Clach na h-Aidhrinn / The Mass Stone

During the winter of 1951 Calum Maclean visited Bohuntine, Glenroy, to collect material from Donald MacDonald, then a retired soldier aged around seventy. In his diary of the 30th of March 1951, Maclean gives the following description of MacDonald in Scottish Gaelic but here given in translation:

From there I began to walk out to Glenroy. It was a beautifully dry, spring afternoon with a sprinkling of snow on the high mountains. The glen was beautiful with the trees blooming on each side of the river. I walked two miles before I reached the first house. Then I went past the bridge before I reached Bohuntine. There were about five or six homesteads cheek by jowl. I walked past them a little and then I went back. I climbed up towards the first house. A woman answered the door and she appeared to be kindly. I asked where Donald MacDonald’s house was. She told me and I climbed up to that house. These kindly folk made me welcome. They had expected me for a long while. The goodman of the house was sitting by the fire. He was unable to walk for he suffered from a bad type of rheumatism. He was a grey-haired, handsome fellow. Black-haired Donald they called him. His wife, two daughters and his son were at home with him. This man has stories without a shadow of doubt. He has a good style of telling stories. He was born in England at Carlisle and he came back to Bohuntine when he was eleven years of age. He learned to speak Gaelic. He told me a good few stories and I took a note of these. I’m going to return again with the Ediphone. These kindly folk gave me food and his son Duncan accompanied me all the way to Roybridge.

The following short anecdote would appear to been recorded sometime after Maclean’s first visit and then transcribed as follows on the 20th of April 1951:

Tha clach taobh an rathaid ris an abair iad Clach na h-Aidhrinn. Tha e shuas mu choinneamh àite ris an abair iad Creithneachan ann an Gleann Ruaidh. Bha uaireigin a siod agus bha fear a dol dhachaigh ris an abradh iad Aonghas Mór. ’N uair a bha e mu choinneamh Creithneachan a bha seo, thàinig na sìdhchean a chur stad air (F235.3.). Bha leth dhiubh a’ glaodhaich:

“Cha leig sinn seachad Aonghas Mór.”

Bha leth eile air an taobh thall ag ràdha:

“Leigidh sinn seachad Aonghas Mór.”

Ach chunnaic Aonghas Mór gun robh an t-aon chunntas air gach taobh. Agus mu dheireadh thuir^st e:

“Tha mise fear a chòrr agus leigidh sibh seachad mi.”

Agus fhuair e seachad. Chaidh sagar^st (P426.) an ùine ghoirid an deaghaidh sin agus chaidh e suas a dhèanadh Aidhrinn.

Agus rinn e Aidhrinn air a’ chlach a tha seo. Agus gus an latha an-diugh ’s e Clach na h-Aidhrinn a their iad rithe.

And the translation goes something like this:

There is a stone besides the road called Clach na h-Aidhrinn (‘The Mass Stone). It’s up opposite a place called Cranachan in Glenroy. There was once a man going home called Big Angus. When he was opposite Cranachan, the fairies stopped him (F235.3). One half of them were shouting:

“We won’t let Big Angus go by.”

The other half on the other side were saying:

“We’ll let Big Angus go by.”

But Big Angus saw that there was the same number [of fairies] on each side. And at last he said:

“I am the extra man and you’ll let me go by.”

And he got past. A short time afterwards, a priest (P246.) went there to celebrate Mass.

He celebrated Mass at this stone and to this day they call it Clach na h-Aidhrinn (‘The Mass Stone’).

A version of the above tale which would appear to be a folk etymology at the time of the suppression of the Roman Catholic faith in Brae Lochaber and elsewhere. The following is another published version of the story:

Two of the oldest residents in the neighbourhood give two versions of the association of this stone with the celebration of mass. Eighty-year old Mr. Alexander Mackintosh of Bohuntin (who as a young man had helped to transfer the stone to a safer position on the other side of the road), states that he had heard it said that only one mass was celebrated at the Cranachan Road Mass Stone and that was done to lay a ghost that had been heard in the burn. The ghost story is a tradition of a type not uncommon in the West Highlands: it tells of a certain Aonghas Mór MacDonald (a well-known local personality, born in the early years of the nineteenth century), who happened on one occasion to pass this spot on his way home to Cranachan. Passing near the stone, he heard voices saying: We won’t let Aonghas Mór pass”; and there were other voices crying:  “We will let Aonghas Mór pass.” Aonghas Mór, coming to the shrewd conclusion that the parties were equally divided and that he presumably had the casting vote, shouted: “If there are as many with me as are against me, Aonghas Mór will go past.” Thereupon he made his way past the stone with great difficulty and reached home in a state of extreme exhaustion.

Local historians Ann MacDonell and D. R. Roberts had the following to say about the Cranachan stone:

Just over three miles north of Roy Bridge Post Office, where the Cranachan Road meets the road through Glen Roy, there stands the second Mass Stone of the Lochaber district. This stone is not in its original position and it is only a fragment of a much larger boulder. The stone stood originally on the right hand side of the Cranachan Road on a steep bank, overhanging the burn. By the erosion of the burn, the stone was undermined, fell into the burn and was broken. The present large fragment of the stone was lifted out of the burn and replaced on the original site, whence it had fallen. Towards the end of last century, the burn again threatened to undermine the stone and some strong men of the neighbourhood (one of whom was Alexander Mackintosh who, at 81 years of age, still resides at Bohuntin) lifted the stone and placed it in a safer position on the other side of the Cranachan Road, where it now stands. About 1870, Donald Campbell Macpherson (1842–80), a native of nearby Bohenie, a librarian at the Advocates’ Library and a noted Gaelic scholar, carved a chalice and host on the front of this stone to perpetuate the local tradition of its use for the celebration of mass during the Penal Days. Old people in the glen can remember that the stone used to be protected by a wooden fence and, as children, they were not allowed to touch this “Clach na h-aifrinn” or play near it.

The authors end their interesting article by making the valid point that further research on the topic would increase our understanding of Roman Catholicism in the Highlands during the times in which it was undergoing a widespread and systemic attack from the establishment:

There is need for much further research into the conditions in which the practice of the Catholic Faith was maintained in the north and west of Scotland throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In the history of the Catholic Church in Scotland the early seventeenth century is especially a twilight period and needs much more investigation. Some facts do stand out against the prevailing obscurity, like the great cross marked boulder, looming up against the mists on the summit of Maol Doire. The Maol Doire “Clach na h-aifrinn,” weathered by the sunshine and storms of the passing years, is surely the perfect memorial of the harsh laws and the steadfast people of those difficult centuries.
 

References:

Ann MacDonell, & D. R. McRoberts, ‘The Mass Stones of Lochaber’, The Innes Review, vol. 17 (1968), pp. 71–81 
NLS MS.29795, 1^r–162^v

SSS MS 7, p. 654

Image:
Clach na h-Aidhrinn or Clach na h-Aifrinn, Cranachan, Glenroy

Tom an Dealachaidh – The Hill of Parting

Folk etymologies of place-names are a fairly common genre that collectors often come across. Calum Maclean was no exception as here is an example recorded on the 7th of August 1952 from James Dunbar, styled Seamus Barrach, a fifty-year old farmer, who belonged to Tomatin in Strathdearn. The following story has as its background the Jacobite Rising of 1715 which started with the raising of the royal banner in Braemar and which ended somewhat inconclusively at the Battle of Sheriffmuir which would sound the death-knell for the Jacobite cause at that time:

 

That’s the hill further down there. It’s supposed to be that there where Lochiel and the Earl of Mar parted after the Rebellion of 1715. Now the Earl of Mar was very hungry and we heard that seemingly Lochiel got meal from the mill and he had no place to cook it, but he took his shoe, put water in the shoe and put meal, barley meal, into the shoe and Earl of Mar said that it was the best food that he ever tasted.

Now there’s a Gaelic poem, a verse:

 

“Is math on còcair’ an t-acras:
Có dhèanadh tàir air a’ bhiadh?
Fuarag min eòr’ as sàil a’ bhròg
Am biadh a b’ fhearr a fhuair Morair Màr riamh.”

 

Now there’s another story told about that when some other Cameron parted hundreds of years before that. But it means Tom an Dealachaidh, the Hill of the Parting. And there was another story told about it that it was the parting between the peaceable men of this country, of this parish and then down. But it’s only tradition, of course. Well, there’s a stone on the top and it is called Séithir Morair Màr [The Earl of Mar’s Seat], as they say in this country. It is supposed to be that the Earl of Mar sat on that stone watching a battle of the clans down at Tom an Tuirc [The Hill of The Boar], between Tom an Dealachaidh and Tom an Tuirc. My father was a good story teller. I don’t know the quarter of what he knew.

 

This story of the Earl of Mar here been conflated with the first Battle of Inverlochy that took place in 1431 which saw a victory for Clan Donald, led by Donald Balloch, against the combined forces of the Earls of Mar and Caithness who had tried to check the ascendency of the Lordship of the Isles. The forfeiture of the Lordship eventually came in 1491.

 

This story was once well-known in Lochaber and a version was recorded from Archibald MacInnes, a seventy-year old pensioner from Achluachrach, Brae Lochaber, by Calum Maclean on the 7th of September 1951:

 

A’ chiad bhaiteal a bha aig Ionbhar Lòchaidh eadar Dòmhnall Ballach agus Iarla  Mhàrr, bha Iarla Mhàrr air an ruaigeadh is e a’ dol a-mach ri Gleann Ruaidh. Ràinig e fear ris an abradh iad Ó Biorain a bha a’s a’ Bhriagaich:

“Thig mi oidhche ’na thaigh,” thuir^st e:

“Air mhóran bidhidh is air bheagan aodaich,
Is math an còcaire an t-acras,
Is mairig a dheànadh tailceas air biadh,
Fuarag eòrna sàil mo bhròige
Am biadh is fheàrr a fhuair mi riamh.”

 

Glé choltach gun do mharbh Ó Biorain mar^st. ’N uair a ràinig an duine feadh na h-oidhche, bha e ’ga mar^abhadh. Fhuair e am pailteas de bhiadh. Bha a’ mar^st mór. Agus chuir e a chadal ann an t-seiche a mhar^st e. Agus ’s ann mar sin a labhair e na briathan. Cha robh móran aodaich air. Rinn e an uair san ga dhachaidh. Thug e cuireadh do’n duine uair ’s am bith a bhitheadh nicheann a dhìth air a dhol a choimhead air-san. Duine ’s am bith a chaidh an rathad a bhuineadh dha’n àite, bha e uamharaidh mór man déidhinn an deadhaidh na tìm sin.

 

And the translation goes something like this:

 

The first battle of Inverlochy was fought between Donald Balloch and the Earl of Mar in which the Earl was defeated and he fled to Glenroy. He arrived at a place called Briagach and met a man they called Ó Biorain.

“I’ll stay the night in his house,” he said:

“Plenty of food but scanty of clothing

Hunger is a good cook

Woe to him who disdains food

Barley brose from the heel of my shoe –

The best meal I ever got.”

 

It’s more than likely than Ó Biorain slaughtered the cow. When the man came in during the middle of the night, he was in the process of slaughtering it. He got plenty of food as it was a large cow. He went to sleep in the cow hide. And that is why he spoke these words. He had but little clothing on. He then made for home. He invited the man that if he ever needed anything then he should go and see him. Anyone who belonged to this place, he was very pleased to see them after that.

 

When the pursuing MacDonald host heard that Cameron had sheltered the Earl he and his family had to remove themselves to the Braes o’ Mar. When the wretched Ó Biorain and his family reached the Earl of Mar’s Castle at Kildrummy they received a warm welcome with the following words:

 

               ’S ionmhuinn am fìrean a-muigh,

                Ó Biorain às a’ Bhreugaich,

                Bha mi oidhche ’na theach

                Air mhóran bìdh, ach beag aodaich. 

 

Outside is the loveable little man

O’ Bryne [Cameron] from Briagach

I was a night in his house

With plenty food but scanty of clothing.

 

It is said that the progeny of Ó Biorain Cameron are still left in this area of Highland Aberdeenshire, which lends credence to the folk tradition. According to Somerled MacMillan, Mar granted him the land of Brucks.  Alasdair Cam Forbes of Drimonvir and of Brucks married O’ Bryne’s only child, and their descendants retained the property down to the latter part of the nineteenth century.

 

References:

SSS NB 5, pp. 396–97

SSS NB 16, pp. 1442–43

Somerled MacMillan, Bygone Lochaber: Historical and Traditional.  Glasgow: K. & R. Davidson, 1971), p. 112

Iain Dìleas MacShomhairle, ‘Legend of Stewart; Sgeul air Alasdair Stiùbhart Iarla Màr’, Cuairtear nan Gleann, no. 3 (May, 1840), pp. 65–67; later reprinted and abridged as ‘Iarla Mhàrr agus Fear na Briagach’ in W. J. Watson (ed.), Rosg Gàidhlig: Specimens of Gaelic Prose (Glasgow: An Comunn Gàidhealach, 2nd. ed., 1929), pp. 99–102

 

Image:

Kildrummy Castle, Strathdon, near Braemar

The Last Wolf

There are many traditions about the killing of the last wolf throughout the Highlands.  Here is but one example of a few taken down by Calum Maclean from the recitation of Allan MacDonald who hailed from Bunroy, Brae Lochaber, but who latterly stayed in Inverlochy, near Fort William. The recording was transcribed on the 17th of January 1951:

 

Tha àite shuas an Gleann Ruaidh an sin agus ’s e Achadh a’ Mhadaidh a their iad ris. Bha boireannach anns a’ mhòine a’ toir^st dachaidh cliabh mòna. Dar a thog i a ceann gu falbh, bha madadh-gala is a bheul fosgailte gu bhith aic(hc)e. Chuir i a làmh a-mach ’ga chumail bhuaithe. Chuir i a lamh ’na bheul agus thachd i e. Bhrùgh i a làmh a-staigh gus an do thachd i e. Achadh a’ Mhadaidh ann an Gleann Ruaidh.

 

And the translation is as follows:

 

There’s a place up in Glenroy which they call Achadh a’ Mhadaidh [The Wolf Field]. There was a woman on the hill taking home a creel of peats. When she lifted her head to go there was a [she-]wolf with its mouth agape ready to lunge. She put her hand out to keep it at bay. She put her hand into its mouth and strangled it by thrusting her hand into it and choking it. Achadh a’ Mhadaidh in Glenroy.

 

Many of the traditions surrounding the killing of the last wolf contain certain motifs were the sole protagonists―in many cases this happens to be a woman―who encounter a wolf and in fear of their lives attack and kill the wolf with any weapon that they may have had to hand. A legend from Perthshire tells of the Wolf’s Bridge in Dalguise and it is said have been the last wolf to have been killed in this particular district. She is said to have encountered the wolf and managed to stab the ferocious animal.

 

Similar types of legends were recorded through the Highlands such as in Glassary, Argyllshire and in Strathglass, where, it is said, the last wolf met its death near St Ignatius’s Well. Other legends contend that a local hero was the one to have killed the last of the wolves such as a Lochaber tradition where a hunter-bard Dòmhnall MacFhionnlaigh nan Dàn (Donald MacKinlay of the Lays) was given the credit of doing so. A near-contemporary of this hunter-bard, and a famous wolf-slayer in his own right, was said to have been Andrew MacGillivray, Anndra Mòr nam Madadh-allaidh (Great Andrew of the Wolves) who ‘won a name and fame for himself by killing wolves.’ He is said to have been the last of the great wolf-slayers in Scotland and was born around 1600.

 

One of the most famous historical legends of the last wolf is connected with Sir Ewen Dubh Cameron (1629–1719), probably one of the most famous Highland chiefs. His biographer, John Drummond of Balhaldie, relates that: ‘His greatest diversion was hunting, whereof he was so keen, that he destroyed all the wolfs […] that infested the country. He killed […] the last wolf that was seen in the Highlands.’ It is claimed that the Cameron chief killed the last wolf at Killiecrankie in 1680. Apparently, an auction catalogue for a London Museum in 1818 had this stuffed wolf for sale, where an entry stated: ‘Wolf—a noble animal in a large case. The last wolf killed in Scotland by Sir Ewan Cameron’. Unfortunately, the whereabouts of this piece is now unknown. By the late seventeenth-century wolves in the Highlands were becoming less than a familiar sight and in all probability became extinct around 1680 after centuries of human persecution.

 

References:

SSS NB 1, p. 22
Andrew Wiseman, ‘‘A Noxious Pack’: Wolves in the Scottish Highlands’, History Scotland, vol. 12, no. 6 (Nov./Dec., 2012), pp. 28–34 [a popular version of the article below]
Andrew Wiseman, ‘‘A Noxious Pack’: Historical, Literary and Folklore Traditions of theWolf (Canis Lupus) in the ScottishHighlands’, Scottish Gaelic Studies, vol. 25 (2009), pp. 95–142 

 

Image:

Sir Ewen Cameron (1629–1719), Chief of Clan Cameron. The portrait is in Achnacarry House.