J. L. CAMPBELL
Isle of Canna,
22/1/59
________
1 Give him everlasting rest, O Lord, and light that never fails. 2 ‘Say that again, John’
3 See Gairm, Vol. II, p. 271.
4 It is hoped that the publication of the collection of these compiled in South Uist by the late Fr Allan McDonald sixty years ago, by the Institute for Advanced Studies in Dublin, will stimulate the study of Hebridean Gaelic and make the work of Hebridean poets more easily comprehensible. 5 See ‘A Visit to Cape Breton,’ Scots Magazine, September and October 1938.
6 The late Dr George Henderson encountered this tradition over 50 years ago. See his Norse Influence on Celtic Scotland, pp. 42, 177. See also J. L. Campbell, Sia Sgialachdan, p. 7.
7 See the article in Vol. V of the Innes Review, p. 33, where this question is discussed in detail. 8 See the Coddy’s version of this story, p. 42.
9 A condensation of the official report is printed, unfortunately with some gross inaccuracies, in the Book of Dunvegan, I, 180–2.
10 The Report points out that it is not mentioned in Fordun’s List of Castles in the Isles, compiled about 1380. 11 In a letter to Fr Angus MacDonald, dated 27th October 1823. See the Book of Barra, p. 173.
Tales of the MacNeils of Barra and other Lairds
The family tree of the MacNeils
Roderick son of Roderick son of Roderick son of Roderick son of Roderick son of Roderick son of Roderick, chiefs of Barra. The first Roderick was a son of Gill’ Eóghanain. It happens that Gill’ Eóghanain was a son of Ruairidh, and Ruairidh was a son of Murchadh son of Niall the Fair, son of the King of Ireland (Niall bàn mac Rìgh Éirinn). And the River Nile was called after him as he owned territories all round about the Nile.
The seventh Roderick, proprietor of the Island of Barra, fought with much distinction on the field of Waterloo in 1815. In 1838 he went bankrupt and sold the island of his forefathers to Colonel John Gordon of Cluny, Aberdeenshire.
[See the account of the MacNeils of Barra in the Introduction. This genealogy is telescoped. It seems that the last Roderick was really the sixth. See Pedigrees, p. 13. The reference to the Nile recalls Niul, son of Fenius Farsaidh, husband of Scota, the mythological ancestor of the Gaels.]
MacNeil who fought at the battle of Bannockburn
Traditional story on the Island of Barra of how the MacNeils went to Gigha and Kintyre
In 1314 at the battle of Bannockburn it so happened that one of the famous clan MacNeil was present. Before he went into battle, while preparing for it, he drew the attention of Robert the Bruce – he stripped down to his kilt only and his braces – that is all. Now the battle began and Bruce kept his eye on this man the whole time – or practically so. He noticed that MacNeil was making a mark of distinction on the field with his battleaxe and that he was mowing the English enemy down wholesale and retail. Now King Robert was very very satisfied – not only with MacNeil but with all his men – and very early in the day he said to himself that the victory was in his hand. After the day was over Bruce gave an order to one of his officers to call this man specially to see him, along with a few others, and they were brought along into a hall. Those were the people who made the most distinction on the battlefield. Calling MacNeil to his presence he asked him what part did he come from. And MacNeil replied that he came from the Island of Barra. ‘Ah, yes. Well,’ he says, ‘I am thanking you very much for your bravery today and,’ he says, ‘I shall have an interview with you later.’ he says, ‘after I see and speak to several others who fought so brilliantly with you.’
Then King Robert went round them all, and when he had interviewed them all he called MacNeil a second time. And he says, ‘Now, MacNeil, I am going to ask you, can you get, say, twenty men – good men like yourself – and take them with you out to the other islands and the mainland of Argyll?’ And MacNeil said, ‘Yes, your majesty, I will be pleased to do that.’ So one day MacNeil and his party left the island of their forefathers to take up their abode in islands and places that were strange to them. On arriving, King Robert interviewed them and divided them among the islands of Gigha, Colonsay, Juray, Islay and Mull and the county of Argyll. And that is how the MacNeils went out from Barra and increased and multiplied in the islands I have mentioned.
The descendants of the men who left Barra came up generation by generation, being of the same build as their forefathers, daring seamen, plucky men and fearless, and from those islanders came people who went all over the world, masters of sailing ships, and explorers of various countries, with the result that you will today find MacNeils in every corner of the universe, and each and every one of them making a mark of distinction in life.
[This story implies that the MacNeils of Barra are senior to the MacNeills of Gigha and Taynish, which is denied by the latter. The connection between the two clans, if any, is a very remote one.]
MacNeil’s raiding of Iona
Once upon a time the MacNeils went on a raid to Morvern on the north side of the Sound of Mull. They walked the bigger part of the night right along in that direction and got nothing. Whether, now, the inhabitants knew they were coming or not is not clear, but there was no cattle to be seen in any direction. They walked right up until they came opposite Iona. And, of course, the galley was following up the Sound the whole time. And then they decided to cross the Sound of Mull and go on to the Island of Iona. That was about in the very dead of the night, or maybe in the early hours of the morning, and they did not see anything. And then they went into a churchyard. All was still and silent, nothing could be seen except the remains – which they could not see!
Then they had a conference and said to themselves that it was not very good to be going back to Barra without anything, and they had no cattle, and so, in the absence of cattle, they decided to take nine stones of those that were in the churchyard – nine stones, rather than go back to Barra empty-handed. And the motion was carried and each and every one of the nine took a stone with him. And every one that took a stone was a MacNeil, and each and every one of the stones were put on the graves of MacNeils in the churchyard of Kilbar. And it so happens that one of them is on my own grandmother’s, Mary MacNeil, and her father’s name was Neil MacNeil, and MacNeil my great-grandfather, he was a prisoner of war in the Napoleonic Wars in France. I will give you a separate story about that.
On the way home, and crossing the Minch, they met fearful weather, and each and every one had to take an oar and row across the unusual hurricane. Now MacNeil expected the Kismul galley would be crossing the Minch that day. So he sent the fiery cross round the island for everybody to keep a look-out on the Minch, and especially on the top of Beinn a’ Charnain, that is a hill on the east side of Castlebay.
Now there were very many of the islanders kneeling and praying for the safety of the famous galley. One man, better than many others on the hill, saw what he thought was spray going over a boat and he told them to look out in that direction. They made out that it was the galley coming in this terrific weather, coming nearer and nearer, and latterly they could make out that the men were sitting on their oars, stripped to their shirts, rowing against that terrible hurricane. And MacNeil sent a message to the castle to prepare a feed of the bullock that was hanging in the castle for their arrival. But in further orders, they had not to get any food or drink for the next twelve hours, and the further statement that the beds be prepared for them and the blankets heated up that were spun and woven on the island.
And latterly they came into the bay, and so great was their exhaustion that some of them had to be carried out from the shore to the castle. MacNeil summoned four men to rub them down with whisky, the oldest stock in the castle, but to be sure at the same time not to give them any to drink. Now the operation began and the men were carried ashore, and as they were coming ashore there were two men rubbing them down, rubbing the whisky well into them from the top of their heads right down to the soles of their feet, and strict orde
rs were given not to give them anything to eat. They rested and slept for twelve hours and some of them were that badly bruised they could hardly turn from one side to another, with the muscles strained almost out of existence. At the same time the gocman1 gave orders to the butcher in the castle to cut up chunks of the bullock that was hanging up in the castle, and the fire brought out and spread, and chunks to be roasted on the fire – there were no ovens or anything like that.
Now when the twelve hours were up, he gave orders to call them and he saw that they got an equal division out of the cask, the oldest in the castle, and taking particularly good care that no man could or would get any quantity that would do him harm. Sitting round and telling each other news about the hurricane and news about Iona, and news about the stones they were going to put at Eoligarry kept them talking. He further told them to rest for a few days. And the boys, after two or three days’ rest sent a message to MacNeil that if he wanted them to go out on another raid that they would go. And he cautioned them on the ground that they were so tired they had better rest for a few days more. And before they did go anywhere, each and every one took the stones and put them in their own burying ground at Eoligarry.
One of the stones was removed to Edinburgh for identification. There was nobody who could identify it and so two of them were sent to Denmark. And there they were identified and sent back to Edinburgh, and from Edinburgh to Eoligarry.
[If the stones were taken in this way it was presumably for ballast. The incident could have occurred in the sixteenth century when the MacNeils were allied with the MacLeans of Mull against the MacDonalds. The stone referred to in the last paragraph is probably the rune-inscribed stone that was taken to Edinburgh.
This story was recorded by the Coddy in Gaelic on 3/1/50 and in both Gaelic and English on 3/4/51.]
MacNeil of Barra, the widow’s son and the Shetland buck
MacNeil one day went to the Island of Mingulay. He met a woman on the island who was a widow and had only one son. He wanted to take the son home to the castle where he would be well looked after, and he gave the mother to understand that he would never want, and that he MacNeil, would be very good to herself. With tears in her eyes she said a more difficult thing than to part with her boy she did not know. At last he said, ‘I will be taking him over to see you occasionally when I visit the island collecting rents and so on.’ And latterly when she learnt there was hopes of seeing him occasionally, she was very pleased, and on these conditions she did agree to give him the boy. And this went on for several years; MacNeil did as he promised – he would be taking the boy over on occasions of his own visits to the island.
Now MacNeil was fond of wrestling, and when the young boy grew up in strength MacNeil used to practise wrestling with him. And that went on for a period until one day the widow’s son caught hold of MacNeil and gave him a firm grip which compelled MacNeil to go flat on the broad of his back on the ground. Everything went well until it reached that stage. After that day MacNeil took into his head that the day was coming when he would be beaten, and so he made up his mind to kill him and another man that was boatman in the birlinn. So when the time was ripe and the weather was there to carry out MacNeil’s intention, he gave the gocman the order to sound the trumpet, and called the birlinn’s crew. At the moment we are talking about it was blowing a hurricane – MacNeil was doing this trick simply to drown the man in charge of the birlinn and the widow’s son.
Now the birlinn was brought alongside, the widow’s son was standing in the bow and he gave them all a hand to go on board. It came now to the stage that McNeil was going to bid them goodbye and he did so by shaking hands with the bowman. He caught MacNeil by the wrist and instead of shaking hands with him he flung him down amidships, and then he gave the order to shove off.
Now MacNeil was very silent. He was not speaking at all, and when they went past the castle he said, ‘Well, boys, the weather is not suitable for the job – we’d better turn back.’
‘We will not turn back, but we will keep on. It was good enough for us to go, but when it came to you the weather was bad!’ said the widow’s son. So on those grounds there was no more about it but to carry on – how far we don’t know.
Now following out, the wind was in the nor’-west, and they decided to go to the back of Muldonaich at the foot of Sloe na h-Iolaire. They were there the whole night keeping her stem right on to the rocks, but the squalls and the gusts and the spindrift was going high on the outside of them. It carried on all the night until the break of day and then the wind abated. Then it cleared up and the day was very good. They all held a conference and decided not to go further than that for this time – they were very exhausted, to start a raid into which they needed to go very fresh. So the raid was put off, they came back to the castle and the usual performance took place – to have a big dinner and plenty to drink and to eat, and wait for a more suitable opportunity.
The next visit to Mingulay the widow’s son went over and got an opportunity to see his mother. Now he told her the story – how MacNeil did attempt to drown him and drown another man in the birlinn. She knew the other man herself, and she was very sorry to hear it. ‘But,’ she says, ‘it is very difficult for me to take you from MacNeil now.’ ‘Mother,’ he says, ‘the time is not very far away when I shall be going anyway, and that is the second time he has made an attempt on my life. But I am very sure he is not going to get another opportunity.’
So the widow’s son bid goodbye that day, and more than probable he never saw her any more.
[This is the version taken down by Miss Lockett: the remainder is transcribed and translated from the Gaelic wire recording made on 1/1/50, and printed here as an Appendix.]
Now, time was passing, and MacNeil went and challenged every man in Scotland and outside, in the Isles, in Shetland, and everywhere around – that a challenge would go out for someone to fight against him. He got a challenge, and it was from Shetland he got it, from a famous man there whose like was never on his land, called the Shetland Buck. He sent out the challenge, ‘I’ll take you on,’ he said.
Now, the day came that had been set apart for the fight, and they met in Shetland. MacNeil was frightened enough at going and he said to himself, ‘I’d better take John, the widow’s son, with me, in case he (the Buck) does me any harm.’
So John went with him. They arrived in Shetland, and MacNeil said, when he saw him (the Buck) coming, ‘Now,’ said he to John, ‘if you see me putting my hand behind me twice, you’ll understand it’s time for you to intervene, and to come between me and the Shetland Buck.’
But without making a long story short, or a short story long, the fight began, and a fierce fight at that, and at last the widow’s son saw MacNeil put out his hand, and he watched and saw him do it again. He went in and stood between the Buck and MacNeil and said to him, ‘I’ll support you’ – and then began a contest and a battle that was worth calling a battle. The widow’s son didn’t take long to put the other hero on his back, and he put his knee on his chest. The Buck asked for mercy, to let him up and they would make peace.
‘I’ll do that,’ said John. ‘I’ll let you get up undoubtedly if you admit you’re beaten.’
‘That’s not difficult, everyone sees I’m beaten.’
He let the Buck get up, and when they were talking, who jumped over but MacNeil, and drew his sgian dubh (black knife) from its sheath and was going to stab him. The widow’s son turned to him and said, ‘If you put a knife, black or white, in the man, I’ll take care right away that you won’t see Barra again in your life.’ So it was. MacNeil took fright and abandoned the matter entirely.
The Buck and the widow’s son shook hands, and the Buck said to him: ‘You will be with me in Shetland all your life, and any descendant you may have; and you may marry whoever you wish, and you will be rich and happy and quiet along with me in this world. And –’ he said to MacNeil, ‘you can go home, MacNeil; you shouldn’t have come here at all since you didn’t know how
to fight like this good fellow who was the first ever to put me on the ground,’ he said.
The widow’s son remained in Shetland along with the Shetland Buck, and down till today you find MacNeils there descended from him.
MacNeil of Barra and MacKenzie of Kintail
Once upon a time MacNeil of Barra was besieged by the MacKenzies of Kintail, and a big lot of the MacKenzies came to Barra. And the target of their mission was to starve MacNeil in the castle, and as they came very unexpectedly and MacNeil was without any preparations to meet the besiegers, very soon MacNeil said to himself, ‘This man is going to do me out.’
One night he was sitting by the fireside in the castle and he began to ponder how to get out of the difficulty. The sentry was so dutiful it was impossible to escape out of the castle. And as he was pondering, the thought came to him, and this is what he decided upon. He had two dogs in the kitchen of the castle lying down and he said to himself, ‘Well, I will bleed the two dogs to death and there is a pile of sheepskins in the castle, and I will paint the insides of the sheepskins with the blood of the dogs and put the skins on the parapet of the castle and then MacKenzie would say to himself, “I may as well clear out – if MacNeil can kill all these sheep I shall never starve him out.”’
Now he got hold of the dogs and bled them one by one. And the first one he killed he smeared the blood inside the skins and as he was doing so he was putting the skins on the parapet. And then he killed the second dog and dealt with it likewise, smeared the blood on the rest of the skins and hung the skins on the parapet of the castle. So when MacKenzie’s sentry next morning saw the position he told it to his commanding officer that there was no use to wait until he had starved MacNeil out of the castle – that in his opinion MacKenzie would starve first. So they had a conference and they came to a decision that the wisest plan was to clear out.
Tales from Barra Page 4