The scenery and legend of Mr. James Hay Allan’s poem, “The Bridal of Caölchairn,” are derived from the vicinity of Cruachan, (or Cruachan-Beinn,) a mountain 3390 feet above the level of the sea, situated at the head of Loch Awe, a lake in Argyleshire. The poem commences with the following lines: the prose illustrations are from Mr. Allan’s descriptive notes.
Grey Spirit of the Lake, who sit’st at eve
At mighty Cruächan’s gigantic feet;
And lov’st to watch thy gentle waters heave
The silvery ripple down their glassy sheet;
How oft I’ve wandered by thy margin sweet,
And stood beside the wide and silent bay,
Where the broad Urcha’s stream thy breast doth meet,
And Caölchairn’s forsaken Donjon grey
Looks from its narrow rock upon thy watery way.
Maid of the waters! in the days of yore
What sight yon setting sun has seen to smile
Along thy spreading bound, on tide, and shore,
When in its pride the fortress reared its pile,
And stood the abbey on “the lovely isle;”
And Fraòch Elan’s refuge tower grey
Looked down the mighty gulf’s profound defile.
Alas! that Scottish eye should see the day,
When bower, and bield, and hall, in shattered ruin lay.
What deeds have past upon thy mountain shore;
What sights have been reflected in thy tide;
But dark and dim their tales have sunk from lore:
Scarce is it now remembered on thy side
Where fought Mac Colda, or Mac Phadian died.
But lend me, for a while, thy silver shell,
’Tis long since breath has waked its echo wide;
Then list, while once again I raise its swell,
And of thy olden day a fearful legend tell—
INISHAIL.
“——the convent on the lovely isle.”
Inishail, the name of one of the islands in Loch Awe, signifies in Gaëlic “the lovely isle.” It is not at present so worthy of this appellation as the neighbouring “Fràoch Elan,” isle of heather, not having a tree or shrub upon its whole extent. At the period when it received its name, it might, however, have been better clothed; and still it has a fair and pleasant aspect: its extent is larger than that of any other island in the lake, and it is covered with a green turf, which, in spring, sends forth an abundant growth of brackens.
There formerly existed here a convent of Cistercian nuns; of whom it is said, that they were “memorable for the sanctity of their lives and the purity of their manners: at the Reformation, when the innocent were involved with the guilty in the sufferings of the times, their house was supprest, and the temporalities granted to Hay, the abbot of Inchaffrey, who, abjuring his former tenets of religion, embraced the cause of the reformers.”[226] Public worship was performed in the chapel of the convent till the year 1736: but a more commodious building having been erected on the south side of the lake, it has since been entirely forsaken; nothing now remains of its ruin but a small part of the shell, of which only a few feet are standing above the foundation. Of the remaining buildings of the order there exists no trace, except in some loose heaps of stones, and an almost obliterated mound, which marks the foundation of the outer wall. But the veneration that renders sacred to a Highlander the tombs of his ancestors, has yet preserved to the burying-ground its ancient sanctity. It is still used as a place of interment, and the dead are often brought from a distance to rest there among their kindred.
In older times the isle was the principal burying-place of many of the most considerable neighbouring families: among the tombstones are many shaped in the ancient form, like the lid of a coffin, and ornamented with carvings of fret-work, running figures, flowers, and the forms of warriors and two-handed swords. They are universally destitute of the trace of an inscription.
Among the chief families buried in Inishail were the Mac Nauchtans of Fràoch Elan, and the Campbells of Inbherau. Mr. Allan could not discover the spot appropriated to the former, nor any evidence of the gravestones which must have covered their tombs. The place of the Campbells, however, is yet pointed out. It lies on the south side of the chapel, and its site is marked by a large flat stone, ornamented with the arms of the family in high relief. The shield is supported by two warriors, and surmounted by a diadem, the signification and exact form of which it is difficult to decide; but the style of the carving and the costume of the figures do not appear to be later than the middle of the fifteenth century.