Part 4

Speaking of what should come to pass in the parish of Lochs, he said—“At bleak Runish in Lochs, they will spoil and devour, at the foot of the crags, and will split heads by the score.” He is also said to have predicted “that the day will come when the raven will drink its three fulls of the blood of the Clan Macdonald on the top of the Hills of Minaraidh in Parks, in the parish of Lochs”. This looks as if the one above predicted about the Mackenzies had been misapplied to the Macdonalds. “The day will come when there shall be a laird of Tulloch who will kill four wives in succession, but the fifth shall kill him.”

Regarding the battle of Ard-nan-Ceann, at Benbecula, North Uist, he said—“Oh, Ard-nan-Ceann, Ard-nan-Ceann, glad am I that I will not be at the end of the South Clachan that day, when the young men will be weary and faint; for Ard-nan-Ceann will be the scene of a terrible conflict”.

“A severe battle will be fought at the (present) Ardelve market stance, in Lochalsh, when the slaughter will be so great that people can cross the ferry over dead men’s bodies. The battle will be finally decided by a powerful man and his five sons, who will come across from the Strath (the Achamore district).”

Coinneach said—“When a holly bush (or tree) shall grow out of the face of the rock at Torr-a-Chuilinn (Kintail) to a size sufficiently large to make a shaft for a ‘carn-slaoid’ (sledge-cart), a battle will be fought in the locality.”

“When Loch Shiel, in Kintail, shall become so narrow that a man can leap across it, the salmon shall desert the Loch and the River Shiel.” We are told that the Loch is rapidly getting narrower at a particular point, by the action of the water on the banks and bottom, and that if it goes on as it has done in recent years it can easily be leaped at no distant date. Prudence would suggest a short lease of these Salmon Fishings.

He also predicted that a large stone, standing on the hill opposite Scallisaig farm-house, in Glenelg, “will fall and kill a man”. This boulder is well known to people in the district, and the prophecy is of such a definite character, that there cannot possibly be any mistake about its meaning or its fulfilment should such a calamity ever unfortunately take place.

PROPHECIES AS TO THE FULFILMENT OF WHICH THERE IS A DOUBT.

“When a magpie (pitheid) shall have made a nest for three successive years in the gable of the Church of Ferrintosh, the church will fall when full of people,” is one of those regarding which we find it difficult to decide whether it has been already fulfilled or not. Mr. Macintyre, who supplies this version, adds the following remarks:—The Church of Ferrintosh was known at an earlier period as the Parish Church of Urquhart and Loggie. Some maintain that this prediction refers to the Church of Urray. Whether this be so or not, there were circumstances connected with the Church of Ferrintosh in the time of the famous Rev. Dr. Macdonald, which seemed to indicate the beginning of the fulfilment of the prophecy, and which led to very alarming consequences. A magpie actually did make her nest in the church gable, exactly as foretold. This, together with a rent between the church wall and the stone stairs which led up to the gallery, seemed to favour the opinion that the prophecy was on the eve of being accomplished, and people felt uneasy when they glanced upon the ominous nest, the rent in the wall, and the crowded congregation, and remembered Coinneach’s prophecy, as they walked into the church to hear the Doctor. It so happened one day that the church was unusually full of people, insomuch that it was found necessary to connect the ends of the seats with planks, in order to accommodate them all. Unfortunately, one of those temporary seats was either too weak, or too heavily burdened: it snapped in two with a loud report and startled the audience. Coinneach Odhar’s prophecy flashed across their minds, and a simultaneous rush was made by the panic-struck congregation to the door. Many fell, and were trampled underfoot, while others fainted, being seriously crushed and bruised.

Among a rural population, sayings and doings, applicable to a particular parish, crop up, and, in after times, are applied to occurrences in neighbouring parishes. Having regard to this, may it not be suggested that, what is current locally in regard to Ferrintosh and Coinneach’s sayings, may only be a transcript of an event now matter of history in a parish on the northern side of the Cromarty Firth. We refer to the destruction of the Abbey Church at Fearn by lightning, October 10, 1742. We have never seen a detailed account of this sad accident in print, and have no doubt the reader will be glad to have a graphic description of it from the pen of Bishop Forbes, the famous author of the “Jacobite Memoirs,” who visited his diocese of Ross and Caithness in the summer of 1762. This account is taken from his unpublished MS. Journal, now the property of the College of Bishops of the Scottish Episcopal Church, and presently in the hands of the Rev. F. Smith, Arpafeelie, who has kindly permitted us to make the following extract:—

“The ruinous Church of Ferne was of old an Abbacy of White Friars (see Keith’s Catalogue, p. 247). The roof of flagstones, with part of a side wall, was beat down in an instant by thunder and lightning on Sunday, October 10th, 1742, and so crushed and bruised forty persons, that they were scarcely to be discovered, who or what they were, and therefore, were buried promiscuously, without any manner of distinction. The gentry, having luckily their seats in the niches, were saved from the sudden crash, as was the preacher by the sounding-boards falling upon the pulpit, and his bowing down under it. Great numbers were wounded (see Scot’s Magazine for 1742, p. 485). But there is a most material circumstance not mentioned, which has been carefully concealed from the publishers, and it is this: By a Providential event, this was the first Sunday that the Rev. and often-mentioned Mr. Stewart, had a congregation near Cadboll, in view of Ferne, whereby many lives were saved, as the kirk was far from being so throng as usual, and that he and his people, upon coming out from worship, and seeing the dismal falling-in just when it happened, hastened with all speed to the afflictive spot, and dragged many of the wounded out of the rubbish, whose cries would have pierced a heart of adamant. Had not this been the happy case, I speak within bounds when I say two, if not three, to one, would have perished. Some of the wounded died. This church has been a large and lofty building, as the walls are very high, and still standing.”

It has been suggested that the prediction was fulfilled by the falling to pieces of the Church at the Disruption; but we would be loth to stake the reputation of our prophet on this assumption.

Another, supposed by some to be fulfilled by the annual visits of the militia for their annual drill, is—“That when a wood on the Muir of Ord grows to a man’s height, regiments of soldiers shall be seen there drawn up in battle order.”

In connection with the battle, or battles, at Cille-Chriosd and the Muir of Ord, Mr. Macintyre says:—The Seer foretold that “Fear Ruadh an Uird (the Red Laird of Ord) would be carried home, wounded, on blankets”. Whether this saying has reference to an event looming in the distant future, or is a fragment of a tradition regarding sanguinary events well known in the history of Cille-Chriosd, and of which a full and graphic account, both in prose and verse, can be seen on pp. 82-86 and 136-139, Vol. I. of the Celtic Magazine, it is impossible to say.

PROPHECIES WHOLLY OR PARTLY FULFILLED.

Here are several additional predictions which have been wholly or partly fulfilled. “The day will come when the Mackenzies will lose all their possessions in Lochalsh, after which it will fall into the hands of an Englishman, who shall be distinguished by great liberality to his people, and lavish expenditure of money. He will have one son and two daughters; and, after his death, the property will revert to the Mathesons, its original possessors, who will build a Castle on Druim-a-Dubh, at Balmacarra.” The late Mr. Lillingstone was an Englishman. He was truly distinguished for kindness and liberality to his tenants, and he had a son and two daughters, although, we are informed, he had been married for seventeen years before he had any family. When he came into possession, old people thought they discerned the fulfilment of a part of Kenneth’s prediction in his person, until it was remarked that he had no family as foretold by the Seer. At last, a son and two daughters were successively born to Mr. Lillingstone. After his death, the son sold the whole of Lochalsh to Alexander Matheson, M.P. for the Counties of Ross and Cromarty, and, so far, the prediction has been realized. A castle has been built at Duncraig, a considerable distance from the spot predicted by the Seer; but if Kenneth is to be depended upon, a castle will yet be built by one of the Mathesons oh Druim-a-Dubh, at Balmacarra. Had this prophecy been got up after the event, the reputation of the Seer would certainly not have been staked on the erection of another castle in the remote future, when the Mathesons already possess such a magnificent mansion at Duncraig.

During a recent visit to the Island of Raasay we received a peculiar prediction regarding the Macleods from an old man there, over eighty years of age, who remembered seven proprietors of Raasay, and who sorely lamented the fulfilment of the prophecy, and the decline of the good old stock, entirely in consequence of their own folly and extravagance. Since then, we had the prediction repeated by a Kintail man in identical terms; and as it is hardly translatable, we shall give it in the original vernacular:—“Dar a thig Mac-Dhomhnuill Duibh bàn; MacShimidh ceann-dearg; Sisealach claon ruadh; Mac-Coinnich mor bodhar; agus Mac-Gille-challum cama-chasach, iar-ogha Ian bhig à Ruiga, ’se sin a Mac-Gille-challum is miosa ’thainig na thig; cha bhi mi ann ri linn, ’s cha’n fhearr leam air a bhith.” (When we shall have a fair-haired Lochiel; a red-haired Lovat; a squint-eyed, fair-haired Chisholm; a big deaf Mackenzie; and a bow-crooked-legged Mac-Gille-challum, who shall be the great-grand-son of John Beg, or little John, of Ruiga: that Mac-Gille-challum will be the worst that ever came or ever will come; I shall not be in existence in his day, and I have no desire that I should.) Ruiga is the name of a place in Skye. When the last Macleod of Raasay was born, an old sage in the district called upon his neighbour, and told him, with an expression of great sorrow, that Mac-Gille-challum of Raasay now had an heir, and his birth was a certain forerunner of the extinction of his house. Such an event as the birth of an heir had been hitherto, in this as in all other Highland families, universally considered an occasion for great rejoicing among the retainers. The other old man was amazed, and asked the sage what he meant by such unusual and disloyal remarks. “Oh!” answered he, “do you not know that this is the grand-grandson of John Beg of Ruiga whom Coinneach Odhar predicted would be the worst of his race.” And so he undoubtedly proved himself to be, for he lost for ever the ancient inheritance of his house, and acted generally in such a manner as to fully justify the Seer’s prediction; and what is still more remarkable, the Highland lairds, with the peculiar characteristics and malformations foretold by Kenneth, preceded or were the contemporaries of the last MacGille-challum of Raasay.

Here is a prediction of the downfall of another distinguished Highland family—Clan Ranald of the Isles. “The day will come when the old wife with the footless stocking (cailleach nam mogan) will drive the Lady of Clan Ranald from Nunton House, in Benbecula.” We are informed that this was fulfilled when the Macdonalds took the farm of Nunton, locally known as “Baile na Caillich”. Old Mrs. Macdonald was in the habit of wearing these primitive articles of dress, and was generally known in the district as “Cailleach nam Mogan”. Clan Ranald and his lady, like many more of our Highland chiefs, ultimately went to the wall, and the descendants of the “old wife with the footless stocking” occupied, and, for anything we know, still occupy the ancient residence of the long-distinguished race of Clan Ranald of the Isles.

In the beginning of the seventeenth century, and during the Seer’s lifetime, there lived in Kintail an old man—Duncan Macrae—who was curious to know by what means he should end his days. He applied to a local female Seer, who informed him that he “would die by the sword” (le bàs a chlaidheamh). This appeared so improbable in the case of such an old man, who had taken part in so many bloody frays and invariably escaped unhurt, that the matter was referred to the greater authority, Coinneach Odhar. He corroborated the woman, but still the matter was almost universally discredited in the district, and by none more so than by old Duncan himself. However, years after, conviction was forced upon them; for, according to the “Genealogy of the Macraes,” written by the Rev. John Macrae, minister of Dingwall, who died in 1704—“Duncan being an old man in the year 1654, when General Monk, afterwards Duke of Albemarle, came to Kintail, retired from his house in Glenshiel to the hills, where, being found by some of the soldiers who had straggled from the body of the army in hopes of plunder, and who, speaking to him roughly, in a language he did not understand, he, like Old Orimanus, drew his sword, &c., and was immediately killed by them. This was all the blood that General Monk or his soldiers, amounting to 1500 men, had drawn, and all the opposition he met with, although the Earl of Middleton and Sir George Monro were within a few miles of them, and advertised of their coming, Seaforth having been sent by Middleton to the Isle of Skye and parts adjoining, to treat with the Macdonalds and the Macleods, &c.”

Regarding the evictions which would take place in the Parish of Petty, he said, “The day will come, and it is not far off, when farm-steadings will be so few and far between, that the crow of a cock shall not be heard from the one steading to the other”. This prediction has certainly been fulfilled, for, in the days of the Seer there were no fewer than sixteen tenants on the farm of Morayston alone.

On the south of the bay, at Petty, is an immense stone, of at least eight tons weight, which formerly marked the boundary between the estates of Culloden and Moray. On the 20th of February, 1799, it was mysteriously removed from its former position, and carried about 260 yards into the sea. It is supposed by some that this was brought about by an earthquake; others think that the stone was carried off by the action of ice, combined with the influence of a tremendous hurricane, which blew from the shore, during that fearful and stormy night. It was currently reported, and pretty generally believed at the time, that his Satanic Majesty had a finger in this work. Be that as it may, there is no doubt whatever that the Brahan Seer predicted “that the day will come when the Stone of Petty, large though it is, and high and dry upon the land as it appears to people this day, will be suddenly found as far advanced into the sea as it now lies away from it inland, and no one will see it removed, or be able to account for its sudden and marvellous transportation”.

The Seer was at one time in the Culloden district on some important business. While passing over what is now so well known as the Battlefield of Culloden, he exclaimed, “Oh! Drummossie, thy bleak moor shall, ere many generations have passed away, be stained with the best blood of the Highlands. Glad am I that I will not see that day, for it will be a fearful period; heads will be lopped off by the score, and no mercy will be shown or quarter given on either side.” It is perhaps unnecessary to point out how literally this prophecy has been fulfilled on the occasion of the last battle fought on British soil. We have received several other versions of it from different parts of the country, almost all in identical terms.

“The time will come when whisky or dram shops will be so plentiful that one may be met with almost at the head of every plough furrow.” (Thig an latha ’s am bi tighean-oil cho lionmhor ’s nach mor nach fhaicear tigh-osda aig ceann gach claise.) “Policemen will become so numerous in every town that they may be met with at the corner of every street.” “Travelling merchants” [pedlars and hawkers] “will be so plentiful that a person can scarcely walk a mile on the public highway without meeting one of them.”

The following is from “A Summer in Skye,” by the late Alex. Smith, author of “A Life Drama”. Describing Dunvegan Castle and its surroundings, he says:—“Dun Kenneth’s prophecy has come to pass—‘In the days of Norman, son of the third Norman, there will be a noise in the doors of the people, and wailing in the house of the widow; and Macleod will not have so many gentlemen of his name as will row a five-oared boat round the Maidens’. If the last trumpet had been sounded at the end of the French war, no one but a Macleod would have risen out of the churchyard of Dunvegan. If you want to see a chief (of the Macleods) now-a-days you must go to London for him.” There can be no question as to these having been fulfilled to the letter.

“The day will come when a fox will rear a litter of cubs on the hearthstone of Castle Downie.” “The day will come when a fox, white as snow, will be killed on the west coast of Sutherlandshire.” “The day will come when a wild deer will be caught alive at Chanonry Point, in the Black Isle.” All these things have come to pass.

With respect to the clearances in Lewis, he said—“Many a long waste feannag (rig, once arable) will yet be seen between Uig of the Mountains and Ness of the Plains.” That this prediction has been fulfilled to the letter, no one acquainted with the country will deny.

The following would appear to have been made solely on account of the unlikelihood of the occurrence:—“A Lochalsh woman shall weep over the grave of a Frenchman in the burying-place of Lochalsh.” People imagined they could discern in this an allusion to some battle on the West Coast, in which French troops would be engaged; but there was an occurrence which gave it a very different interpretation. A native of Lochalsh married a French footman, who died, shortly after this event, and was interred in the burying-ground of Lochalsh, thus leaving his widow to mourn over his grave. This may appear a commonplace matter enough, but it must be remembered that a Frenchman in Lochalsh, and especially a Frenchman whom a Highland woman would mourn over, in Coinneach’s day, was a very different phenomenon to what it is in our days of railways, tourists, and steamboats.

The Seer also predicted the formation of a railway through the Muir of Ord, handed down in the following stanza:—

Nuair a bhios da eaglais an Sgire na Toiseachd, A’s lamh da ordaig an I-Stian’, Da dhrochaid aig Sguideal nan geocaire, As fear da imleag an Dunean, Thig Miltearan a Carn a-chlarsair, Air Carbad gun each gun srian, A dh-fhagas am Blar-dubh na fhasach, ’Dortadh fuil le iomadh sgian; A’s olaidh am fitheach a thri saitheachd De dh-fhuil nan Gaidheal, bho clach nam Fionn.