Tales from Barra

by John Lorne Campbell

  At the moment Neil was very pleased to close the bargain at that, but afterwards came the trouble. The calls became so numerous and he found himself a slave to the one who took him out of the difficulty. In the end, to avoid his calls he went to America, and even there he was followed by the same routine that he had in Barra.

  Now I quote here one instance. Neil was in Canna and he had a call to go to Barra – and up he went – and across he went, and he landed in the Island of Flodday, which is at the back of Fuiay. It was in March, and the woman of the house, the crofter’s wife, was cooling gruel in two wooden bowls – pouring from one to the other – and immediately Neil came inside and he asked was there anything to eat, she said, ‘Hold on a minute, Neil, until I cool this, and I will give you a bowl of it.’ And she gave him barley bread and butter and the bowl of gruel, and Neil started to eat the bread and butter, and drink out of the bowl, and he did not get the job finished when he was called away again.

  Away he went and he was landed at Bachd, between Borve and Tangusdale on Barra. Well, he went in and there was a shoemaker there. He knew Neil, too, and he asked Neil where he came from, and was he hungry. And he says, ‘No, I’m not hungry – I took a bite of bread and butter and gruel on Flodday.’ And he was not long there when a call came again that took him to Mingulay and Neil had calls of this nature for many years before he went to Canada – and as already described, after going to Canada he was followed by the same master.

  This story proves that there were aeroplanes of a kind in existence before this present day.

  [Falbh air an t-sluagh – being carried away by the fairy hosts. There is a very good story on this theme told by Eachann Mac Dhubhghaill in An Ròsarnach, Vol IV, p. 41.]

  MacAskill and the second sight

  In South Uist second sight was more common than in any other part of the Outer Islands. During the 1914 war there was a sailor fellow from South Uist came home on leave and he visited his neighbour. Exchanging news, it was late at night before the sailor made for home, and on the way home he told MacAskill to halt – that there was funeral coming. Now this they did, and MacAskill was standing beside him during the period it took the funeral to pass them.

  ‘Now you can come to the middle of the road – the funeral has passed,’ he says. ‘Before I come back, such and such a man will be dead. By the appearance of the mourners I am guessing that.’

  I gather that after anyone has a vision in that line he generally feels very sick, and he told MacAskill, ‘I think I had better sit down because I do not feel very well at all.’ They were a considerable period exchanging news, and he said to MacAskill, ‘Well, I had better come home with you and stay the night, because I don’t feel at all well.’ They turned and walked all the way home and he stayed the night along with MacAskill.

  Then next morning they began to talk over the matter. ‘I have not had a vision of that line for a long time – that is why,’ he said, ‘I was so very sick after it. And I will be going away in a few days, and strange as it may appear to you, MacAskill, I never see anything of the sort when I leave the soil of South Uist behind me.’ He came on his next leave and went to see MacAskill, and they began to talk it over. MacAskill says, ‘How is it,’ he says, ‘that your prediction was true about the man who died?’

  ‘Oh,’ he replied, ‘my prediction is always true. I guessed it was going to be the man in accordance with the mourners I saw following the funeral.’

  And this is only one of the very many stories connected with the second sight.

  [See Martin Martin’s book on the Western Isles for others.]

  William and the second sight

  When second sight was prevalent in South Uist, there was a man called William, noted for seeing sights. One day he was coming across the Barra Sound, ferrying two men who were going to Castlebay and open a shop for the herring fishing summer season. There were in the boat, William, a lady and the two men. Coming across the Sound, William was steering the boat and he saw very clearly and distinctly the tangles from the bottom of the sea round the necks of the two men – a strange and very peculiar sight to see. And when William saw the sight he was very much shocked and he said nothing. In fact he was speechless for a considerable time afterwards.

  Now they were coming into Bruernish, and William decided that he would come out of the boat, himself and the lady, and that they would walk to Castlebay. He knew that the two men’s lives were to be lost in the near future, but to safeguard himself and the lady, he decided that they would get out of the boat and walk from Bruernish to Castlebay.

  Now the boat set off for Castlebay, and they had rounded past the Currachan, and when they were south of the Currachan a considerable distance there came a sharp shower1 from the west. And people in Rubha Lios saw the boat before the shower but not after it. And so it was noted that the boat sank during that shower. But they thought that the boat might have turned into Castlebay past the Rubha Mór.

  William and the lady arrived in Castlebay, but the boat didn’t. They were waiting, and waiting, and didn’t know what to do. The news went round that the boat didn’t come into Castlebay, and next morning very early there was a boat going out to their great lines. And lo and behold, they saw a boat turned upside down, just right on the track they were sailing, and with a man dead on her keel. And they took the man aboard, and took the boat in tow and turned back to Brevig. The man was stripped and taken care of and identified. So William and the lady got the news in Castlebay and they came down, and to their horror found the man that was with them the day before, lying a dead corpse.

  That was the sight predicted by William. Now an arrangement was made to take the remains of the man back to South Uist, and all the merchandise in the boat was lost.

  I personally knew the lady and William myself. I crossed to Polacharra one late evening and the weather was very doubtful and I met William at the inn. And I was wondering, after hearing this story, was he seeing anything about my neck?

  Second sight in Uist

  All over Uist second sight was prevalent – not so much nowadays. There was a man in Iochdar who was famous in the whole of Uist for seeing second sight. One night this man was invited to a wedding. On his arrival the wedding party was dining at the table, and strange as it may seem the man saw the bride in her shrouds over her wedding dress. So much did the vision upset him that he collapsed inside the house. He was taken out into the fresh air and after he recovered, he said, ‘I am not going back any more.’ But he told a party shortly after that in private that he was sure that that lady would not live to the end of the year. And that was so. The girl was dead before the end of the year, as he said. She died in giving birth to her first child.

  Shortly after that, he came out of his house one day, and he said: ‘Well,’ he says, ‘I am today seeing a most wonderful sight.’ And his neighbour was with him, and he said, ‘What is that sight today, Donald?’ ‘Oh,’ Donald said, ‘it was a very queer sight – I don’t think anybody else in the whole world has seen the sight I am seeing today. I am seeing a weaving loom very high up in the sky, going at a very great speed.’

  ‘Well,’ said his neighbour, ‘that is impossible, and that is a sight that nobody could believe – a weaving loom that would be going at a big speed high up in the sky.’

  ‘Well, be that as it is,’ he says, ‘no doubt it is a strange sight – but it is there.’

  And later on in years, when the first aeroplane flew over Uist, my friend said, ‘Well, that’s the loom I saw.’

  This man saw many second sights, in fact, too numerous to mention.

  The frith or divination

  In the summer of 1910 I happened to be at Lochboisdale, as a fish salesman. One day I went round exploring the country, on a bicycle, which was not seen very often in those days in Uist. It was a beautiful summer day. I was coming up the Lochboisdale road and I then turned into Garrynamonie, and to my great surprise I heard a voice at the back of a huge boulder surrounded by iris, saying th
e Hail Mary. And so much so that I stopped in my great astonishment to listen to the voice – and then she popped up, and it was a very old lady with a shawl over her shoulders and another round her head, saying her prayers. And she says to me, ‘Are you the Inspector of Poor?’

  I says, ‘No, my dear lady, but I know the Inspector of Poor all the same.’

  ‘And who are you?’ she says.

  ‘Well, I am a Barraman,’ says I, ‘that came over to the Lochboisdale pier to sell herring.’

  ‘Ah yes,’ she says, ‘I heard about you selling the herrings and I heard you were very good at it.’ Now she turns round and she says, ‘And do you know the Inspector of Poor? Ah well,’ she says, ‘he is a bad man. He never sent me thatch for my house – and you can come in and see it for yourself, that it is in a poor condition.’

  Well, I went in to see the lady and her house, and I agreed with her that her house was really in a bad condition. Now I promised her to see the Inspector of Poor and I didn’t wait until I saw him – I sent him a strong letter and swore at him upside down! He was a man called Roderick –, and I knew him well. Two or three steamers after that – well, not the first but the next one – I saw bundles of thatch coming off the boat and to satisfy my curiosity I went over and I saw that the bundles were addressed to Roderick –, District Clerk, Gerinish, South Uist.

  * * *

  And now the next time I went to see the old lady, the house was neat, well-thatched and quite rainproof, and on arriving I went to see the old lady and we had a talk and she thanked me thousands and thousands of times in succession and in fact prayed for me for my kindness in helping her much-needed request. ‘Well, next year,’ says I, ‘when I come back, if it so happens that I do come back, you will be having an increase of your pension.’ And so it was – her pension was increased. Next year, when I called on her, she apologised for not believing me when I told her that she would be getting an increase – I think she almost thought that it was me that gave it to her!

  Now we began to speak about things in general and she mentioned to me about a frìth. I told her I was curious how and what was to be done before you would complete a frìth, and she said that a frìth was made at daybreak and you had to take note and see what were the beasts that were in your vision – a cow, stirk, sheep – and the backbone of the frìth was considered on the animals on the scene at the time. Well, immediately it struck me – had that anything to do with witchcraft? ‘I would not do such a thing to you at all – to teach you witchcraft,’ said the old lady. And she told me not to be afraid – that she told it to Canon MacDougall, and he made it very clear on the point that there was nothing connected with witchcraft about it. That is the story as I was told, but still there were rhymes that you had to say, which I refused to accept.

  When the old lady got the increase of the pension the post office was the old inn at Polacharra, and she used to take a dram to celebrate the old age pension, and I remember one day arriving there and she had just left. Well, perhaps it was just as well!

  [See the Scots Magazine of October 1955, p. 64, for an account of Catriona nighean Eachainn in Glendale, South Uist, who used to make these divinations. The late Fr Allan McDonald wrote down the signs she went by. These were later published, from Fr Allan’s notes, by Miss Goodrich Freer, in Folklore, Vol XIII, p. 47.]

  The manadh or forewarning

  In Polacharra, in South Uist, the hotel keeper told me a story, and this is it. ‘Any time,’ he says, ‘that there is a funeral to be in the district, on the socket on which I put the beer cask I can see it sometimes jumping and hear it thumping pretty often. It is customary to have drinks at funerals in Uist, and every time there is a funeral I can hear this noise a few days before. And as soon as the funeral party comes to collect the beer and clear away, I don’t hear the manadh any more, until there is another funeral. In fact,’ he says, ‘I heard several times the cart that was going to carry the jar away coming to the house.’

  My own experience in person was this. I was sitting with a young lassie and we heard, both of us, distinctly heard a shot. She remarked about it first and said, ‘Before the house of MacLean out here was built I heard my mother saying that she often heard sounds like a gunshot’ – and the sound we heard was very like a gunshot.

  Now it was a long time after that, and I didn’t hear anything about it. But unfortunately the girl in question took seriously ill. The doctor said it was galloping consumption that she had. I went to her funeral. On arriving at the house I heard that same shot again, and looking round me I saw they were just nailing down the boards of her coffin. That is one clear point that I heard a manadh. I did not collect this from anybody.

  [Such experiences used to be frequent.]

  The mermaid

  In olden days it was a great belief among fishermen that if any would see the maighdean mhara [mermaid] it was a serious forecast that they were going to encounter a hurricane and maybe loss of life.

  One day there was a boat leaving the port of Brevig on the east side of Barra manned by six men, very capable fishermen, and when they were about two miles off the shore one of them saw a maighdean mhara popping out of the water and, the worst luck, between them and the shore. One of them saw it first and he was very dumb, and then another saw it and he let the cat out of the bag and said:

  ‘We had better turn back,’ he says, ‘I have seen the maighdean mhara.’

  ‘So did I,’ says Roderick, and they did turn, to make back for Brevig.

  Now they were only a couple of miles off the shore and there came a hurricane off the north-west which compelled the men to stow the sails and the mast, and row to the shore, as the boat could not carry a stitch of canvas. And they rowed with all their might and with all their strength.

  They were making the weather better as they were proceeding to the shore, and latterly they pulled up and got in touch with the rocks at the Rubha Mór at Brevig. Well, there was a decision that they would come out and leave the boat there, but one of them suggested that seeing they had got a hold of the rocks it would be a disaster to lose the boat and deprive them of their fishing. So they stuck to the boat and put a rope ashore and they remained there until such time as the gust abated, and when the gale was over they immediately rowed back to the port which was not far away from them and did not go to sea again that day.

  But when they did go the next day, they met with beautiful weather and plenty of fish, and the good lady maighdean mhara never put in an appearance at all.

  The belief has faded. Not in my own memory did anyone see the maighdean mhara, though I knew a man from the Island of Eriskay who did find a dead maighdean mhara on the beach and he described it very fully, and she was not long dead at all. He was remarking how beautiful her hair was, and how very much like a human woman she was except that she was fish from the waist down.

  Crodh mara – sea cattle

  Once upon a time there lived on the Island of Pabbay a crofter, and when he took over this croft he also took over the stock. And the stock consisted of one cow, and for another thing he was well equipped with a poit dhubh [illicit still]. He had a famous one. He was getting on beautifully – the old cow had a calf every year, and from the story it did not seem to me that the man had a family at all. He was getting on very well in Pabbay, selling the stock and all.

  One night, he and the wife were talking at the fireside.

  ‘Well Mary,’ he says, ‘I think we had better sell the old cow this year.’

  ‘Och man,’ says Mary, ‘no, I don’t think we will sell it at all. There is plenty of grazing on the island.’

  But he insisted on selling the cow.

  ‘Well,’ she says, ‘Donald, we were very very lucky that the old cow was there before us when we came to the island, and now from that cow we got our stock.’

  Well, Donald was keen to sell, and, ‘If we don’t sell it,’ he says, ‘we will kill her and salt her and have her for the winter.’

  Ah well, the old wife was
so fond of the cow she would not hear of that either, but she would rather kill her than see her leave the island altogether.

  Unfortunately the day came when Donald was about to kill the cow, and they were sitting at the fire again a few nights afterwards and they fully decided to kill it. Next day they would go down.

  Late through the night after they went to bed, they heard a lot of bellowing out in the barns and getting up they discovered that they had not got one single beast – they had all broken loose and left the island. Next day they searched and they searched the island and could not get a sight of any of the stock. Donald came to the mainland of Barra and told the story of his disaster. Then he went round the oldest people in the island to find out what was the matter, and if they could give him enlightenment why he lost the stock. And he discovered that the old cow, very mysteriously, came from a sea-bull who came ashore and had a connection with a cow from whom that cow was descended. And when the old cow heard the conversation between the master and the mistress (for it was customary in those days for the barn to be attached to the dwelling and in some cases under the same roof) she gave one loud bellow, and all the cows that were tied in the barn broke their tethers and went back into the sea, and the island was left derelict of cattle.

  Then Donald had to go to the mainland [of Barra] and buy a cow or two himself. And he could well afford it – he had the best poit dhubh on the island, and he had a tremendous stock of whisky hidden in a cave in the north-west corner of Pabbay. It was customary in those days for the exciseman to go round, and as Donald was knocking about one day putting another cask in, they caught him and the whole lot that was in the cave that Donald had had there for years maturing. The exciseman showed no mercy but hit the casks with the sledge hammer and commandeered the lucky ‘black pot.’ And the remains of that pot are on the Island of Pabbay still – when I was there I saw it myself.