Superstition in Scotland.
Holy wells. Belief in the Devil. Growth of the rigid observance of the
Sabbath. Efforts of kirk-sessions and presbyteries to enforce Jewish
strictness in regard to the Sabbath. Illustrations of the effects of
these efforts.
Although ever since the
Reformation the clergy have done their best to eradicate the pagan
superstitions, which were alluded to in a previous chapter, traces of
these superstitions have survived down to the present day in the
Highlands. Even so late as the beginning of last century, people in the
Lewis continued to make offerings of mead, ale, or gruel, to the God of
the Sea. A man at midnight between Wednesday and Thursday walked
waist-deep into the sea, poured out the offering and chanted the
following prayer:
O god of the sea
Put weed in the drawing-wave
To enrich the ground
To shower on us food.
Those behind the offerer
took up the chant and wafted it along the midnight air.
An interesting account of the surviving Highland superstitions will be
found in two recently published volumes by the late Rev. John Gregorson
Campbell, parish minister in the island of Tiree, who devoted himself
with unwearied enthusiasm to collect the fading customs and traditions
of the Hebrides and the Western Highlands.2 In my early wanderings over
Skye I came upon many relics of the pagan period. At Kilbride, for
example, one is reminded of a pre-Protestant or even a pre-Christian
past by the tall rude standing stone known as the Clach na h-An-nait, or
stone of Annat, a name which, by some Gaelic scholars, is thought to be
that of a pagan goddess, though by others it is regarded as a term of
the early Celtic Church, applied to a chapel where the patron-saint was
educated, or where his relics were kept. Near the obelisk is the Tobar
na h-Annait, or Annat’s well.
The fairies once formed an active and important community among the
population of Strath. One of their chief abodes was underneath a large
green mound in the middle of the valley, called after them Sithein (Sheean).
Such fairy dwellings were looked upon with veneration; and it was a
popular belief that the ‘people of peace’ who lived in them liked to
have them kept scrupulously clean. Hence to remove the droppings of any
horses or cattle that had strayed upon the rich green sward was believed
to be a grateful deed to these beings, who would manifest their
thankfulness by some significant reward to the thoughtful cotter who
took the pains to do it. With the acknowledged example of the fairies
before them, I never could quite understand how the West Highlanders
could themselves live in such conditions of dirt and untidiness as have
been so long prevalent among them.
The top of the Sithein of Strath is crowned with a few gnarled, stunted,
storm-blasted black-thorns, like a group of shrivelled carlines
stretching out their arms towards the east. These trees, or rather
bushes, have undergone no appreciable change since I first saw them half
a century ago, and I was told by the minister that they had not altered
at all in his time, so that they must have stood, much as they are now,
for more than a hundred years. If one first comes upon these weird forms
in the mist of a stormy evening, when they seem to remain motionless,
though the wind howls down the valley of Strath Suardil, one can easily
realise how they might be connected in popular belief with the
mysterious beings of another world. The fairy cattle, or red deer, live
up in the corries of the Red Hills. On the top of one of these eminences
a carline lies buried under a cairn and the hill is named after her,
Beinn na Cailleach.
Near the house of Kilbride, a spring or well has been said, for more
than two hundred years, to contain a single live trout. It is mentioned
by Martin in his Description of the Western Islands of Scotland, written
at the end of the seventeenth century, where he states that the fish had
been seen for many years, and the natives, though they often caught it
in their wooden pails, were careful to preserve it from being destroyed.
The minister assured me that there was still a trout in the well,
whether the same as that spoken of by Martin, he could not affirm. I
must confess that I was never able to catch a sight of this legendary
fish.
As in Ireland, springs or wells in the Highlands, not improbably famous
even in pagan times, have often been subsequently dedicated to Celtic
saints, and have long, been credited with medicinal or miraculous
healing powers. There used to be a number of such wells in Skye, which
were visited by the sick and the maimed, who went round them three times
dciseal, that is, with the sun, or from east to west, and drank of the
water or bathed the injured limb with it. On retiring they always left
by the side of the spring, or on its overhanging tree, some little
offering, were it only a torn bit of rag. On the mainland some of the
holy wells, or saints’ wells, are still objects of pilgrimage from a
distance. Thus the well of St. Maree, or the Red Priest, on a little
islet in Loch Maree, still attracts its patients, and the trees that
overshadow it are hung with tags of rag and ribbon which they have
placed there as votive offerings. This tribute of recognition doubtless
dates back to pagan times. It was adopted by the Celtic and then by the
Roman Catholic Church, and in spite of the denunciations of the
reformers and their successors, it is rendered still by presbyterians,
who give it from the mere force of custom. Some years ago, while boating
along the coast south of the Sutors of Cromarty, I was struck with the
strange appearance of a tree that overhung the upper part of the beach.
From a distance it. seemed to be decked with blossoms or leaves of
black, white, red, and other colours. On landing I found that these were
bits of rag hung up by the pilgrims who had come to drink of the saint’s
well that gushed forth under the shadow of the tree. In the same region
the well of Craiguck, parish of Avoch, has long been a place of annual
resort on the first Sunday of May, old style. The water used to be taken
in a cup and spilt three times on the ground before being tasted, and
thereafter a rag or ribbon was hung on the bramble-bush above the
spring.
In connection with this subject, it may be mentioned here that some
years before his death, the late Mr. Patrick Dudgeon, of Cargen in
Kirkcudbright, told me that he had cleared out one of these holy or
pilgrim wells on his property, which had fallen into disuse, though
still occasionally visited for curative purposes. Among the stuff which
had gathered on the bottom of the pool, a large number of copper coins
was found, extending in date from the reign of Victoria back to the
times of the Stuarts. The surfaces of the coins had in many cases been
dissolved to such an extent as to reduce the metal to little more than
the thinness of writing paper. Yet so persistent was the internal
structure superinduced by the act of minting that, even in this
attenuated condition, the obverse and reverse could still be deciphered.
Another superstitious belief of which I found lingering traces in Skye
was that of the water-horse (Each Uisge) and the water-bull (Tarbh Uisge).
These fabulous creatures were believed to inhabit some of the lakes in
the lonely moorland of the south of Strath. I could not find anybody who
had actually seen one, but the belief in their existence was by no means
confined to ‘ the superstitious, idleheaded eld.’ I was told that the
water-horse had a special fondness for young women, and would seize them
and carry them off into the lake, whence they were never more seen. No
young woman in the parish would venture near one of these sheets of
water, except in daylight, and not without fear and trembling even then.
Relics of old superstitions could be noticed, sometimes even among the
details of domestic management in the houses of intelligent people.
At Kilbride they would not make butter at a certain state of the moon.
In like manner they took care that the peats should only be cut when the
moon was on the wane. Though the reason alleged was that the moon must
influence the milk, just as much as it did the tides, there could be
little doubt that the habit was a relic of the same pagan belief which
survives in bowing to the new moon and turning a coin in her honour. The
prejudice against the sow as an unclean animal survived in full vigour.
Not only were no pigs kept at Kilbride, but, so far as I was aware, no
ham, pork, or bacon ever formed part of the commissariat of the house.
While the reformed clergy endeavoured to uproot the ancient
superstitions, they at the same time were engaged in rivetting upon the
people other forms of superstition destined to exercise much more
pernicious effects than those they replaced. One of these was their
doctrine of the Devil and his doings, and another the enforcement of the
views which they gradually adopted as to Sabbath observance.
Much has been written on the subject of the Devil and his influence in
religion^jmythology, superstition, and literature, as well as on
topographical features. The subject is discussed from a historical point
of view in the learned volumes of Professor Roskoff of Vienna; but there
is probably still room for a dissertation on the part which the* Devil
has played in colouring the national imagination of Scotland. As is well
known, all over the country instances may be found where remarkable
natural features are assigned to his handiwork. Thus we have ‘ Devil’s
punchbowls ’ among the hills and ‘Devil’s cauldrons ’ in the
river-channels. Perched boulders are known as ‘Deil’s putting stanes,’
and natural heaps and hummocks of sand or gravel have been regarded as
‘Deil’s spadefuls.’ Even among the smaller objects of nature a
connection with the enemy of mankind has suggested itself to the popular
mind. The common puff-ball is known as the ‘Deil’s snuff-box’; some of
the broad-leaved water-plants have been named ‘Deil’s spoons’; the
dragonfly is the ‘Deil’s darning-needle.’ Then the unlucky number
thirteen has been stigmatised as the ‘Deil’s dozen,’ and a perverse
unmanageable person as a ‘Deil’s buckie.’
In association with witches and warlocks Satan plays a leading part in
the legends, myths, and superstitions of the country. The general
popular estimation of him in Scotland has never been so admirably
expressed in words as by Burns, more particularly in his Address to the
Deil. But even in his day ocular proofs of the evil spirit’s presence
and activity were becoming scanty, and the poet had to rely partly on
the testimony of his 'rev’rend grannie.’ In the interval since that poem
was written, now nearly a century and a quarter ago, the belief in a
personal devil, ready to present himself as a hairy monster with a tail,
cloven feet, and horns—‘Auld Hornie, Satan, Nick, or Clootie ’—has still
further faded. The late Dr. Sloan of Ayr, however, told me that in the
year 1835, after he came out from making the post-mortem examination of
a poor miner who was taken out alive from a coal-pit near the village of
Dailly, after having been shut up for three weeks without food, but who
died three days after his rescue, he was accosted by some of the older
miners with the question, ‘Did ye fin’ his feet?’ The doctor had to
confess that he had not specially looked at the man’s feet, whereat the
miners went off with a knowing expression on their faces, as much as to
say, ‘We thought you had not, for if you had, you would have found them
to be cloven hoofs. We believe that the body was not that of our John
Brown, but the Devil himself, who had come for some bad purpose of his
own.’ Although even the most superstitious cotter in the loneliest
uplands of the country would hardly expect it to be possible now that
the Devil should waylay him at night, relics of this belief may be found
in the language of to-day, especially in the imprecations prompted by
anger or revenge. Various versions have been given of an illustrative
incident which I have been told really occurred at a slim wooden
foot-bridge over the river Irvine in Ayrshire. An ill-tempered man was
crossing the bridge, when a dog, coming the opposite way, brushed
against his leg. ‘ Deil burst ye,’ exclaimed he. Immediately behind him
came a woman, and as they were nearly across the bridge a small boy,
trying to press past the man on the narrow pathway, was greeted with the
same angry imprecation. The little fellow drew back, but was encouraged
by the voice of the woman behind, who called out to him, 'Never fear, my
wee man, come on here oiitowre. The Deil canna harm ye eenoo, for he’s
thrang on the ither side o’ the brig burstin’ a dog.’
Occasionally the apparition of a dark hairy body crowned with a pair of
horns has received a natural explanation, but not before revealing the
innate belief in the designs and power of the Prince of Darkness. There
used to be a goat in Greenock which occasionally escaped from its
enclosure, and prowled about the streets in the dark. On one of these
occasions, in the midst of its perambulations, it came to an outside
stair, which it thereupon ascended. At the top of the short flight of
steps stood the closed door of a room wherein an elderly couple were
asleep in bed. Nannie, being of an inquisitive turn, and having some
experience of gate-fastenings, easily succeeded in opening the door and
entering the room. The fire still gave a low ruddy light, and the goat
at once descried a tin pitcher, at the bottom of which there remained
some milk over from the frugal supper of the little household.' The
animal had forced its nose so well down in order to lap the last drops,
that when it raised its head it brought up the pitcher firmly clasped
round it, and the handle fell with a thump against the metal. The crash
awoke the old woman, who in the dim light could see a pair of horns and
a hairy body. Thinking it was the arch enemy that had come for her, she
called out imploringly, ‘O tak’ John, tak’ John; I’m no ready yet.’
The adjective ‘devilish’ has in recent times come to be used by many in
the humbler walks of life as almost synonymous with wonderful,
extraordinary, supernatural; as may be illustrated by ‘the ejaculation
of a Paisley workman, who with a companion ascended to the top of
Goatfell in Arran. He had never conceived anything so impressive as the
panorama seen from that summit, with its foreground of serrated crests
and deep glens. After the first silence of amazement, he exclaimed to
his friend,
*Man, Tam, the works o’ God’s deevilish.’
It is an interesting study to trace among the records of kirk-sessions
and presbyteries the gradual growth of strict Sabbath observance until
it became a kind of fetish. The first reformers enjoyed their relaxation
on Sunday, and for many years after the' old system had been displaced
by the new, the youth of the country continued to play their pastimes
after church hours. Markets were still held on Sunday, and in many
places plays were performed, especially that of Robin Hood. But after
the establishment of the reformed religion in 1560 these amusements and
employments came to be frowned upon more and more by the clergy, who by
persistent efforts succeeded in securing a succession of Acts of
Parliament which made Sabbath-breaking an offence punishable by a civil
magistrate. Delinquents were everywhere brought up before kirk-sessions
and subjected to church discipline, while, if they proved impenitent
sinners, they might be handed over to the civil power for more condign
treatment. Nevertheless, in spite of the stringency of these
regulations, the ecclesiastical authorities had to undertake a long
struggle before they finally uprooted the effects of the usage of many
centuries, and succeeded in impressing on the mind of the general
community the belief that what they called ‘ violating the Sabbath-day ’
was an act of moral turpitude that could only be expiated by exemplary
punishment and public confession of penitence. Under the head of this
violation were included some of the most natural and innocent habits.
Men were warned that not only must they refrain from all ordinary
week-day work, but that they must not take a walk on Sunday, either in
town or country, save to and from church. They must not sit at their
doors, but remain within. They were expected to maintain a solemn
demeanour; laughing, whistling, or any other sign of gaiety or frivolity
being rigidly proscribed. They might not bathe, or swim, or shave. They
were forbidden to visit each other, to water their gardens, to ride on
horseback, or to travel in any other fashion. They must attend each
church service; if they failed to appear, they were searched out by
church officers deputed for the purpose, and were subject to
ecclesiastical censure. In short, the first day of the week was one on
which all mirth was expelled from the face and all joy from the heart,
and when a funereal gloom settled down upon everybody.
Sabbath-breaking, as defined by this inquisitorial code of observance,
was exalted into a crime more heinous even than theft. Thus, an entry in
the Register of the Presbytery of Dingwall, of date 30th July, 1650,
records that the case of Alexander M'Gorrie and his wife, within the
parish of Kilmorack, had been referred to the Presbytery for censure,
the charge being ‘profanation of the Sabbath by stealling imediatelie
efter the receaueing of the sacrament.’
The diligence with which the ecclesiastical authorities pursued their
quest after Sabbath-breakers is well illustrated by the Register of the
Kirk-Session of St. Andrews. During the latter half of the sixteenth
century infinite trouble appears to have been taken to establish what
the Session was pleased to term ‘the cumlye ordour of this citie.’ The
fleshers (butchers) proved especially incorrigible. Though they had been
often cited and admonished, they had ‘nocht obeyit the sam, bot
contemptuusly refusit to obey.’ At last these recalcitrant parishioners
were made the subject of a stringent decree whereby, if they did not
thereafter keep holy the Sabbath day, they, their wives, children, and
servants would be debarred from all benefit of the Kirk, and might
further be excommunicated. Nevertheless, even the vision of these dire
pains and penalties did not prevent an occasional transgression. Some
years later one of the fleshers was summoned for putting out skins upon
the causeway on Sunday—a practice which had formerly been general in his
craft. He admitted the accusation, but stated that the fault had been
committed, without his knowledge, by his servant. He was required to
dismiss that servant, and to undertake that none of his servants in
future should do the same, otherwise he would have to pay the penalty
himself. There is an interesting entry in the Register, showing how far
back the attractions of golf can be seen to have led men to neglect
their duties. On the 19th December, 1599, it is recorded that the
brethren ‘ understanding perfytlie that divers personis of thair number
the tyme of sessioun passis to the fieldis, to the goufe and uthir
exercise, and hes no regard for keiping of the sessioun, for remeid
quhairof it is ordinit that quhatsumevir person or personis of the
session that heireftir beis fund playand, or passis to play at the goufe
or uthir pastymes the tyme„of sessioun, sail pay ten s. for the first
fault, for the secund fault xxs., for the third fault public repentance,
and the fourt fault deprivation fra their offices.’
It is curious to note that rigid enforcement of Sabbath observance was
not effected on the north side of the Highlands for somewhere about a
century and a half after it had been secured in the Lowlands on the
south side. The proximity of the wilder Celtic population, on the one
hand, and the existence of a considerable leaven of Episcopalian
Protestantism in the community, on the other, probably had a large share
in retarding the progress of the movement. The northern clergy
themselves were not averse to sharing in the innocent amusements of
their people. Marriages and funerals continued to be performed on
-Sunday, and to be accompanied, even in the case of the lyke-wakes, with
festivities that sometimes reached a scandalous excess. Against these
customs, which had come down from Catholic times, the kirk-sessions and
presbyteries waged incessant war, but probably not until the extinction
of the rebellion of 1745 and the abolition of the heritable
jurisdictions, with the consequent freer commingling of the north with
the south of Scotland, did the Sabbatarian spirit which had become
rampant in the Lowlands reach the intensity with which it has maintained
its sway in the north for the last three or four generations.
It has been suggested that this increasing strictness of observance
arose from the desire of the clergy to obtain a greater hold on the
minds and consciences of the people. According to this view they are
believed to have found that the restoration of the Jewish Sabbath, with
its prohibitions and injunctions, would serve their purpose, and ‘being
precluded by various circumstances of their situation from having
recourse to the expedients of the Catholic priests to gain possession of
the minds of the votaries, they have exerted all their power by its
means to attain this object.’ It has been further asserted that ‘these
are the reasons why we hear more of the heinous crime of
Sabbath-breaking than of all other vices together.’
Obviously it was not in human nature to keep always within the strict
letter of such an artificial code of conduct. Joyousness of heart, so
long as it was unquenched, could not be restrained from smiles and
laughter, or from showing itself in song. The temptation to the young
and happy to escape from imprisonment within the four walls of a house
into the country, amongst birds and flowers and trees, must have been
often wholly irresistible. Lapses from the strict rules of conduct laid
down for observance were inevitable; and since, as Butler observed
nearly two centuries and a half ago,
In Gospel-walking times The slightest sins are greatest crimes, such
lapses, when repeated, tended to harden the mind in transgression.
Sabbath-breaking being held up as so heinous a sin, the transition came
to be imperceptibly made to the breaking of the moral laws, which
according to the current dogmatic teaching did not seem to be more
imperatively binding. ‘ Hence it is,’ as has been pointed out, ‘ we
continually find culprits at the gallows charging the sin of
Sabbath-breaking, as they call it, with the origin of their abandoned
course of life; and there can be no doubt that they are correct in so
doing.’
This excessive zeal for a strict observance of Sunday has been regarded
as a special characteristic of Calvinistic communities. But it does not
seem to have reached anywhere else the height of intolerance which it
maintained, and to a great extent still maintains, in Scotland.
Doubtless the prevalent Sabbatarianism was in Sidney Smith’s mind when
he called Scotland ‘ that garret of the earth —that knuckle-end of
England—that land of Calvin, oat-cakes, and sulphur.’ And it may have
been Byron’s recollections of sanctimonious Sundays in Scotland, as well
as in England, that inspired his exclamation:
‘Whet not your scythe, Suppressors of our vice! Reforming Saints ! too
delicately nice!'
By whose decrees, our sinful souls to save,
No Sunday tankards foam, no barbers shave;
And beer undrawn, and beards unmown, display
Your holy reverence for the Sabbath-day.’
An octogenarian friend has told me that he believes he was the first man
in Edinburgh to make a practice of taking a Sunday walk. He remembers
that on some of these occasions he was accompanied by a well-known
professor in the University, who besought him not to get back to the
town until the church-goers had safely returned to their houses from
afternoon service, as he was afraid of the public odium he might draw
down not only on himself, but on the University. I myself recollect when
it was a common practice to pull down the window blinds on Sunday, in
order that the eyes of the inmates might be hindered from beholding
vanity, and that their minds might be kept from wandering away from the
solemn thoughts that should engage them. There was one lady who carried
her sanctimonious scruples so far that she always rose a little earlier
than usual on Sunday morning, and took care, as her first duty, to carry
a merry-hearted and loud-throated canary down to the cellar that its
carol might not disturb the quiet and solemnity of the day. It was
considered sinful to use any implement of ordinary weekday work. Hence
though a servant might perhaps scrape away with her fingers the earth
from the roots of potatoes in the garden, if these were unexpectedly
wanted for the Sunday dinner, on no account could a spade or graip be
used to dig them up expeditiously. In the same spirit, a lad might be
employed for half an hour on a Sunday morning in laboriously carrying
armfuls of turnips or other vegetables for feeding the cattle, but he
could not be allowed to use a wheelbarrow with which he could have done
the whole work in a few minutes. As it was a heinous offence to write
letters on Sunday, people used to sit up till midnight; what would have
been a sin before the clock struck twelve, became quite legitimate
thereafter.
Happily this rigidity is gradually being relaxed, except perhaps in
parts of the Highlands. How it looks to an observer from outside may be
illustrated from some of my own personal experiences.
In the summer of the year 1860, 'I found that the strict maintenance of
the Highland view of Sabbath observance might have had serious
consequences for myself. In company with my old chief, Sir Roderick
Murchison, I had walked on a Saturday from the head of Loch Torridon,
through the wild defile of Glen Torridon, to Loch Maree. Along the
mountain slopes that sweep upwards from the southern side of that
valley, I noticed so many features of interest, some of which, if
further and more closely examined, might help to clear up problems of
Highland geology for the. solution of which we were seeking, that I felt
I must ascend these mountains and look at their crests and corries. But
we were pressed for time, and although next day was Sunday I determined
to devote it to the quest. The morning broke auspiciously, and ushered
in one of the most superb days which I have ever been fortunate enough
to meet with in the West Highlands. As it was desirable to save time and
fatigue by driving some six miles to the point of the road nearest to
the ground to be traversed, a request was made for a dog-cart. But the
answer came, that it was the Sabbath, and nobody would drive a ‘ machine
’ on the Lord’s Day. There was no objection, • however, to allow the use
of a dog-cart, nor to charge for the same in the bill (for Highland
innkeepers, like Dryden’s Shimei, ‘ never break the Sabbath but for gain
’); we must, however, do the driving ourselves. It was accordingly
arranged that Sir Roderick’s valet should drive me to the place and
return with the vehicle, leaving me to make my tramp and find my way
back to the inn on foot. The fresh buoyant air of the mountains; the
depth of the glens with their piles of old moraines; the ruggedness and
dislocation of the cliffs and slopes; the utter solitude of the scene,
broken only now and then by the bound of a group of red deer, startled
from a favourite corrie, or by the whirr of the snowy ptarmigan; the
ever-widening panorama of mountain-sumrhit, gorge, glen,-and lake, as
each peak was gained in succession; and then from the highest crest of
all, the vista of the blue Atlantic, with the faint far hills of the
Outer Hebrides and the nearer and darker spires of Skye—all this, added
to the absorbing interest of the geology, filled up a day to the brim
with that deep pleasure of which the memory becomes a life-long
possession. The sun had sunk beneath the western hills before I began to
retrace my steps, and night came down when there still lay some miles of
trackless mountain, glen, river, and bog between me and the inn where my
old chief was expecting me at dinner. Fortunately, in the end the moon
rose, and I arrived at the end of the journey somewhere near midnight.
The delay in my return gave Murchison not a little uneasiness. As hour,
after hour passed, he grew so impatient that he began to insist on some
of the people of the inn turning out with lanterns as a search party.
His remonstrances, however, were met with a sullen indifference, very
unlike the usual attentiveness of the household. ‘It was the Sabbath
day,’ they said, ‘the gentleman shouldn’t have gone out to walk on the
Lord’s Day.’ In short, the gentleman, had he been lost, would have
deserved his fate, and would have furnished to the pulpits of the
district a new and pregnant illustration of the danger of
Sabbath-breaking!
Some fifteen years later, being in the east of Sutherland, I greatly
desired to visit the two remarkable cones of Ben Griarri, which, rising
far over out of the desolate moorland, form such a prominent feature in
the landscape of that region. Had they stood within easy reach of the
little inn where I was staying, I would have walked over to them in
order to spend a quiet Sunday in examining them and in- meditation over
the marvellous story of past time which they reveal. But the distance
being much more than a Sabbath day’s -journey, I applied to my host for
a dog-cart to take me by road to the nearest point from which I could
strike across the moor on foot. He confessed that none of his servants
would drive me, and that he did not wish to shock the prejudices of his
neighbours in the parish, but that if I would wait until the people were
in the kirk, he would drive me himself. As we passed along the lonely
road he gave me his history, which had no ordinary interest. Born in the
district, he had gone south early in life, and eventually became an
engine-driver on one of the main railways. He was next attracted, by the
offer of better pay and prospects, to enter the service of the Chemin de
Fer du Nord and drove the first train between Paris and Calais. He
continued in the service of that railway for many years, made his home
in France, and finally retired with a pension from the French
Government. As he had no longer any daily occupation, a longing for the
old country came on him and grew so strong that he in the end broke up
his home in France and took the inn where I found him. But. he soon
discovered that his long stay in a freer theological atmosphere than
that of Calvinistic Sutherland had taught him to look on life from a
very different point of view from that still maintained by his
fellow-countrymen. He found them, he said, narrowminded, prejudiced, and
bigoted, disposed to look askance on him and what they thought his
laxity of belief, and to show in many little spiteful ways the
antagonism between them. The old home was no longer the place that had
dwelt all these long years treasured in his memory, and he seemed
disposed to regret that he had ever come back to it. That Sunday was a
day of sunshine, of white floating clouds, and of blue distances
stretching away from the purple moors to the sea on the one side and to
the inland mountains on the other—a day to be alone with Nature and
one’s own thoughts. My reverie on Ben Griam, which led me far into the
backward of time, was touched now and then with thoughts of the strange
fetichism of to-day that has turned the Sunday from a day of joyfulness
to one of gloom.
That this relentless intolerance of any innocent and instructive
employments, other than that of church-going, still persists in certain
quarters with undiminished rigour was brought painfully to m)r notice
only six years ago in Skye. A reading party of bright young men from one
of the English Universities had settled down for steady work and
recreation at a well-known hotel, and the landlady, anxious to obtain
for them more space and quiet than they could find under her own roof,
arranged for the use of a large room in a house which had been
temporarily taken by a Free Church clergyman who had been displaced
during the progress of the controversy respecting the union of his
church with the United Presbyterians. On the first Sunday, the young men
spent the morning partly in reading and partly in examining under the
microscope some of the natural history specimens they had been
collecting during the week. The sight of these instruments, opened on
the Lord’s Day, was too much for the minister’s wife. Next morning my
hostess received a letter from her requesting that the young men might
be removed, bag and baggage, as she could not submit to such profanation
under her roof. She concluded by beseeching that the innkeeper’s
children might be sent to her as a consolation, ‘that she might hear
their innocent prattle.’ The landlady showed me this letter, but was
anxious that, at least while they were her guests, the students should
know nothing about it, as she would not like them to think that this
intolerance was a fair sample of Highland opinion.
I have sometimes been astonished to see how this superstitious
veneration for the Sabbath has blinded intelligent men and women,
otherwise liberal and enlightened in their views, to the real meaning
and use of the day. Having been taught from their youth to deem certain
things unlawful and reprehensible if done on that day, they studiously
refrain from these, but at the same time they unconsciously allow
themselves to say and do other things which on due reflection they would
admit to be no better than those which they condemn, if not indeed much
worse. I once spent a Sunday in a Highland Free Kirk manse, and in the
afternoon was entertained by the minister’s wife, who was as kindly in
disposition as she was narrow in her views. We discussed the whole
parish. Some Roman Catholics had come to the district, which filled her
mind with dismay. She was grieved, too. that a well-known dignitary of
the Church of England had called the day before on her husband, a
broad-minded and accomplished scholar, and had carried him off to
examine some ecclesiastical ruins in the neighbourhood. She gave me an
account of various marriages which were in contemplation, and of the
changes that were imminent in the tenancy of the farms. At last I asked
her to excuse me as I had some letters to write which I was anxious
should go by the early post in the morning. ‘What?’ she exclaimed in
surprise, ‘Do you mean to say that you write letters on the Sabbath?’ I
could not resist the temptation to assure her that I thought writing to
my friends and relatives on that day was at least as allowable as to
spend the afternoon over parish gossip.
A story is told of a young clergyman on the mainland who had not been
long placed in his charge when rumours began to circulate about his
orthodoxy. Some of his friends hearing these reports set themselves to
enquire into the grounds for them. But they could only elicit vague
hints and suggestions. At last they came upon an old woman who declared
roundly that the minister was ‘no soun’.’ ‘Not sound! what makes you
think that?’ ‘Weel then,’ she answered, ‘I maun tell ye. I wass seein’
him wi’ my ain een, standin’ at his window on the Lord’s Day, dandlin’
his bairn.’
An incident which illustrates the strictness of Sabbath observance in
the North Highlands has been told me by a friend. During one of her
tours in the Highlands Queen Victoria visited Ross-shire. When spending
a Sunday at Loch Maree, the Royal party, tempted by the beauty of the
day, made an expedition by boat to one of the islands of the loch. This
‘ worldly acting ’ upon the Lord’s day caused a great scandal in the
neighbourhood, and eventually the Free Church Presbytery took up the
matter and addressed a letter to the Queen ‘dealing with’ her for her
conduct. Our good Queen was naturally much disquieted that she had
unwittingly offended any section of her faithful subjects, and consulted
one of her chaplains, a distinguished minister of the Church of
Scotland, who was then at Balmoral, as to what she ought to do. He
counselled her not to take any notice of the letter, and allayed her
anxiety by recounting to her the following incident illustrative of the
attitude of mind of the Highlanders towards all departures, however
trivial, from their notions of strict Sabbath observance. The story
greatly amused the Queen, and at her request it had to be repeated to
other members of the royal household.
A Highland minister, after the services of the Sunday were over, was
noticed sauntering by himself in meditative mood along the hillside
above the manse. Next day he was waited on by one of the ruling elders,
who came to point out the sin of which he had been guilty, and the evil
effect which his lapse from right ways could not fail to have in the
parish. The clergyman took the rebuke in good part, but tried to show
the remonstrant that the action of which he complained was innocent and
lawful, and he was about to cite the famous example of a Sabbath walk,
with the plucking of the ears of corn, as set forth in the Gospels, when
he was interrupted with the remark: ‘ Ou ay, sir, I ken weel what you
mean to say; but, for my pairt, I hae nefer thocht the better o’ them
for breakin’ the Sawbbath.’
A member of the Geological Survey was, not many years ago, storm-stayed
in a muir-land tract of South Ayrshire upon a Saturday, and gladly
accepted the hospitality of a farmer for the night. Next morning he
asked the servant if she thought her master could oblige him with the
loan of a razor. In due time the razor arrived, but was found to be so
wofully blunt that the maid had to be summoned again to see if a strop
was available. She soon came back with this message, ‘Please, the
maister says this is the Sawbbath, and ye’re jist to put pith to the
razor. Ye canna get the strop.’
The late Lord Playfair, when he was Professor of Chemistry in the
University of Edinburgh, told me that, passing his nursery-door one
Sunday, he overheard the nurse stilling a child in this fashion:
‘Whisht, whisht, my bonnie lamb; it’s the Sawbbath, or I wud whustle ye
a sang, but I’ll sing ye a paraphrase.’
The sacredness of the Sabbath, by a natural transition, came to be also
attributed to the Fast Day, which heralded the half-yearly
Communion-Sunday. A Fife shepherd, who was in the Grassmarket of
Edinburgh on a week-day, found that his dog had strayed to some
distance, and was making off in a wrong direction. He begged an
acquaintance whom he had met to whistle for the animal.
‘Whustle on your ain dowg,’ was the indignant reply. ‘Na, na, man,’ said
the perturbed drover. ‘I canna dae that, for you see it’s our Fast Day
in Kirkcaldy.’
Nobody has satirised the Scottish perversion of the day of rest with
more effective sarcasm than Lord Neaves in his Lyric for Saturday Night:
We zealots made up
of-stiff clay,
The sour-looking children of sorrow.
While not over-jolly to-day,
Resolve to be wretched to-morrow.
We can’t for a certainty tell
What mirth may molest us on Monday;
But at least to begin the week well,
Let us all be unhappy on Sunday.
What though a good precept we strain
Till hateful and hurtful we make it!
What though, in thus pulling the rein,
We may draw it so tight as to break it!
Abroad we forbid folks to roam,
For fear they get social or frisky;
But of course they can sit still at home,
And get dismally drunk upon whisky.
A habit which has been
followed for generations to the sound of the ‘drum ecclesiastic ’ is not
easily thrown off. The Sabbath look of funereal sadness may still be
seen on many a sturdy Presbyterian face. But happily the gloomy
intolerance is passing away. In no respect is the freer air of the
modern spirit more marked than in the relaxation of the old discipline
in regard to the keeping of the Sabbath in lowland Scotland. A country
walk on that day is no longer always proclaimed to be a violation of one
of the ten commandments, innocent laughter is not everywhere denounced
as a sin, nor does it appear that the growth of Sunday cheerfulness
leads to any depravation of character, or to a less keen feeling for
whatsoever is of good report. There is now, however, a tendency for the
pendulum to swing perhaps too far on the other side. Welcome though the
disappearance of the old gloom may be, there would be a questionable
gain if what should be a day of quiet rest and refreshment were turned
into one of frivolous gaiety and dissipation.
In other directions a relaxation of the old rigour in regard to the
innocent enjoyments of life is to be welcomed. But these various signs
of greater charity and enlightenment have made much less rapid progress
in the Highlands and Islands. In these regions the influence of the
protestant clergy, as it was longer in bringing the people into
subjection, still maintains much of the vehemence which has elsewhere
died down. The intolerance appears to be decidedly more marked in the
Free Church communion than in that of the Establishment. One of the
latest examples of it which has come under my own observation was that
of a lady who went to a dance. For this enormity she was reprimanded by
the Free Church minister to whose congregation she belonged. Things at
last became so unpleasant that she left his ministrations and went to
the parish kirk, |
