When it comes to Gaelic traditions supernatural
elements sometimes loom large even in so-called historical legends. One such
anecdote which references a divinatory method of reading the shoulder-blade or
scapula of a sheep was recorded and transcribed shortly afterwards by Calum
Maclean on 21st of January 1951 from the recitation of John MacDonald of Highbridge,
Brae Lochaber.
Mac ’ic Raghnaill agus am Fear
Taidhbhse
Mun
d’fhalbh Mac ’ic Raghnaill na Ceapaich do Chùil Lodair, chuir e fios air
fear-taidhbhse. Agus bha iad ag ràitinn an taidhbhse a b’ fheàrr a ghabhadh
leughadh gur h-e slinneag mult dubh agus nach fhaodadh sgian a dhol na coir: i
bhith air a bruich cho math agus gu slaodadh tu an t-slinneag as. Agus leughabh
iad an t-slinneag. Agus bha an duine seo aige agus leugh e an t-slinneag. Agus
thuirt e:
“Dè
tha a’ dol a dh’èirigh dhomh an Cùil Lodair?”
Cha
do bhruidhinn an duine idir:
“O!
innis dhomh,” thuirt e, “ged a bhithinn air mo chall ann.”
“Tha
thu a’ dol a bhith air do chall agus cha till thu às Cùil Lodair,” thuirt e.
“Chan
eil comas air,” thuirt e. “Dè an dearbhadh a bheir thu dhomh air sin,” thuirt
e. “Chan eil mi a’ creidsinn a h-uile dad dheth.”
“Falbha’
tu sa mhadainn,” thuirt e, “agus rud a bhios a dhìth ort, cha tèid a chur air
a’ bhòrd. Agus chan fhaod thu bruidhinn na iarraidh air a’ mhnaoi. Ma nì thu
sin, cha bhith na cumhnantan air an cumail. Agus dar a thèid i a-mach às an
taigh aig an dorast, feuch an toir thu oirre tionndainn air ais agus an rud a
bha a dhìth a chur air a’ bhòrd.
’S
ann mar seo a bha.
Agus
dar a bha i a’ falbh a-mach, thilg e bròg na deaghaidh. Thionndainn i mun
cuairt agus cha tuirt i “’s e” na “chan e” ris. Agus thuirt e an uair seo: “Cha
ghluais bròg na bruidheann droch bhean-taighe.”
Agus
dh’fhuirich e an Cùil Lodair.
And the translation
goes something like the following:
MacDonald
of Keppoch and the Soothsayer
Before
MacDonald of Keppoch set off for the battle of Culloden, he asked the advice of
a soothsayer. And they say that this soothsayer was the best for interpreting
the scapula of a black ram [mult] and that no knife should go near it as had to
be boiled so that the scapula could be pulled out with ease. And he read the
scapula. He had this man present and he read the scapula and asked:
“What’s
going to happen to me at the battle of Culloden?”
The
man didn’t speak at all:
“Oh,
tell me,” he said, “even though I might be killed.”
“You’re
going to be killed and you’ll not return from the battle of Culloden.”
“That
can’t be helped but what proof can you give me of that as I don’t believe one
word of it.”
“You’ll
leave on the morrow,” he said, “and they very thing you’ll need will not be put
in front of you on the table. And you may not speak or make a request of your
wife. If you do that, then the agreement will not be kept. And when she goes
out of the house and just as she has reached the door, you’ll try to make her
turn back and to get the very thing you need to be put on the table.”
This
is how things turned out.
As
she was going out, he threw a shoe after her. She turned round she did not say
either “yes” or “no” to him. And he then said: “Neither shoe nor speech will
move a bad housewife.”
And
he was killed at the battle of Culloden.
The technical term for reading a sheep’s
shoulder-blade as a divinatory method is scapulimancy and seems to have been universal
in application; and, if we wish to believe the Rev. John Gregorson Campbell, arrived
in the Highlands and Islands around 1400. Many early travellers to and writers
about the Highlands and Islands, including Martin Martin, Thomas Pennant, and
Edward Lhuyd, noted instances or rumours of scapulimancy being used. In the
main, however, they tended to focus upon the phenomenon of second-sight.
Nevertheless, gazing at a shoulder-blade of a sheep (or a pig) was an ancient
and widespread technique to foretell future events. Edward Lhuyd explained
around 1700: “They [the Highlanders] have a care not to toutch [sic] it with the Teeth or a Knife. They
by it foretell deaths, commotions, and tumultuary conventions within the
bounds.” According to the Rev. John Gregorson Campbell, minister of Tiree
1861–1891, this mode of divination was practised as a profession or trade.
Important events in the life of the owner of the slaughtered animal could be
foretold by interpreting the marks on the shoulder-blade, speal or blade-bone
of a sheep or black pig. The flesh had to be boiled thoroughly so that it could
be stripped off without the use of knives, scrapers or teeth since any scratch
would render the bone useless. The bone was then divided into upper and lower
parts, corresponding to the natural features of the district in which the
divination was made. Much depended on the skills of the diviner, but certain
marks indicated a crowd of people meeting for a funeral, fight or sale. The
largest hole or indention was the grave of the beast’s owner, and from its
position his living or dying that year was prognosticated. If it was to the
side of the bone, it meant death; if it was in the centre, it meant worldly
prosperity. Campbell also related two instances from popular tradition in Barra
in which the celebrated shoulder-blade reader Mac a’ Chreachaire, a native of
that island, prognosticated correctly the fate of the island and Kisimul
Castle, the seat of the MacNeils who were then chiefs of the island. The
Massacre of Glencoe (1692) is also reputed to have been prognosticated by
diviners.
To return to the theme of
the Battle of Culloden, the following tradition was picked up by Pennant who
gave two examples of the tale:
There
is another sort of divination, called Sleinanachd,
or reading the speal-bone, or the
blade-bone of a shoulder of mutton well scraped. When Lord Loudon was obliged to retreat before the Rebels to the isle of Skie, a common soldier, on the very
moment of the Battle of Culloden was
decided, proclaimed the victory at that distance, pretending to have discovered
the event by looking through the bone.
And also:
I
heard on one instance of Second Sight, or rather of foresight, which was well
attested, and made much noise about the prediction fulfilled. A little after
the Battle of Preston Pans, the president, Duncan Forbes, being at his house of
Culloden with a nobleman, from whom I had the relation, fell into discourse on
the probable consequences of the action: after a long conversation, and after
revolving all that might happen, Mr Forbes suddenly turned to a window said
‘All these things may fall out; but depend on it, all these disturbances will
be terminated at this spot.’
References:
Burnett, Charles S.
F. ‘Arabic Divinatory Texts and Celtic Folklore: A Comment on the Theory and
Practice of Scapulimancy in Western Europe’, Cambridge Medieval Celtic
Studies, vol. 6 (1983), pp. 31–42
Campbell, John Lorne
(ed.), A Collection of Highland Rites and
Customs (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer for the Folklore Society, 1975)
Campbell, Rev. John
Gregorson, The Gaelic Otherworld, ed.
by Ronald Black (Edinburgh: Birlinn, 2005
Pennant, Thomas, A Tour in Scotland; MDCCLXIX, 3rd. edn.
(Perth: 1979 [1774])
Pennant, Thomas, A Tour in Scotland and Voyage to the
Hebrides 1772, ed by. Andrew Simmons (Edinburgh: Birlinn, 1998)
SSS NB 2, pp. 162–63
Image:
Sheep scapula
Sheep scapula
