Tales from Barra

by John Lorne Campbell

  * * *

  Now the island is derelict, nobody living on it. Fifty years ago there came a hurricane from the south–east and the only boat on the island was out on the fishing bank. People on the hills of Mingulay saw the boat swamped and nobody was ever living on the island since.

  The water-horse

  If you are staying at Northbay, the quickest way to get to the Loch an Eich Uisge is to follow the road by the plantation and go right on till you come to the bridge at Loch an Dùin. Then follow the stream going right up to the hill and that stream will take you to Loch an Eich Uisge. So anyone who will read this story can go on his own direct to the loch with these instructions.

  One fine summer day there was a bonny lassie herding her cows at the side of the Loch an Eich Uisge and lo and behold, she saw a most beautiful, charming fellow sleeping. And she went over, and so attractive was his head and the beauty of his hair, ‘I had better go and comb it,’ she said.

  Now the colour of the hair was interesting her very, very much, and when she further went into it she found the reeds that were in the loch, and that surprised her a lot. And she began to fear that he might be the water-horse in the shape of a good-looking man. Now she began to get very much afraid. The man’s head was in her lap and immediately an idea struck her to slip off her skirt and leave the skirt below the head and clear out. And that she did, and her tartan plaid was not far away from her and she flung the tartan plaid over her and she ran away and she ran for home.

  Well, then, the man woke and turned into a horse and to his great disappointment the lady was gone – and it was fully intended that she would be his victim – and getting into a furious rage, with his hooves he smashed a lot of stones and it is the quarrying he made in his terrible mood that is there to be seen to this day. So after that, never was the water-horse seen on the loch again.

  Uaimh an òir, the cave of gold

  There was always a traditional story in Barra that one could walk from Cliat on the west side of the island to Port an Dùine on the east side of the island. So a party set out, and there were two pipers and three dogs, to explore. And one of the pipers started to play the pipes at Cliat and – very peculiar – those that were following were hearing the pipes and keeping the course until they came to Port an Dùine, and the pipes then faded away and none of the party were ever discovered. How they met their fate no one knows, but the dogs that came out, they came out bare, without a hair from their nose to their tail; and what was the cause of that no one could form an opinion. But it is believed they met some queer folk below the island who killed the two pipers. And so the dogs could not tell what happened, and then they were showing no signs of recovery, the people decided to shoot them. Therefore there is no trace of what happened to the party.

  [This story is told of other places in the Highlands and Islands also. See Frances Tolmie, Gaelic Folksongs from the Isle of Skye, p. 157.]

  The story of the giant’s fist at Bagh Hartabhagh

  Once upon a time there lived three fishermen on the Island of Eriskay, and they started fishing lobsters – it was early in August. They were not fishing at Eriskay but at Bagh Hartabhagh. Seeing that they were a considerable distance from home, they built a shieling there before they went. Then they started to fish: they got on very well – plenty lobsters and plenty flounders. They were using flounders as bait for the lobsters, for the lobster is very fond of the flounder.

  They were getting on very well, and about the 15th August they were going to get new potatoes and this night they decided to rise early in the morning and get lugs for bait and bait the line, so that they would have done the whole job in the one day – that is, got the line down and got the lobster traps hauled and baited. Everything worked out to plan and they baited the line and set it and went to the creels and hauled, and there were a considerable number of lobsters. They went to their lines as they were on their way home and there were a smashing lot of flounders.

  There was a neighbour who had a lot of potatoes planted near the shieling, and he gave them permission to go to his lazy beds any time they wanted potatoes and fill their bag and use them. So the next day they thanked him very much, lifted the potatoes and took them home. They made a very early start again and this day they were finished early, and when they came home they boiled the flounders and the potatoes, and the furniture was very scanty in the shieling, so they spread the oilskin on the floor and capsized the flounders and potatoes out on to it. Now they were innocently cracking away, talking about the lobsters – how plentiful they were – and the flounders – how beautiful they were. And there they were, and at the same time going into the tuck that was on the peculiar table on the floor, and in the centre of the enjoyment the floor broke and a huge hand, an enormous hand, came through. And he was beginning to open his claws – the giant – and the three poor men stared at one another, eyes sticking out of their heads with fear, and they cleared out of the shieling and they did not give themselves time to close the door even, but the last fellow to look behind them saw the claws opening in and out. The boat was quite handy, and with all speed they ran down to the boat and made for home. They arrived at Eriskay, very much to the astonishment of the people at home, at arriving at such an unusual hour. Everyone told the story at their own home what happened, and the tremendous giant’s hand that came through the floor of the shieling, and so on.

  Next day they said to themselves, ‘Well, we will go back to the shieling, and if there is nothing wrong we will try it again. When they arrived at the shieling the door was exactly as they left it. They had a consultation and came to a decision that it was just a ghost, and if it came again they would not trouble any more – they would take the creels back to Eriskay. They put on the flounders again and the potatoes and they enjoyed them this night thoroughly and without any interruption. And they continued the whole season right to the end and they did not see the giant fist any more.

  [Bagh Hartabhagh in South Uist is a notorious place for ghosts.]

  Story of the ghost and the plank

  Once upon a time there was a man in Eriskay, and at the time I am talking about he was very old, and himself and his son and his grandson went out fishing to the Oitir. After putting down the lines they went ashore on the Island of Hellisay.

  There was a house empty on the island, recently evacuated by a shepherd who was evicted from the island. The old man was keen to get a plank, and peeping through the window he saw one which was used, by the shepherd who had lived there, for a bench in the house. So he decided to open the door, go in and take the plank out. Now he was going to take the plank down to the boat and a ghost met him and tried to take the plank from him – so between the old man and the ghost a struggle started.

  The father and the litde boy were in the boat, and so the father told the little boy: ‘Calum,’ he says, ‘go up as quick as you can and see if your grandfather is coming.’ So the boy jumped out of the boat and getting near the house he saw the grandfather and the ghost fighting about the plank. As soon as he came within range, the old man bawled out: ‘Calum! Calum! Go! Go to the boat and tell your father to come up and take with him the helm of the rudder – and tell him that I am fighting with the Devil.’

  And Calum ran as quick as ever he could and he bawled to his father, ‘Come! Come! My grandfather is fighting with the Devil!’ And the father replied, ‘Well,’ he says, ‘it is high time the Devil came and took your grandfather away – he should have taken him long ago!’ So he took the helm with him, the purpose for which he was to use the helm being as a weapon to split the Devil’s head. To show you that there was a little of the barbarian in the old fellow, he was going to put up a proper fight.

  Now as soon as Donald appeared – Donald was the name of the son – the ghost disappeared. And the old man seemed to be very tired, and he sat down on a rock. ‘And why,’ he says, ‘did you not come at once, before the Devil went away? – for I wanted to give him one with the helm that would knock him useless and sensele
ss and cripple him never to come back again!’

  Well, it appears that the ghost had some suspicion that he would have the worst of it when he saw the helm coming. They took the plank down with them to the boat and as they were very nearly at the boat there was an Eriskay boat coming ashore and they talked to one another. And one of the men said, ‘Well,’ he says, ‘this is very peculiar. Last night such and such a woman died in Eriskay and we were all the morning and up to now, round the shore looking for a plank to make a coffin for her and unfortunately we didn’t get any – and now that is a plank,’ he says, ‘that would do beautiful for a coffin. Will you give it to us?’

  And Donald says, ‘Certainly, yes. I will give you the plank for that purpose.’ So the plank changed hands and the men that were in the boat moved away at once and went back to Eriskay with the plank, and they started to make a coffin, and the old lady was put into it and buried, and never again did John see the ghost.

  And the mysterious part of the story is this: it is very queer how those Eriskay men failed to get any wood on the Island of Eriskay or round the Island of Hellisay that would do to make a coffin, until they came across the old man that was stealing the plank from the deserted house.

  Mary and George

  Once upon a time there lived on the Island of Eriskay, Mary, a bonny lassie, aged about nineteen. She fell in love with a sailor who had been away for many years from the island. He was keeping her company for well over a year, and unfortunately it happened that Mary discovered herself to be in a position in the near future of having a baby. And she became very, very unhappy. And it made matters worse when she discovered that Neil left the island without even calling to say goodbye. Mary became very broken-hearted and sick, and went into a decline – so much so that her parents, who did not know what was the matter, decided on sending Mary to some of her friends at Hellisay, to see if she would brush up and get better.

  Now this happened to be in May, at the time of the year when each crofter on the island had to keep a look-out to keep the cattle and sheep on the hill, in case they would destroy the crops growing – potatoes, oats, barley and such like. It happened now that the house to which Mary went, it was their turn to do the shepherding the next day, and Mary finding out the position volunteered to get up early, at sunrise, and look at the crops and see whether any sheep or cattle were doing any harm. The people in the house were very much against her doing so, but on no account would Mary obey, and then the mother of the house told her, when she was going out to take with her a bucket, and on returning that she would take home a bucket of water from the well, and she knew where the well was because she was there already the day she came.

  Mary went to the well, filled the bucket with water, put it on the track where she would get it when she came back. She made the rounds faithfully and dutifully, and saw that there were no sheep and no cattle among the corn, the oats or the potatoes. When she was on the high, very commanding hillock – which I know very well – lo and behold, all of a sudden there a beautiful lady appeared to her, and when Mary saw the lady, which she knew perfectly well was a stranger on the island, she felt very much afraid. The lady, seeing Mary’s thoughts, cautioned her not to be afraid – that she would do her no harm. The lady was a good-looking specimen of a lassie, with a green over-cape over her shoulders, her head beautifully combed and brown hair. Then she broke the news to her that she would have a baby within a period of nine months and that Neil would never marry her. Mary was very much downhearted when she heard that.

  At this time there was a full-rigged ship lying out in the Minch, just ahead of her, and Mary was thinking, ‘I wish I was aboard that ship, because Neil might be there.’ And the lady replied to the thoughts: ‘Do not put your thoughts so far away. Neil is not in that ship – and supposing he was, Neil will never marry you.

  ‘Now,’ she says, ‘Mary, I am going to tell you something of your future career, and anything I forbid you to tell you are not to tell it to any human being on the face of this earth. What I give you permission to tell you are at liberty to do so, any time you so desire. You will be living with your mother, very comfortable, and you will be living on the croft at the harbour of Eriskay, and your two brothers who are abroad sailing, making plenty of money, they shall never forget you – in fact, one of them will come home later on in life.’ When the lady was parting with Mary, she again vowed her not to tell anything which she told her not to tell. At the same time she said, ‘Goodbye, Mary, one of your race will see me yet.’

  After Mary settled down a bit on Hellisay she returned to the Island of Eriskay, and on Eriskay the baby was born. It was a little girl, and her name was Jean. When she grew up, Jean was a good-looking lassie herself. Now Mary used to tell some of the story about the lady she had seen on Hellisay in her younger days, but people were more or less not believing her. And it was not until the next person, George, saw the lady, that Mary began to tell more about it.

  After many years passed there was a man George, cousin to Mary, one day cutting rushes on the Island of Hellisay, along with John MacLeod and Dougall MacNeil. They were cutting rushes to thatch their houses, in the month of October. And George, who was a good man with a scythe, was cutting the rushes, while the others were taking it down in bundles to the shore. George was a school-mate of mine, and this is his account of how he saw the lady.

  ‘I was on Hellisay,’ he says. ‘I was cutting rushes with a scythe, with the fellows I have already mentioned, and,’ he says, ‘lo and behold, a good-looking lady stood beside me and I got such a terrible shock,’ he says, ‘at the appearance of the lady that the bonnet fell off my head. And the lady cautioned me, ‘Don’t be afraid.’ Well, Coddy, she began to speak to me and she said to me that I would soon be getting married and that I would have a nice family. And,’ he says, ‘she told me also that I would never get much of their benefit. Well, Coddy,’ he says, ‘I thought that they were going to turn out bad.’ (But that happened not to be the case. I can vouch with safety that they all turned out very well. Now George was following the life of a sailor, in which capacity he was a very capable man. One night in the North Sea it blew a hurricane and one of the boats broke adrift from the davits, with the result that George was instantaneously killed.)

  When George was parting with the lady she said, ‘Goodbye, George, one of your race will see me yet. And here’s a message,’ she says, ‘you will take to Mary in Eriskay.’ And she gave the message to George, and George faithfully gave the message to Mary. I was with George at his brother’s wedding in Eriskay. And at the time we were at the wedding George got an escort right out to the harbour where Mary was staying, to deliver the message. And the wonderful part of the story is that Mary knew that George was coming. So when he arrived at her house, she told the boys who were in her house having a céilidh to remove and go outside. Then she took George into her confidence and George told her the message that was sent to her from her old friend the lady, whom she had seen many years before that.

  Up to the time of writing, nobody else had the pleasure of seeing the lady.

  How Donald met the ghost of Alexander MacDonald, the famous bard

  There lived a man in Bruernish named Donald. For some reason or other he had to go to Lochmaddy to give evidence of a drowning accident in Castlebay. Steamers were not so plentiful in those days, and they went over the Sound of Barra and walked from Polacharra to Lochmaddy. Now after the court, they left a message that the same boat would take them home and they were going to meet them on such and such a date in Polacharra.

  In Lochmaddy Donald bought a knife – one of the knives that were very common in those days, called the ‘cock knife’ – there was a picture of a cock on the blade of the knife. Well, Donald went into a house in Carnan, Iochdar, South Uist, as he was married to the first cousin of the people who were staying in the house. First of all they were keen that Donald would stay the whole night, but he said that already he was behind the others and he would have to go in case the boa
t would go across from Barra to Polacharra and he was not there. And as I knew the man well I can say he was never known to be behind.

  Late in the night he started the journey of twenty-one miles on foot. He was at a place called Gerinish when, lo and behold, a very sturdy looking man popped up beside him, and immediately Donald saw him he spoke to him. There was no reply. And so the second move Donald took – he took out the knife and opened it, and said to himself, ‘Well, if you make any attempts to speak to me, you will find it will go in to the bird’ (about half the length of the knife). And so when he saw the knife the ghost disappeared without any more hesitation, and when Donald saw that, he said to himself, ‘Well, there is.no more use for the knife and I’ll put it in my pocket.’

  When the story went round it was found that it was very common to see the ghost round about there, because he was factor to MacDonald of Clanranald. And the very mysterious part of it, he was never seen again, and the story is still alive in South Uist that Mac Maighstir Alasdair was never seen after the Barraman threatened to stab him with the knife.

  [Alexander MacDonald lived from about 1700 to 1770. He was Baillie of Canna in 1751, the year he published his Gaelic songs, which are violently Jacobite in sentiment. Donald is not the only person who has seen his ghost in South Uist, nor the last. His brother, Lachlann MacDonald, had a tack of Dremsdale in the eighteenth century, and it is said his ghost has been seen, too.]