Traditions of John MacCodrum – IV

Anecdotes about John MacCodrum, styled Iain mac Fhearchair ’ic Codruim, especially those that contain pithy witticisms, spread far and wide throughout the Highlands and Islands. Here, for example, is quite a well known one taken down on the 17th of August 1946  by Calum Maclean from the recitation of Angus MacDonald, then aged eighty-three, who has been described by John Lorne Campbell (known as Fear Chanaigh)  as the last storyteller or seanchaidh of Canna:

 

Bha MacCodrum (Iain MacCodrum) a’ dol le sgothaich às Uibhist a dh’Ghlas^acho, agus thadhaill iad aig Tobar Mhuire. Ann an sin thàinig fear a-nuas agus dh’fhaighneachd e cò an comaundair a bh’ air a’ luing.  

“Tha a’ stiùir,” orsa MacCodrum. 

“A! chan e sin a tha mi a’ ciallachdh idir, ach cò a’ sgiobair a th’ oirre?”  

“Tha an crann,” ors’ esan. 

“Cò às a thug sibh an t-iomradh?”  

“Às ar gàirdeannan,” orsa MacCodrum. 

Thubhair^st a’ fear eile ann an sin: 

“An ann fo thuath a thàinig sibh?” 

“Pàir^st fo thuath is pàir^st fo thighearnan,” thubhair^st MacCodrum.

 

And the translation goes something like the following:

 

John MacCodrum was going by boat from Uist to Glasgow and they stopped over in Tobermory. There a man came down agus asked who was the commander of the boat. 

“The rudder,” replied MacCodrum. 

“Ah! that wasn’t what I meant at all but rather who is her skipper?” 

“The mast,” he said. 

“From where did you row?” 

“From our shoulders,” replied MacCodrum. 

The other man then asked: 

“Was is from the north you came?” 

“Some of us are commoners and some of us are nobles,” answered MacCodrum.

 

References:

NFC MS 1028: 184–85

William Matheson (ed.), The Songs of John MacCodrum: Bard to Sir James MacDonald of Sleat (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1938)

 

Image:

Angus MacDonald (1865–1949), styled Aonghas Eachainn, by courtesy of Canna House Archives (National Trust for Scotland)

A Hebridean Tour: Séamus Ennis and Calum Maclean

On his very first collecting trip to the Western Isles (specifically Barra) in September 1946, Maclean was later joined by one of the Irish Folklore Commission’s best (and youngest) collectors: Séamus Ennis (Mac Aonghusa), a very gifted piper and traditional singer. Ennis was four years younger than Maclean; born in Jameston in Finglas, North County Dublin in 1919 and died in 1982. For a period of five years between 1942 and 1947, Ennis worked at the Irish Folklore Commission. A better job offer appeared on the horizon when RTÉ offered him a post and so he then left the Commission to pursue a broadcasting career.

Writing in 1953, Maclean recollecting his first crossing to Barra states that despite not knowing any of the islanders he approached the trip with an air of excitement and perhaps with even some amount of trepidation:

 

One September evening seven years ago I crossed the Minch for the first time on my way out to Barra. It was a beautifully calm evening – the only calm evening on which I have ever gone that way, and I have crossed the Minch often enough since then. I had heard much about Barra, but had no idea what type of material to expect there. Everywhere I had heard the same story. Tales and legends, old songs and such had now gone. The old folk had gone. I knew not one living soul in Barra: nor in any of the Outer Hebrides for that matter. Nevertheless I approached Barra with eager anticipation…

 

In the very same year he first visited Barra, Maclean later recalled his initial first impressions of what he was going to collect though as circumstances turned out it seemed as if he had many of those from whom he recorded material had only recently passed on:

 

I stayed in Castlebay during my first week, and gathered as much information as possible regarding possible tradition bearers. Here again I discovered that I had come too late. My friend, Miss Annie Johnston, spoke of the late Ealasaid Eachainn [Elizabeth MacKinnon] with her fund of song and story, of which only a very small part has been recorded. That was another mine of information irremediably lost. A noted storyteller, Murchadh an Eilein, died a year or two before; and Ruairi Iain Bhàin, an unsurpassed singer of folk-songs had gone to his grave also.

 

Recollecting their trip to Barra, Maclean of an evocative evening when they went to Eoligarry in the north part of the island:

 

In springtime my colleague Seumas Ennis, the folkmusic collector of our Commission, and I toured the islands, making gramophone recordings of speech and singing. One week we gave to Barra. It was a glorious week of sunny days and moonlit nights. We recorded for posterity the voices of Miss Annie Johnston, Seumas MacKinnon, the “Coddy,” Donald MacPhee of Brevig, and Neil Gillies of Castlebay. These speech recordings were made for the purposes of phonetic and dialect study, and also to illustrate the tradition bearer’s style of narration. One beautiful night we motored to Eoligarry schoolhouse. We were accompanied by Flora MacNeil of Castlebay, one of the many charming and attractive young ladies I have seen in the Isles. She sings well, and was to do recordings for us that night. That night also we recorded the singing of Mrs Buchanan, a daughter of the noted folksinger, the late Ruairidh Iain Bhàin. I can still see her standing in dim lamplight before the microphone and hear her singing the fairy song, “Chì mi ’n tomain coarainn, cuilinn.” That melody haunts me still.

 

Maclean noted down a similar visit in his diary that took place on Thursday the 6th of March 1947. At this time he kept wrote his diary in Irish Gaelic (later changing it to Scottish Gaelic and then eventually English) but which is given here in translation:

 

…Flora MacNeil was in our company. She was going to meet folk in Eoligarry. We left the recording gear at the house of the schoolmaster, Neil Angus MacDonald. We went to Morag Maclean’s house and took her back to the schoolhouse. Seámus took down Katie Buchanan and Flora MacNeil. We set up the recording gear and Katie Buchanan sang three or four songs. Flora MacNeil also sang a song. Then Neil Angus played the pipes. Neil’s father was an excellent piper and he excelled in ceòl mòr and especially in cainntaireachd. That is the way in which they sang the tune when it was being learnt. The old pipers never wrote music at all and they used canntaireachd to transmit the music. On this night Neil Angus recorded canntaireached, filling two records. He played two pieces of ceòl mòr, Cumha Mhàiri nighean Alasdair Ruaidh (Mary MacLeod’s Lament) and Fàilte MhicGilleChaluim Ratharsair (MacLeod of Rasaay’s Welome). He also sang a bit of Crònan na Caillich sa Bheinn Bhric (The Lullaby of the Old Women of Ben Breck) and played this on the pipes. He also gave a sample of Dance Music canntaireachd also. Seámus was very pleased how the night went. It was late enough before we reached home. It was an excellent night all around. The moon shone as brightly as it did during the day.

 

Perhaps the key element to Ennis’s fascination with collecting was music and he must have been rather astounded at what was to be found not only in Barra but also in South Uist, an island which had been a stronghold for piping over very many generations:

 

Seumas Ennis has come across from Dublin and had never before heard canntaireachd, the humming of pibroch and pipe music. That night, however, Neil Angus MacDonald, schoolmaster of Eoligarry, a piper also and the son of a piper, kindly made two complete records of cainntaireachd. I had lived long years in Ireland, but I had never seen an Irishman entranced until that night.

 

Unlike Maclean it would appear that Ennis never kept a diary of his Scottish trip. There are, however, a few extant letters that he wrote back to James Hamilton Delargy, Director of the Irish Folklore Commission, and to Sean O’ Sullivan, the Archivist there.

Maclean was fully conscious that collecting very much a race against time but although he may have felt daunted at times by the sheer amount of fieldwork that lay before him his enthusiasm seldom wavered. Writing in 1947, he offered the following observation with regard to collecting and also the opportunities which fieldwork afforded:

 

He always knows that he rescues something from oblivion. The discovery and recording of a beautiful song, or story, which might otherwise have perished is always a joy. But most valuable of all is the wealth of friendships that come his way. Between the collector and narrator a common interest serves to forge a link of comradeship. The collector finds it necessary to spend hours and hours in the company of some old person and, if he is sufficiently tactful and deferential, friendship is assured.

 

The collectors during their stint in the Hebrides took in Eigg, Barra, Raasay, Canna and South Uist. Ennis managed to pick up enough Scots Gaelic to enable him to transcribe much of the songs collected by John Lorne Campbell. Many of these beautifully transcribed pieces have been preserved and are in the keeping of the National Folklore Collection at University College Dublin. Some of them were reproduced in Campbell’s Songs Remembered in Exile (1990), his last and one of his most important books. Both Maclean and Campbell owed a great debt to Ennis and one which was repaid with the hospitality shown to the Irishman who never seemed to get fed up when asked either to play the pipes or to sing. Ennis probably relished the attention and also to give people some entertainment.

 

References:

NFC 1111: 267–68

NLS MS.29780

Calum Maclean, ‘In Search of Folklore in the Western Isles’, Scotland’s S.M.T. Magazine, vol. 40, no. 6 (1947), pp. 40–44

Ríonach uí Ógáin (ed.), Going to the Well for Water: the Séamus Ennis Field Diary 1942–1946 (Cork: Cork University Press, 2009) [first published as Mise an Fear Ceoil: Séamus Ennis–Dialann Taistil 1942–1946 (Gaillimh: Cló Iar-Chonnachta, 2007)]

 

Image:

Séamus Ennis in the 1950s

Ebb and Flow: The Moon in Gaelic Tradition

Whilst recording in Canna, Calum Maclean took down some interesting material on the 13th of December 1946 concerning the moon in Gaelic tradition from Angus MacDonald, styled Aonghas Eachainn, who resided in nearby Sanday:

 

Reothart nan Eun a chanas iad ris a’ reothart a bhios ann mu Fhéill Brìde. ’N uair a bhios e seachad faodaidh an t-eun nead a dhèanamh, ’n uair a dh’ fhal^abhas e seo. Cha chuir a’ làn dragh air tuilleadh. Tha a’ ghealach a’ freagairst dha na làin gu léir, a’ dol a-mach is a tighinn a-staigh an t-soluist. ’N uair a bhios a’ ghealach ann an toiseach, a’ ghealach ùr a chanas iad rithe. Bhiodh iad a’ deànamh a-mach nach bu chòir dhut a bhith gun rud ’nad lamhan ’n uair a thigeadh i, ’n uair a chìtheadh tu i an toiseach. Bhiodh iad a’ creidsinn gun tigeadh atharrachadh sìde le gealach ùr. Bhiodh iad ag ràdha gum bitheadh an ath-sholust na’s fheàrr. An sin ’n uair a bhitheadh a’ ghealach a’ miadachadh, chanadh iad gun robh ceathramh dhe ’n ghealaich ann, agus an uair sin bhitheadh a’ ghealach làn. Bha i a’ tilleadh an uair sin. Chuala mi iad a’ toirst cunntais air Gealach Bhuidhe an Abaichidh. Bha iad ag ràdha gu fanadh a’ ghealach sin na’s fhaide slàn ’s a’ speur na gealach eile. Gealach Bhuidhe nam Broc a chanadh iad rithe cuideachd. Bhiodh iad a’ buain diasan bruidhe dhe ’n choirce airson “struan.” Bhiodh iad a’ gabhail beachd a robh a’ rionnag teann air a’ ghealaich na fada bhuaithe. Nam bitheadh a’ rionnag teann air a’ ghealach, cha chòrdadh e riutha idir. ’S e comharradh droch-shìde a bha siod. ’S e droch-chomharradh a bha ann buaile a bhith ma ’n a’ ghealaich. Droch-chomharradh a bha ann a’ ghealach fhaicinn is i a’ laighe air a druim. Cha chòrdadh a’ ghealach ruitha nam bitheadh i air a druim. Bhitheadh na cinn aice cho biorach. Bhiodh iad a’ gabhail beachd air a’ speur. Bha rionnagan ann ris an canadh iad an Grioglachan. Tha tòrr de rionnagan eile ann ris an canadh iad an Crann Treabhaidh. Tha rionnagan eile ann agus ’s e an t-Slat Thomhais a bheirte riutha. Trì rionnagan a th’ ann agus sin a’ “form” a’s a bheil iad. ’N uair a bhiodh iad a’ fiachainn ri eagal a chur air a’ chloinn ’n uair a bha iad a’ dol a-mach air an oidhche, bhiodh iad ag ràdha riutha gum beireadh Bodach na Gealaich orra. 

 

And the translation goes something like this:

 

The Spring-tide of Birds is what they call the tide around St Bride’s day [1 February]. Once it is passed and gone, then the birds may build their nests. The tide wouldn’t then trouble them. The moon completely controls the tides, the ebbing and flowing is controlled by this light. When the moon appears at first, they call it the new moon. They make out that you shouldn’t be without something in your hands when it appears, when you see it at first. They believed that the appearance of the new moon would change the weather. They used to say that the next moon would be better. When the moon waxed, they would then call it the quarter moon, and then they’d call it the full moon. It would then come back again. I’ve heard an account of Gealach Bhuidhe an Abaichidh [The Yellow Harvest Moon]. They used to say that this moon would be fuller for longer than any other moon. They also used to call it the Yellow Moon of the Badgers. They used to harvest spikes of yellow corn to make struan [cakes] as well. They also used to take note of whether the moon had a star close to it or when it was further away. If the star was near around the moon then they wouldn’t like it at all for it was a sign of bad weather. It was a bad sign if the moon had a ring around it. It was also a bad sign if the moon was seen lying on her back. They didn’t like it at all if she [the moon] was seen lying on her back. Its rays would be so sharp. They used to take note of the sky. There was a constellation they called an Grioglachan [The Pleiades]. There was another large constellation they would call an Crann Treabhaidh [The Plough] and also another one they called an t-Slat Thomhais [The Ruler] which had three stars and that was their formation. When they tried to scare children when they were going out at night they would say to them that Bodach na Gealaich [The Old Man in the Moon] would catch them.

 

Reference:

NFC 1029: 342–44; Courtesy of the National Folklore Collection / Cnuasach Bhéaloideas Éireann, University College Dublin.

Image:

A’ Ghealach Ùr / The New Moon

A Canna Man: Angus MacDonald of Sanday

Calum Maclean first visited Canna House in 1946, at the behest of the then owner of the island, John Lorne Campbell (1906–1996), known in traditional fashion as Fear Chanaigh. The first entry for Canna that Maclean noted in his diary is dated as 1 January 1946 and a fortnight later, on 14 January, he was to meet fellow folklorist Hamish Henderson (1919–2002), also visiting Canna House for the very first time. Henderson in his tribute that he paid to Maclean sets the scene:

 

I had the privilege of meeting him [Maclean] at the very start of his period in Scotland … Another guest was the late Séamus Ennis, the renowned Irish uillean piper … so Calum had every excuse for reverting to unabashed Irishism. My first impression of him, curled up in a window seat and surveying the new arrival with quizzical interrogatory eyes, was of a friendly but very watchful brownie … Later that evening he regaled us with some of the Irish songs (in English) …

 

So foregathered together in Canna House where four influential folklorists: Campbell, Maclean, Henderson and Ennis, all of whom were at the outset of their respective careers and who would go on to make a lasting impact in various ways through their research, collecting, and publishing.

 

Maclean would on occasion return to Canna whether on his way back home from the Southern Hebrides to Raasay or when he was collecting folklore on the neighbouring small isles of Eigg or Muck. Maclean, at this time, was employed by the Dublin-based Irish Folklore Commission, established in 1935, which had a remit that eventually included collecting in Gaelic-speaking areas outwith Ireland itself, and was sent by James Hamilton Delargy to his native land to do exactly this.

 

Each time that Maclean visited Canna he usually took both the time and effort – weather dependent – to stop off at the neighbouring island of Sanday and visit the house of one of Canna’s last storytellers or seanchies. The man in question was Angus MacDonald (1865–1949), styled Aonghas Eachainn. His son Hector MacDonald (1901–1965), styled Eachainn Aonghais Eachainn or Eachann Mòr carried on the family tradition and was also an able storyteller with a few of his stories also collected by Maclean.

 

A short and perhaps an unusual example, here given in translation from Gaelic, should suffice in order to give a taste of the whole:

 

A brother of Alexander MacDonald [Alasdair mac Mhaighstir Alasdair] used to always see him [as a ghost] after he had died, and he used to go away. I knew a woman with whom he [the ghost] used to converse. The spirit of a man alive is far stronger than the spirit of a dead man.

 

The Alexander MacDonald mentioned in this short anecdote was, of course, a great Jacobite Gaelic poet as well as being an innovative and extraordinary talent, who, at one time, held the office of bailiff of Canna. Angus himself was full of Gaelic lore and was probably familiar with some of Alexander MacDonald’s songs and also stories about this black-haired poet from Moidart.

 

Angus MacDonald’s local historical knowledge of the island of his birth was particularly strong for he remembers his own father telling him of the clearances that occurred in Canna between 1821 and 1831 when the new proprietors – MacNeills from Kintyre – arrived:

 

The MacNeills put a terrible number of people out of the island. I believe that sixty families left when my father was a young man. The worst of it was that they wouldn’t remain in this country. Anyway they wanted them to go over [seas]. They were sent to Canada. I heard that they embarked at Tobermory. They were promised that they would be well off when they had arrived over there, but in fact they were worse off.

 

I heard that it was not the laird who was altogether to be blamed for sending them away at all. The father of the last MacNeill brought a farmer here; the place at that time was under crofters; that annoyed him. The crofters were then all on the Canna side, on the hill face, which was nearly all cultivated by them. The farmer who came had to shift the people off it, so that he could get the land. The land was then all cultivated.

 

According to his own testimony, when MacDonald was growing up on Sanday there were over a hundred people there but by the late 1940s this had been practically reduced to just the one household. Most, if not all, of MacDonald’s lore was gleaned from his own father who had such traditions from his own father. MacDonald says this of his grandfather:

 

My own grandfather hadn’t a word of schooling in his head, and you never saw a better man than he for any job that ever turned up any day of the year. He knew anecdotes and songs and stories.

 

The inhabitants of Canna were nothing if not resilient as they eked out a living in an environment that at times could be extremely harsh and unrelenting. They had to rely upon their own resourcefulness and took of advantage of nature’s bounty when the opportunity arose:

 

When I was young, they used to make use of seal oil. They had a special day on which they went to kill them on Heisker. That island was full of them. They used to skin them and take off the blubber. Some of it took a long time to melt, too. Seal oil is terribly good for cattle.

 

I saw people boiling it and refining it as well as they could, and drinking it too.

 

When MacNeill was here, he used to bury seals at the foot of apple trees in the garden. They made excellent fertilizer. They didn’t make any use of the flesh at all. 

 

All kinds of material were collected from Angus MacDonald including aspects of weather lore:

 

They used to predict the weather by the way in which a cat sat by the fire. When bad weather was expected then the cat would turn around and place its back to the fire.

 

Perhaps it may have been that Angus was something of a naturalist for Maclean took down many anecdotes concerning the local flora and fauna, including traditions about the gather of tormentil used by fishermen to mend nets and for tanning leather for shoemaking as well as snippets of lore regarding otters and badgers even though Angus MacDonald claims to have never set his eyes on the latter animal:

 

There are people who call the harvest moon ‘the yellow moon of the badgers’. They say that the badger itself harvest the hay and brings it home and lines their setts with it where they hibernate for the entire winter.

 

Such a tradition is also found in Alexander Carmichael’s great compendium of Gaelic lore entitled Carmina Gadelica (1900):

 

The harvest moon is variously called ‘gealach gheal an abuchaidh,’ the ripening white moon; ‘gealach fin na Feill Micheil,’ the fair moon of the Michael Feast; and ‘gealach bhuidhe nam broc,’ the yellow moon of the badgers. The badger is then in best condition, before he retires to his winter retreat. When the badger emerges in spring, he is thin and emaciated. He never comes out in winter, unless upon a rare occasion when a dry sunny day may tempt him out to air his hay bedding. The intelligence with which the badger brings out his bedding, shakes it in the sun, airs it in the wind, and carries it back again to his home, is interesting and instructive.

 

It seems that Maclean’s last visit to Canna took place in 1949, the very same year in which Angus MacDonald himself passed away, and so came to an end one of the island’s last storytellers.

 

Reference:

John Lorne Campbell, Canna: The Story of a Hebridean Island (Edinburgh: Birlinn, 4th ed., 2002)

 

Image:

Photograph of Angus MacDonald, Courtesy of the National Trust of Scotland (Canna House Archive).