Cometh the Hour But Not the Man

In conversation with his namesake the Rev. Malcolm Maclean (1896–1961) along with Alasdair Frazer, then in Conon Bridge, Easter Ross, Calum Maclean, on 11 June 1952, got on record a rather interesting migratory legend known as ‘Cometh the Hour But Not the Man.’ The Rev. Malcolm (or Calum) Maclean originally came from Scarp, Harris and was minister at Conon Bridge for many years.

“Thàinig an uair ’s cha tàinig an duine”

Nuair a bha sinn a’ bruidhinn air an t-seanchas ud air mulamhàgain a bha a’ leanmhainn Mac mhic Ailein, tha e a’ toirt na mo chuimhne seanchas a th’ ann an seo air Logaidh Bhrìghde. ’S e Logaidh Brìghde a th’ air…a bh’ air an t-seann eaglais a bha seo agus tha an cladh ann an siud fhathast an Conan. Agus bha seanchas ann air fear, ma b’ fhìor, a thug e fhèin don Abharsair. Agus chaidh leis gu math airson gràinn’ bhliadhnaichean, ach mu dheireadh latha foghair, ma b’ fhìor, is iad ris a’ bhuain chualas glaodh as an abhainn. Agus thàinig an cuthach air an fhear airson gun d’ reagh e gu bhàthadh fhèin as an abhainn, agus dh’fhalbh na coimhearsnaich agus cheangail iad e is thug iad a-staigh dhan eaglais e.

Agus bha dùil aca gun robh e tèaraint’ ann an sin. Ghlas iad an doras agus dh’fhàg iad a-staigh e, agus chaidh iad air ais a bhuain an arbhair. Ach nuair a thàinig iad air ais a-rithist, a’ chùis chianalais; ’s ann a bha am fear bochd air e fhèin a bhàthadh as an amar bhaistidh. ’S e sin an naidheachd a bh’ aca air sin ann an Conan an seo.

Tha fhios agaibh, nuair a ghlas iad an duine a-staigh agus e gun chothrom aige a dhol ga bhàthadh fhèin agus chaidh iad air ais chon an arbhair, chuala iad an glaodh as an abhainn ag ràdh:

“Thàinig an uair is cha tàinig an duine.”

Calum MacGilleathain – “Tha an naidheachd sin iomraiteach gu h-àraidh anns na dùthchannan Lochlannach, naidheachd mar sin.”

An t-Urramach Calum – “A bheil i sin aca? Bha na Lochlannaich a ruigheachd suas gu Abhainn na Manachainn. Tha na h-ainmeanan Lochlannach a’ ruith air na crìochan-sa gu ruig thu a’ Mhanachainn, ach chan eil iad a’ dol nas fhaide deas na a’ Mhanachainn. Agus bha na Lochlannaich an seo aon uair ceart gu leòr. Agus ’s e Drochaid Sguideal a chanadh iad ris a’ bhaile a tha seo, agus ’s cinnteach gur h-e ainm Lochlannach a th’ ann an Sguideal agus ann an Scatwell shuas nas fhaide shuas as an abhainn.

Alasdair Friseal – “Tha e coltach ris gur h-e na bàtaichean a bh’ aca air an abhainn; bàta gun dhruim ’s e scut na scat a theireadh iad ris as a’ chainnt Lochlannach”

An t-Urramach Calum MacGhilleEathain – “Agus Loch an Sgùda ann an Leòdhas – sgùda. Tha sgùda aca. ’S e an aon fhacal a bhios ann, sgùda, sguideal. ’S e Drochaid Sguideal a bh’ aca air an àite seo.”

Calum MacGilleathain – “Sgudabor.”

An t-Urram. Calum – “Tha, Sgudabor. Ach bha na Lochlannaich an seo ceart gu leòr agus chan eil fhios nach iad a dh’fhàg a’ chuid sin dhen t-seanchas an seo.”

Calum MacGilleathain – “Thachair i rium ann am Beinne na Faoghla cuideachd. Tha i cumanta gu leòr thall san t-Suain agus an Lochlann.”

An t-Urramach Calum – “Nach eil e neònach mar a tha na naidheachdan coitcheann agus mar a thèid aca air am baisteadh air àite agus air bliadhna agus air duine agus air muinntir. Nach neònach mar a tha iad sa h0uile h-àite.”

Calum MacGilleathain – “Bidh i air a h-ainmeachadh air àite eile agus duine eile.”

And the tranlsation may be rendered as follows:

“Cometh the Hour But Not the Man”

When we were talking about thon story about the toad that used to follow MacDonald of Clanranald, that reminded me of at story here at Loggie Bridge. Loggie Bridge is and was the name of the old church here and the cemetery is over there at Conon Bridge. And there is a story about a man, if true, who sold his soul to the Evil One. And he got on well for many years but on this particualry day in autumn, if true, they were busy harvesting when a cry was heard from the river. And the man became so insane that he tried to drown himself in the river, and so his neighbours went to get him and tied him up and held him in the church,

They thought that he’d be safe there. The locked the door and left him inside so that they could get back to harvesting. But when they returned, it’s such a horribe thing to relate, they found the poor man had drowned himself in the baptismal font. That’s the story that they have in Conon here.

You know, when the locked the man inside so that he couldn’t drown himself and they went back to harvesting, they heard a voice in the river saying:

“Cometh the hour but not the man.”

Calum Maclean – That story is especially well known in the Scandinavian countries, stories like that.

The Rev. Malcolm – “They have that? The Vikings reached as far up as Beauly River. The Viking names run up right to the borders as far as you can go to Beauly, but they don’t go any further south than Beauly. And the Vikings were once around here right enough. And they call this place [Conon Bridge] Drochaid Sguideal and for sure it’s a Viking name in Sguideal as well as Scatwell the river up there.”

Alasdair Frazer – “It’s quite like the boats they have on the river, a boat without a keel and they’d call it a scut or a cat from the Norse language.”

The Rev. Malcolm Maclean – “And Loch an Sgùda in Lewis – sgùda. They have the word sgùda. Sgùda and sguideal must be the same word. They call this place [Conon Bridge] Drocaid Sguideal.

Calum Maclean – “Sgudabor.”

The Rev. Malcolm – “Yes, Sgudabor. But the Vikings were here right enough and who knows if they didn’t leave behind some of their stories here.”

Calum Maclean – “I came across the same in Benbeucla too. And it’s common enough over in Sweden and Scadinavia.”

The Rev. Malcom – Isn’t it strange how these universal stories travel and how they take on the aspects of the time, the person and the people. Isn’t it strange that they are everywhere.”

Calum Maclean – They are named in different places and other people.”

The Norwegian folklorist Reidar Th. Christiansen in his Migratory Legends classifies the above story as ML 4050 and, as noted by Maclean, such a tale was common in the Scandinavian countries where various versions have been collected. The main difference being that the Devil rather than a kelpie or water-horse is named as the supernatural agent in the above version of the legend,

A similar version of the above supernatural legend is given in Katherine Brigg’s The Vanishing People:

There is one kelpie story, which is a version of ML 4050, ‘The Hour is come but not the Man.’ The setting is on the banks of the River Conon in Ross-shire, and it seems here, though it is not explicitly said that the kelpie took a female form, like a water nymph. Many years ago, when the little church by the ford was still standing, a party of reapers were cutting the corn on a sunny autumn day just near the false ford where the water ripples over seeming shallows before sweeping down into the deep lynn just below All looked fair and still when they heard a voice crying out, ‘The hour is come, but not the man!’ and looking at the river they saw the figure of the kelpie standing in the false ford. Then she cried once again, and plunged like a drake diving into the great deep pool below. As she vanished they heard the sound of drumming hoofs and a rider came full-pelt down towards the false ford. Half a dozen of the men jumped out of the corn and ran to catch hold of him. They told him what the kelpie said, they explained the dangers of the ford, but he seemed neither to hear nor heed, and spurred on like a madman. They were determined to save him against his will, so they pulled him off his horse, and carried him, struggling and shouting to the little church where they locked him up, telling him that they would let him out when the hour of dangers was past. He shouted and kicked at the door at first but he soon fell silent and they went on with their work and waited for the slow hour to pass. It was over at length, and they unlocked the door. ‘You can go on now sir,’ the called. ‘The Ill Hour is past.’ There was no answer, and they called again and again, and went into the church. There was an old stone trough near the door filled with water and the traveller was lying with his head in it. He had fallen in a fit and drowned there while they waited for the hour to go by. So the river had its victim in spite of them.

A more literary Scots version (which the above summary of the supernatural legend seems to have derived) of the tale entitled ‘The Doomed Rider’ may also be given as reproduced from Folk-Lore and Legends: Scotland as follows:

The Conan is as bonny a river as we hae in a’ the north country. There’s mony a sweet sunny spot on its banks, an’ mony a time an’ aft hae I waded through its shallows, whan a boy, to set my little scautling-line for the trouts an’ the eels, or to gather the big pearl-mussels that lie sae thick in the fords. But its bonny wooded banks are places for enjoying the day in ― no for passing the nicht. I kenna how it is; it’s nane o’ your wild streams that wander desolate through a desert country, like the Aven, or that come rushing down in foam and thunder, ower broken rocks, like the Foyers, or that wallow in darkness, deep, deep in the bowels o’ the earth, like the fearfu’ Auldgraunt; an’ yet no ane o’ these rivers has mair or frightfuller stories connected wi’ it than the Conan. Ane can hardly saunter ower half-a-mile in its course, frae where it leaves Coutin till where it enters the sea, without passing ower the scene o’ some frightful auld legend o’ the kelpie or the waterwraith.

And ane o’ the most frightful looking o’ these places is to be found among the woods of Conan House. Ye enter a swampy meadow that waves wi’ flags an’ rushes like a corn-field in harvest, an’ see a hillock covered wi’ willows rising like an island in the midst. There are thick mirk-woods on ilka side; the river, dark an’ awesome, an’ whirling round an’ round in mossy eddies, sweeps away behind it; an’ there is an auld burying-ground, wi’ the broken ruins o’ an auld Papist kirk, on the tap. Ane can see amang the rougher stanes the rose-wrought mullions of an arched window, an’ the trough that ance held the holy water. About twa hunder years ago ― a wee mair maybe, or a wee less, for ane canna be very sure o’ the date o’ thae old stories ― the building was entire; an’ a spot near it, whar the wood now grows thickest, was laid out in a corn-field. The marks o’ the furrows may still be seen amang the trees.

A party o’ Highlanders were busily engaged, ae day in harvest, in cutting down the corn o’ that field; an’ just aboot noon, when the sun shone brightest an’ they were busiest in the work, they heard a voice frae the river exclaim, “The hour but not the man has come.”

Sure enough, on looking round, there was the kelpie stan’in’ in what they ca’ a fause ford, just foment the auld kirk. There is a deep black pool baith aboon an’ below, but I’ the ford there’s a bonny ripple, that shows, as ane might think, but little depth o’ water; an’ just i’ the middle o’ that, in a place where a horse might swim, stood the kelpie. An’ it again repeated its words, “The hour but not the man has come,” an’ then flashing through the water like a drake, it disappeared in the lower pool.

When the folk stood wondering what the creature might mean, they saw a man on horseback come spurring down the hill in hot haste, making straight for the fause ford. They could then understand her words at ance; an’ four o’ the stoutest o’ them sprang oot frae amang the corn to warn him o’ his danger, an’ keep him back. An’ sae they tauld him what they had seen an’ heard, an’ urged him either to turn back an’ tak’ anither road, or stay for an hour or sae where he was. But he just wadna hear them, for he was baith unbelieving an’ in haste, an wauld hae taen the ford for a’ they could say, hadna the Highlanders, determined on saving him whether he would or no, gathered round him an’ pulled him frae his horse, an’ then, to mak’ sure o’ him, locked him up in the auld kirk.

Weel, when the hour had gone by ― the fatal hour o’ the kelpie ― they flung open the door, an’ cried to him that he might noo gang on his journey. Ah! but there was nae answer, though; an’ sae they cried a second time, an’ there was nae answer still; an’ then they went in, an’ found him lying stiff an’ cauld on the floor, wi’ his face buried in the water o’ the very stone trough that we may still see amang the ruins. His hour had come, an’ he had fallen in a fit, as ’twould seem, head-foremost amang the water o’ the trough, where he had been smothered, ― an’ sae ye see, the prophecy o’ the kelpie availed naething.

It could well be that the legend subsequently contextualised into a Highland environment may have had its origins from a Norse variant or variants. This should not be at all surprising given the essence of migratory legends tends to take on the shape and form of the culture to which they are exposed and thus making it a challenging process, indeed perhaps an impossible one, to disentangle their true origins.

References:

Anon., ‘An t-Urr. Calum MacGilleathain’, An Gaidheal, leabh. LVI, àir. 2 (An Gearran, 1961), p. 18

Briggs, Katherine, The Vanishing People: A Study of Traditional Fairy Beliefs (London: Batsford, 1978), pp. 68–70

Christiansen, Reidar Th. The Migratory Legends: A Proposed List of Types with a Systematic Catalogue of the Norwegian Variants (Helsinki: Academia Scientiarum, 1992)

Douglas, (Sir) George Brisbane, Scottish Fairy and Folk Tales (London: Walter Scott Publishing Co., 1890), pp. 147–49

Gibbings, W. W., Folk-Lore and Legends: Scotland (London: W. W. Gibbings, 1889), pp. 39–42

MacDonald, Donald A., ‘Migratory Legends of the Supernatural in Scotland: A General Survey’, Béaloideas, vols. 62/63 (1994/95), pp. 29–78

NB SSS 21, pp. 1694–97

Image:

Conon Bridge, Easter Ross.