WEST HIGHLAND FOLK-LORE.
To the lover of quaint customs, carious legends, and odd bits of natural history, this book will be welcome, being purely the result of personal observation and close intercourse with the people'of the West Highlands, amongst whom the writer has long lived and laboured, written, too, with that entrain with
which a busy man throws himself into the favourite occupation of his leisure hours. The various papers contained in the volume were originally contributed to the Inverness Courier, and the author has shown judgment in being unwilling to sacrifice their freshness by materially changing their form. So well and widely known were the tastes and studies of the Minister of Balla- chulish, that many a curious fish and strange bird captured far beyond the limits of Nether Lochaber would find its way to the manse, and from the Moray Firth to the Clyde were to be found fishermen, foresters, keepers, and men of more singular crafts willing to impart to Mr. Stewart recondite mysteries which they concealed jealously from less trustwOrthy inquirers, as these humble friends were ever treated by him with a friendliness that deserved confidence. A visit from Donald Macdonald, the Ardgour fox-hunter, "with his quarterly budget of news from glen and upland, from hill and scanr, and den and copse," or one from Sandy MacArthur, the mole-catcher, was certain to furnish some precious bit of knowledge ; while a sail upon the loch or a tramp through the glens would be sure, in Mr. Stewart's case, not to result,in those blank pages which, to his great surprise, he not infrequently discovers in the note-books of brother-naturalists. Of old Gaelic MS., too, this writer seems to have a good store, and he every now and then gives us the translation of a poem, a fable, or a bit of quaint dog-rhyme. Some of the most remarkable of these Celtic verses are the "Bless- ings," so beautiful and striking, as the author justly says, in "the nearness with which they bring Heaven, and its active, ceaseless beneficence, to the very firesides and commonest affairs of men. Nothing is too small or in- significant to be placed,.not in a general way, observe, but in the most literal, particular sense, under the divine guardian- ship. With these old people, in their ocean-girt and storm- swept islands, God was • not merely the Creator, but the ever- present, ever near father, protector, and friend ; while to them his angels were in very truth ministering spirits, sent foith • Neshoir Lochaber. By the Rev. Alexander Stewart, P.S.A., Scot. Edinburgh William Patterson. to minister for them who shall- be heirs of* salvation,'— not merely in spiritual matters, we are to remark, but in all the affairs of common, every-day life. Since the days of the ancient Hebrews, nowhere shall we find so firm and fixed a belief in a direct and constant intercourse and communion for good between heaven and earth." Accord- ingly, we find a prayer to be said at covering up the fire at bed-time—this was taken down from the recitation of a man living at bear, of 'Mat—another to be repeated by each person on retiring to rest, and a third when driving cattle to pasture. In the' latter, "St. Patrick's own milkmaid" is prayed to attend the wanderers until safe and scathless they come home again ; and this mention of the Banachag, or dairymaid, gives rise to a curious note, namely, that the effects of the cow- pox were known in the Highlands long before Jenner's die- oovery, and the cows there being always milked by women, the latter are rarely, if ever, disfigured by small-pox, having already taken from their charges the milder form of disease. In the rural districts of England, on the contrary, where the men are often the milkers, it is they, and not the women, who enjoy this immunity.
Mr. Stewart has the happy knack of picking up a vast amount of information casually and incidentally. At one time, it is an angler who initiates him into the superiority for fishing pur- poses of brindled worms, and their propensity for exterminating the common earthworm wherever they may establish them- selves; at another, it is an old man carrying home a bundle of rushes who tells him how, in the days of his boyhood, all the people in the hamlet gave a day's work to the tenant of the adjoining farm for leave to gather the year's supply where- with- to make wicks for their lamps, the latter being usually a large buckie (whelk) shell filled with fish oil of home manufac- ture, and suspended by a string tied round it from a hook in the wall. "I recollect," said the old man, "that my father— God rest him !—who was a very economical man, and hated everything like extravagance or waste, allowed us just a shellful of oil for the winter's night. When that much was spent, we had to tell our tales, sing our songs, and go on with the work we might have in hand by such light as was afforded by the blazing peat ire, or let it alone till the next evening, just as we pleased," concluding with the declaration so common in the month of the aged, that people are less industrious, less truthful, and in every way more degenerate than those of former. times.
Among the odd bits of natural history in this book, we find some curious and noteworthy things. The weasel, for instance, besides being, as we all know, exceedingly vigilant and agile, is said to be, for its size and weight, the pluckiest and strongest of British quadrupeds, "and perhaps of all existing quadru- peds." It has been known to hunt and kill a hare by jumping on its back and seizing the cervical vertebra) be- tween its terrible teeth ; and a colony of these animals, being inadvertently disturbed by a labourer, attacked him so savagely as to inflict serious wounds before he was able to get assistance and protection. The otter, both wild and in a semi-domesticated state, comes in for observation ; the partially tamed animal which• belonged to an inn-keeper in Athole -used to catch fish for his own living and fer his master's pleasure, and was very docile, and fond of being stroked and petted, though he contrived to make his 'escape and return to freedom when an opportunity of doing so presented itself. This otter became very fond of his Stable companions the horses, and was on friendly terms with the dogs, cats, and pigs about the place, but had a perfect detestation of all feathered creatures, which he killed without mercy when he got the chance, although he never was known to eat one of them. The "dun otter" figures frequently in the ancient fireside tales of the Highlanders, and to this day is looked upon in the Hebrides with a kind of superstitious reverence, a bit of otter-skin worn about the person being highly esteemed as a charm. The water-rat has, it appears, only been seen in the West Highlands of late years ; but Mr. Stewart, who had the opportuity of studying its habits in Fifeshire in his early days, is firmly convinced that its diet is wholly vegetarian, and that this animal, like the hedge-hog, labours under very false accusations. We like his warm-hearted de- fence of persecuted creatures, for which reason we will give publicity to his discovery that there is nothing more useful to the floriculturist, whether for pots or borders, than earth from a molehill. For, as "the little gentleman in the black-velvet 'coat" lives entirely on worms and insect larva) which are found in the best soil, that which he throws to the surface while in
pursuit of his prey, finely pulverised and entirely free from the seeds of weeds as it will be found to be, is just in the state for producing the very best flowers.
2 propos of an immoral rook, which proved to be an inveterate and clever thief, watching the hen upon her nest, and stealing her egg day after day, to suck it afterwards at his own convenience, Mr. Stewart makes the oddest remark, namely, that cocks do not now-a-days crow as they used to do. What a happy discovery, were it but true, and how much trouble and anxiety might have been spared poor Jane Welsh Carlyle ! But if Mr. Stewart wants to make acquaintance with cocks that can and do crow, with "clear clarion note," we had almost said incessantly, let him invest in a few Langshans, and if he can stand their proximity there will be no fear for his nerves.
In speaking of fish, our author quotes from an old Fingalian tale the words, Rejoice, 0 my son, in the gifts of the seal for they enrich you, without making any one else the poorer." We fear, however, that not in our time will it be possible to repeat truthfully such a sentiment, for however lavish the gifts, they are sure to be unrighteously intercepted, the commoner sorts in par- ticular not being suffered to reach the consumer. Now precisely the common fish are most prized by those who ought to know their value best, and fishermen will often choose them for their own eating, rather than more expensive kinds, not from economy, but from dowhright preference ; they do not, how- ever, as a rule, like the ugly garfish, with its green bones, although they consider the dried wing of a skate the choicest of morsels. Among his fish stories, Mr. Stewart tells a curious one of a combat between a heron and an eel, resulting, strange to say, in victory for the latter ; and a better one of an eident Scotch farmer, who carted off fifty loads of jelly-fish as manure for his fields, and was not a little astonished to find that he had employed all his labour to procure a little sea-water. But our readers must turn over these entertaining pages for themselves ; only one more of the author's discoveries will we mention, for it is most unlikely that any one will find it out by his own experi- ence,—it is that an apple-tree in full bloom, seen by candle- light on a calm, dewy night, is one of the most beautiful sights to be imagined.
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