up the sand in clouds to form an embankment, but as ill-luck would have it, some person passing the way about cock-crowing time, hearing the noise and uproar exclaimed ‘Dhia beannaich mis, ciod e an obair tha’n so’(God bless me, what work is this). Work was instantly suspended never to be resumed, in consequence of God’s name being mentioned, and a blessing asked on the work; and well would it have been, had it never been commenced, for the sand accumulated by the fairies in that night’s work forms the dangerous shoals between Dornoch and Tain to this day, the sea roaring over them at every tide, and the noise of the waves heard at the distance of many a mile, portends to the natives the advent of foul weather. To this day the place is called Drochaid na h’Aogh, or the Elfin Bridge.
It is lamentable to contemplate how such vain imaginations as these should have so long weighed upon the intelligence and perception of the people; but it may be asked, were they not fostered in a great measure after the introduction of Christianity? when, through persecution, religion assumed the garb of gloom and fanaticism, when belief in the personal appearance of the devil was universal, and continued till within recent years in the vulgar mind?
Ignorance is justly termed the mother of superstition. Wherever mankind are least accustomed to trace events to natural causes superstitious notions flourish most luxuriantly. When the mind once allows that matters of ordinary and natural occurrence may take place by the interference of the supernatural, there is obviously no limit to the actions they are supposed to perform. In the present age of comparative intelligence it is difficult to comprehend how human beings could be so deplorably ignorant of natural causes and effects as to entertain for a moment such gross notions of the supernatural, and yet, in this nineteenth century, we can observe similar forces at work even in the most respectable ranks of society—Mormonism, Southcotism, spirit-rapping, table-turning. The Saxon of modern days has more superstitious notions in his composition than the Celt, notwithstanding his boastful superiority and pride in being more enlightened and freer from prejudice than any other. He calls his superstitions ‘customs,’ and so reconciles himself to them. Does he like to sit down the thirteenth person at the table or festive board? Does he believe in lucky and unlucky days? Does he believe in the appearance, as a good or evil omen, of two or three magpies when setting out upon a journey? Does he like a hare to cross his path? or the upsetting of salt on the table? the howling of dogs, the cracking of furniture, the tickling noise of an insect in old furniture, the putting on the left shoe first? When he relinquishes these he may hurl his stone of scorn at the Celt for his belief in the Sithichean.