Historical Tales and Legends of the Highlands

by Unknown

The Monadh-liath mountains are an elongated group of lofty and rugged heights, running in a line parallel to Gleann Mor na h-Albainn, in the centre of the southern division of Inverness-shire.

They rest on a dreary heathy moor, are comparatively flowing in their outlines, unbroken in their declivities, and free from very rugged and jagged precipices. They embosom extensive glens, the feeding places for shaggy cattle; there are great slopes on which flocks of sheep pasture, and they contain dreary solitudes where only the grouse and the ptarmigan, the roe and the red deer, are to be found.

Far, far and high upon those mountains, on the side of one of its vast slopes, in a hollow more green than brown, a little burnie commences its existence in a spongy bit of brown ground, covered over with plants bearing white flowers—the Cannach of similar scenes. At first, says one of the best of word painters of his day, you can see nothing of a rill—it is only a slyke. But a little way onward the slyke begins to assume the form and movements of a rill, and you may see it stealing along under the covering grass, in a thread so slender that the fairies might step over it at night and never know it was there.

It is indeed a wild solitude, and few signs of living things are to be seen therein, save perhaps a hoody crow or two that come here now and then to have a little quiet conversation with their neighbours on the subject-matter of braxy, dead lambs, and such-like windfalls. A very infant is the burnie as yet, and very much more like a sleeping than a waking infant; you might lay your ear down to it without hearing sounds greater than the murmurings through the roots of the grass, like the breathings of a baby in the cradle, and, like the baby, also giving an occasional flashing glance at the sun-ray which steals down to see how it is getting on.

By-and-bye, however, it begins to grow, and first crows in audible murmurs, then becomes more noisy and more active, and leaps over the little pebbles that lie in its way, as if it had acquired a taste for fun, and was determined to indulge it.

As it increases in strength, it increases its antics, but all this time it is enjoying itself its ’leefie lane,’ like many other baby born and brought up in the wee cot house of its shepherd parents, under the shadow of some great mountain, or on the banks of some lonely lake—far, far away from human ken. There is not a soul at hand to witness its pranks; the very rushes that grow by the little stream get leave to grow as long as they will, nor are they tortured and plaited into rashen whips, and caps, and buckies—there is not a bairn within ten miles to pull them.

Our burnie flows on in solitude till it has formed its little stream path and has reached the base of a knoll on which was once a herd’s house—a green and sheltered spot. People lived in it for years, and were well acquainted with our burnie at this stage of its course; but they have long since left the place, some of them and their descendants crossed the ocean, and have made a home for themselves in other lands, and the seniors lie in the green graveyard far down the valley.

Regardless of these changes, the burnie goes on in many windings and turnings among the hills, quite happy in its companionless journey, hopping and jumping as it goes, and occasionally breaking out into a little song, though there is not a single bird to reply by an answering carrol—for we are yet far above the regions of birds and bushes—shining bright in the sunshine; there is not a single speck to dim its purity—the very pebbles are purely clean along its margin. How well happiness and purity go together. Such is the infancy of our burnie.

But infancy is but a passing stage with burnies as well as bairns, and our burnie must leave these Alpine solitudes and come into society, although at the expense of its purity and innocence. Bushes begin to appear along its banks, and one of the first is an old thorn, with the earth worn away from its roots by the sheep rubbing themselves against its bark. The ferns grow more luxuriantly round the little green haughs, and where the braes are rather steep for the sheep to feed and lie upon, the primroses star the spots with bright bunches, and the little green meadows are spangled with gowans.

Turning the corner, behold a herd’s house. It is the eldest hope of the family who is laving the waters of the burnie upon the clothes that are bleaching on the grass, and thus putting a portion of its watery treasure to their first economic use; two younger children, a little further down, have cut a side channel through which flows a tiny rill, on which they are busy erecting a toy mill wheel.