Tales from Barra

by John Lorne Campbell

  ‘Oh,’ says I, ‘the peats are so wet just now and my coal boat has not come, and it is under difficulties, and very severe difficulties, that I had to come today to take four bags of peat to Barra.’ I don’t know whether he took that with a grain of salt, anyway he made no further comment.

  We arrived and everybody went ashore. ‘Now,’ says I, ‘you are all going to leave me and the peats here, and nobody will give me a hand, after me taking you to Eriskay and back!’ No sooner was that order piped than the peats were ashore and the order obeyed very quickly.

  In a year’s time I told the story to the priest, that I had four cases of whisky among the peats which he had seen in the boat the night we came from Eriskay. ‘Ah, you rascal, and a great rascal too, I was always wondering why you were going off your course, instead of coming to Barra!’ he says. ‘You were steering right out into the Minch, to Canna I would say, or Rum.’

  Another tale of the Politician

  During the raids on the Politician one particular peculiar thing happened. One day there were three cases of whisky found in bags not far from where my boat was at anchor. Somebody discovered the bags and came and told me of it, and I said to the fellow, ‘Well, my dear boys,’ says I, ‘I don’t know who left them or who didn’t leave them there, but I will attend to them meantime, until I find further evidence who did leave them. But thank you for telling me, and don’t tell anyone you told me about them.’

  About four o’clock in the evening this man came back and asked me what happened to the whisky bags. ‘Nothing to my knowledge – I believe they are there yet,’ I replied. We looked over and there they were, and when the night closed down the bags were in safe hands!

  And this is an example of how the raiding of the Polly took place, and those that were not at the Polly at all sometimes were better off than those who went through a lot of difficulty acting the raiders. I will tell of an instance of how a man had his share hidden among the peats, and he was quite sure that no one would ever get hold of his lot, but one night he found himself very disappointed. And when the raiding party came and removed all that was there, one of them – a brilliant fellow – wrote a note and put it on one of the peat bags. ‘Dear Willy,’ it ran, ‘I am sorry to tell you that the remains have eloped!’ So those that got it in the end were not at the Polly at all.

  There was a woman down at the North end here and she had some friends at Castlebay. The Castlebay friends wrote her a note asking her to give the two children two bottles of whisky – a bottle each. And she replied to the note, ‘My dear Mary,’ she said, ‘I am sorry I have no whisky today to give you. The last I had, last night I bathed my feet in it, owing to the fact that I was severely bad with the rheumatism. But send down the children to-morrow and if all is well Donald will be at the Polly to-night and I am sure to be able to send you some.

  Other instances of this description did happen during the reign of the Polly.

  ________

  1 See page 60.

  Stories of sea monsters

  The capture of the huge basking shark

  In olden times Barra fishermen were famous for fishing the basking sharks and they had a harpoon for the job, and an axe and a huge coil of rope so that, when the crew were set, the harpoon-man was standing in the bow of the boat and he always harpooned the shark head on – he could not go near the shark’s tail because if he felt the harpoon was going into him he made a tremendous splash with his tail which would capsize a boat of no small size. And there was a man ready with an axe so that if the rope went foul, or anything went wrong, his job was with one stroke of the axe to cut the rope and the boat was clear. For it happened that some time before the time I am talking about, something went foul and the shark took the boat to the bottom.

  One day, off the shore of Mingulay, the men could see a basking shark not far away from the shore. So they mustered the crew and got ready the boat, got hold of the harpooner, and out they went. And with the first blow the man harpooned the shark – and as soon as ever the shark felt that happen, his effort was to go to the bottom at full speed and try to get the harpoon out of him. And he went down and rubbed himself on the bottom, but instead of it coming out, he let his whole weight on to it and it went deeply into him.

  Shortly afterwards, the shark came to the surface, and for the rest of the day he kept going round and round and latterly, when the evening was coming on, he made for the Sound of Mingulay, and the people of the island followed round and they saw the shark going far out into the Atlantic.

  At sunset they could see the boat and no word of coming back.

  Then they wept and returned home thinking that all hope was lost that the boat and the crew would never be seen again. It came late at night and they began to say their prayers. Latterly they had a sleep, and then one man happened to look out on the beach below the village and here was the boat and the shark and the crew! After some time through the night the shark changed its course and came to Mingulay exactly the way it went out, with the result that latterly he got tired and he beached himself on the sands at Mingulay. And the men were delighted to be ashore, and they had no trouble getting their knives ready and operated on the shark and took out of his body several casks of liver, and the catch was very valuable to them.

  The sea monster

  The story is from my father and from the people who were with him in the boat at the time.

  One day my father was on the west side of Barra fishing lobsters and it was in the herring fishing season, and lo and behold, they saw what they thought was a fleet of herring nets that were lost by a boat – it was that big. On going nearer to it, they discovered it was moving, and what they were thinking was buoys on the nets were not buoys at all, and they came to a decision that it must have been a tremendous beast. And some of the lumps were going down, and others coming up, and that led them to understand it was a monster, and an unusual monster, and they tried to get past it – which they managed – and they rowed to the shore as quickly as they could. Well, they were so terrified that they could not even look behind them, but the last look they gave, there were only two bits of the monster showing and then it went down, and never after or before were any of the fishermen working in that place or in that direction seeing it again. And after hearing so much about monsters nowadays it is very probable it was a sea monster – of what nature nobody can say.

  Another sea monster

  Now the crew of the fishing-boat Fly-by-Night was herring fishing and that evening I am going to talk about particularly they were about thirty-three and a quarter miles off Barra Head, on the famous ground called Stanton Bank. There was not a breath of wind and they began to shoot the nets with the assistance of the oars. There was no motor of any description, with the result they had to shoot the nets with their oars. When the nets were shot and everything was still and calm they were on top almost of Stanton Bank and they heard a fearful moaning from a sou’westerly direction and they all looked at each other with astonishment, wondering what was this moaning. Then shortly afterwards they saw at the stern of the boat a tremendous beast breaking the water, and this beast, which was horrible to look at with the size of it, put its paws on the very deck of the stern of the fishing-boat. They all looked at each other and did not know what to say and one of them cried out, ‘Get a bucket of fire from the stove.’ and they took the bucket of fire and they gave it to the beast right in the head and in the eyes and the moment the beast felt the heat he went down to the very bottom and fortunately he did not make another attempt to put in an appearance.

  Had not these men acted so quickly and thrown the bucket of fire on, more than probably the whole boat would have been sunk.

  Now they set about hauling the gear. They started to haul their nets – they had about forty or fifty out – and when it was finished there was nothing else for them to do. There was no wind – they had to lie there and still the beast had every opportunity to come to the surface again and attempt to board them, but she did not. And
when the wind broke out, they put all the sails they had up, three sails – the fore-sail, the mizzen and the jibsail – and they made for Castlebay as fast as the wind would drive them.

  That is the story of the monster that was seen thirty-three and a quarter miles off Barra.

  [For a description of various sea monsters which have been seen at different times, see Willy Ley, The Lungfish, the Dodo and the Unicorn, Chapter 7, ‘The great Unknown of the Seas.’]

  Fairies, second sight and ghost stories

  How time was lost in the fairy knoll

  Once upon a time, in the village of Brevig, there lived a man who very often went round the shores to look for any treasures from the sea. In the days I am talking about, shipwrecks were more numerous than the present day.

  There is a place round the Ru’Mór called Port an Dùine: this used to be a famous creek for catching whatever might have been blown ashore. Now this day it happened that it was a sou’easterly wind, and a good wind for anything going that would land in Port an Dùine. He stood above the Port, and seeing nothing except a human jawbone with beautiful white teeth. The jawbone drawing his attention very much, he went down to the sea, picked it up and examined it, and said to himself that it was the finest set of teeth that he had ever seen – and at that stage he threw it away, and walked up.

  And while he was walking up, a few yards distant on the grass he heard music, pipe music of the finest order; and going closer to it he found a stone there, and when he turned the stone he saw that there was a stairway going down, and he walked down. And there was the piper, dressed in kilts and playing the pipes – an old grey-headed man beautifully dressed in the green, with silver-buckled shoes. As soon as the stranger came in, he was cordially invited to sit up at the fire, and this the man did. And then the music continued.

  Food was prepared for him which he did enjoy very much and after what appeared to him to be a short time with the fairy he was told that he could not stay any longer and that he had to go away. And the man walked up the stair on which he came down and was told that when he got up to the top he must turn the stone and put it in the same position as he found it.

  He then faced home round the Point, and to the home he left behind him what he thought was a few hours ago. Lo and behold, when he arrived in the house there was nothing in it but bracken, rushes and nettles, and no sign of human habitation at all. That is the very wonderful part of the story – happening in so short a time. Looking about him, he was very much put about and he did not know what to say, but he came to a decision that he must have been inside a fairy knoll. Looking about him he could see no houses except a house a considerable distance from him, and he made a bee-line for the house.

  Inside that house was a cobbler repairing boots, in accordance with the custom of that day. The cobbler appeared to be a very old man, and, ‘Come in,’ he says, ‘you are a stranger.’

  ‘Yes, I am a stranger.’ he says, and he began to tell him when he left and how he went round the Ru’ Mór, the shore, and to Port an Dùine. And then the cobbler halted and began to ransack his mind and first he said that he never heard of the man; but latterly he said, ‘Yes, now I remember. I remember seeing my great-grandfather, and he heard from his father than an old man went round the shore at the Ru’ Mór and he never came back. And so you must be the man that I heard of from my great grandfather now.’ And they left it at that decision, and the man who was in the fairy knoll sat on the end of the bench and he found himself getting very feeble.

  Now at that stage he was getting weaker and weaker, and he asked the cobbler to send a message if he could to Eoligarry, to the church that was built in the days of St Columba, and from there came a priest. He gave the man that was in the fairy knoll last rites and as soon as that was done – very peculiar – he crumpled down, a lump of earth.

  John the postman and the fairies

  I am now going to tell you a fairy story – I am sure one of the last stories about fairies that were seen on Barra. There was a postman in Bolnabodach called John and he was appointed postman after the ferryman stopped crossing the Sound of Barra with letters and the steamer service began to carry the mails. Now his mother was dangerously ill and he was asked to go through the night to fetch a priest, but he was afraid to do it. But, however, as soon as daylight set in, he left his home and went across the hills to Craigston, where the priest was. And it was then getting very nearly sunrise. And when he climbed up to the very top of the hill the sun had risen. He was looking about him and looking towards Heaval, a place called the Glaic Ghlas (the Green Valley) when he saw a lot of little men and women running about in and out of a rock there. First he thought that they were people milking cows and on second thoughts he considered that he was too early in the morning for milking cows. Then they disappeared altogether at one instant and then again they were more numerous than ever; and so that continued for some time until he came to the conclusion, ‘Well, they must be fairies,’ he says, ‘because people are not milking cows at this time of the morning at all.’

  He hurriedly went on and made a bee-line for the priest’s house at Craigston, and the priest put his head out of the window and asked him where he was going and he told him. ‘Well, better go over,’ he says, ‘and tell the servant to get the pony ready for me, and I won’t be very many minutes.’ So John told the servant to get the pony ready and he went before the priest as he was sure that the priest would overtake him with the pony.

  Now some way on the road he was taken up by the priest and they began to talk and John told the priest what he had seen. And first of all the priest said, ‘Well,’ he says, ‘they might have been people milking cows.’

  ‘And that is what I thought myself,’ said John, ‘at first, until I saw every one of them disappear and then, all of a sudden, they came out again. But now I am perfectly confident that they were not anybody but fairies.’

  And so the priest said, ‘Well,’ he says, ‘it is many years since I heard of any fairies being seen on Barra, and I am satisfied that that was them.’ So that is the very last fairies that were seen on the Island of Barra.

  [They have been seen since. For a description of the fairy world, see Kirk’s Secret Commonwealth; also Wentz, The Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries, which includes stories from Barra.]

  The fairy wedding on Hellisay

  Once upon a time there was born on the Island of Hellisay a man called Angus. He was one evening standing in the yard among the haystacks and he saw a brilliant light across the water shining, and immediately a whole lot of people began to run in and out of a knoll – so well-dressed that he came to a decision that it must be a wedding; and the music was so wonderful, he never heard anything else to come near it. Sometimes he would see a pair coming out after dancing, talking and more or less appearing to Angus to be sweethearts. Angus was enjoying the scene very much.

  Now it was customary at a Highland wedding, when it was getting late, for a woman to be told off to take the bride and a man to take the bridegroom. And when these had gone out, two others would immediately take their places and the dancing was carried on – and this was a position of great pride, to be asked to take their places. So now it was getting near bed-time and the bride was attended by the bridesmaid and the groom was attended by a best man, and then it came to the point where they were sent to bed and that was done. And to complete the custom of the day, there was a big bottle of whisky put below the pillow, and a big lump of cheese on the table – and as far as I could see they were well equipped!

  Well, latterly it was very nearly daylight before they dismissed and Angus thought that the whole ceremony took only a matter of minutes. And the music so beautiful, and the dancing so excellent that he was in fairyland without a doubt.

  Angus died last year [1951] at the ripe age of 102, and that is his description of a fairy wedding – and the only description ever I heard from any man or woman of seeing such a thing on the Island of Barra.

  [Hellisay is an island off the
north-east of Barra. It is no longer inhabited. I collected the place-names of Hellisay in 1937 from Murchadh an Eilein, who was born there. He told me of a certain flagstoney that unless a dish of milk was left there the people were liable to find that the fairies had driven their cattle on to an inaccessible promontory.]

  The man taken from Canna by the sluagh or fairy host

  Once upon a time there was a man on Mingulay called Neil, and he was a great rock climber, and one night he was climbing the biggest cliff in Mingulay and he came against trouble – he came to a point that he could not pass and he then got afraid that if he tried it he might come down the precipices and down into the water. Now he was talking to himself, wondering what to do, and thinking that he was getting hungry, and the thought went through his head, ‘Well, be it who it likes, even the Devil, I will volunteer to be his if he takes me out of this difficulty.’ And immediately the thought had gone through his head he found himself on the top of the cliff, and the voice told him, ‘Now,’ it says, ‘any time I want you, you will be ready to go with me, for I saved your life to-night, and bear in mind, that means you are mine for ever.’