Volume II. Guth na Bliadhna ' leabhar II.]

sìm Agus cha b' e 'mhàin Dunnachadh Bàn, ach bha] agus tha a' chuid mhòr de na bàird Ghàidhealach] againn ciontach dhe sin. Cho fad's a gheibheadh] iad briathran a ghabhadh tàthadh agus fuaim! neachadh ri 'cheile, leanadh iad air sniomh an] orain a mach cho fad 's a ghabhadh e deanamh a co dhiù a bha beachdan ùra 'g am foillseachadh! fhèin ann no nach robh. Ma bha 'mhin gann, bha iad a' fuine 'bhonnach a mach cho tana's a ghabhadh] iad sgaoileadh.

Cha ghabh e àicheadh nach e fior bhàrd a bha 'n Dunnachadh Bàn, ach bàrd aig an robh buadhan cainnte pailt air thoiseach air a' chumhachd inntinn; Ach ma rinn e bàrdachd lag, rinn e bàrdachd làidir! Ann am moladh Coire-cheathaich tha againn deal­bhan air an tarrainn cho oirdherc agus cho mais-] each, ann an cainnt cho finealta, snasmhor, 's a tha ri 'fhaotainn anns a' chanain Ghàidhlig—cainnfl a tha 'sealltain dhuinn a' bhàrd, agus an toilinntinn] a bha e 'faotainn ann an co-chomunn ri maise] obair Nàduir.

" 'Sa' mhaduinn chiùin-ghil an àm dhomh dùs­gadh,

Aig bun nan stùc b' e an sùgradh leam." Anns an rann so tha againn inntinn agus spiorad! an fhìor bhàird a' briseadh a mach. Anns a] mhaduinn chèitein tha 'n driùchd a' dealradh ain gach feòirnein, a' ghrian ag èirigh suas 'n a glòir, le sgiathan sèimh a' sgaoileadh a brat òrbhuidh air gach srath agus sliabh. Is e miann a' bhaird a bhi 'g èirigh gu moch agus a' dìreadh suas gu bun nan stuc a ghabhail compairt le eunlaith nan speur ann a bhi 'seinn agus a' deanamh gàirdeachais ann an [glòir agus maise 'chruinne che. Tha e duilich a chreidsin gu'n cuireadh ùghdar Coire Cheartaich bàrdachd ri' cheile (ma dh' fhaodair bàrdachd a [ràdh ris) cho leanabail, lag, agus leibideach, ri Alastair nan stop. Rinn Dunnachadh Bàn a trì fno ceithir a dh' òrain-ghaoil, ach a mach bho Mhairi Bhàin Oig, cha 'n 'eil iad ach fuar, tioram, agus lag. Ann a h-aon de na h-orain-ghaoil sin tha'n rann so—

" 'S do chùl daithte làn-mhaiseach, Mu 'n cuairt do d' bhràigh' an òrdugh, Air sniomh mar theudan clàrsaiche 'N a fhaineachan glan nòsar : Gu lìdh-dhonn, pleatach, sàr-chleachdach, \ Gu dosach, fàsmhor, domhail, Gu lùbach, dualach, bachlach, guairsgeach, Snasmhor, cuachach, òr-bhuidhe ".

Tha 'n t-òran a' toiseachadh leis na facail so— " A Mhairi bhàn, gur barrail thu ". Tha e duilich a dheanamh a mach ciod e 'n seòrsa dath a bha Lair an fhalt aig a' mhaighdinn so, ma bha e "bàn," " lidh-dhonn," agus " òr-bhuidhe ". Ann ann òran main Bhàn Og tha 'm bàrd a' bualadh teudan na [clàrsaich aige le dùrachd ni 's blaithe, leis a bheil faireachadh a' ghaoil agus spiorad na bàrdachd a' comhnadh a chèile, agus a' sgeadachadh Mairi le trusgan maiseach finealta nach caill i cho fad 's a bhios Gàidhlig ghlan Albannach air a labhairt no air a seinn air feadh an t-saoghail.

Ann an Oran an t-Samhraidh tha 'n rann a leanas:—

" 'S fior ionmhuinn mu thràth neòine, Na laoigh òga choir na buaile sin, Gu tarra-gheal, ball-bhreac, botainneach, Sgiuthach, druim-fhionn, sròn-fhionn, guaillin-nach,

Buidh', gris-fhionn, crà-dhearg, suaichionta, Seang, slios'ra, dìreach sàr-chumpach, Cas, bachlach, barr an suaraiche ". Faodaidh e 'bhith gur e nach 'eil mise 'tuigsinn ciod 'is ciall do fhior bhàrdachd, ach feumaidh mi aideachadh nach 'eil mi 'faicinn bàrdachd air bith anns an rann sin, no ann am moran rann eile de'n t-seòrsa cheudna. Tha cainnt gu leor ann, air a' càrnadh air muin 's air muin a chèile, facail fhadaa thioram làidir, gun bhinneas, gun ghrinneas. Agus] ann am measg a cho-thionail bhriathran sin, bu cho] math a bhi 'g iarraidh snathaid ann an cruaichl fheòir, agus a bhi 'g amharc air son a' bheachd ain an robh am bàrd ag iarraidh solus a chur.

Tha bàrdachd agus tuigse anns an oran chiatach sin, Cead deireannach nam Beann. Cha'n 'eil ana bàrd a' deanamh strìth air bith gu bhi taghadh] facail mhora chruaidhe thioram. Tha na fairichean aige mar a tha iad a' dùsgadh suas 'n a chom, a| sruthadh a mach ann an cainnt cheòlmhor, bhog.i bhlàth; cho binn sèimh ri crònan an uillt. Anns an òran so, tha'm bàrd a' toirt dhuinn dealbh tait] neach dhe fhèin, ach dealbh a tha air a mheasgadh] le cianalas agus bròn. Tha 'm bàrd 'n a sheann] aois ag gabhail a chuairt mu dheireadh, agus am sealladh mu dheireadh de Bheinn Dòrain, agus] faodaidh sinn a bhi cinnteach mar a bha e 'dìreadh] ri uchd an t-sleibhe le anail ghoirid, le ceann liath:* 's le chiabhan tana, le ceum mail, 's le cridhe tromjj gu'n robh iomadh smaointinn thùrsach mhuladach a' snamh 'n a chom, ag cuimhneachadh air na laithean a dh' fhalbh, làithean taitneach na h-oige .nach till air an ais ni's mò.

" N uair 'sheall mi air gach taobh dhiom, Cha'n fhaodainn gun 'bhi smalanach."

Tha mi creidsinn gur h-ann le cridhe trom a [thearnaidh Dunnachadh Bàn gu baile air an fheas-ìgar sin, a' mothachadh 'aois agus a lag-chuis fhein; fagus an uair a chunnaic e ceo an anmoich agus [neòil dhorcha na h-oidhche a' sgaoileadh am brat tiamhaidh mu ghuaillean Beinn Dòrain nach robh esan gu fhaicinn gu bràth tuilleadh.

" Ghabh mi nis mo chead de'n t-saoghal, 'S de na daoine dh' fhuirich ann ; Fhuair mi greis gu sunndach aotrom, 'S i 'n aois a rinn m' fhagail fann.

Tha mo thàlantan air caochladh,

'S an t-aog air tighinn's an àm,

'S e m' achanaich air sgàth m' Fhir-shaoraidh

Bhi gu math's an t-saoghal thall."

[Rinn Dunnachadh Ban beagan aoirean anns am [bheil brod bàrdachd, ged nach 'eil iad ri am moladh [air dhòigh eile. Ach cha 'n eil teagamh nach do thoill Nighean dubh Raineach na fhuair i

'.' A chionn gu'n do ghoid i 'N rud beag bha 'n sa chlùdan, Bh' agam's a' chùil Nach d' innis mi chach."

[Agus tha e coltach nach robh Uisdean Piobaire air •na daoine 'bu mhodhaile agus 'bu bheusaiche. Ach

4

286 The Oldest Scottish MS.

tha sean-fhacal ag ràdh gur e "searbh a' ghloir nach fhaodar èisdeachd". Cha'n 'eil e na chom­harradh laidir air inntinn mhor a bhi 'gabhail gnothaich ris gach peasan leibideach a thig 'n a rathad. Agus cha mhomha a bha e ag àrdachadh cliù Dhunnachaidh Bhàin a bhi cumail connspaid ri Uisdean Piobaire, Iain Faochaig, an TàUeir, agus Anna nighean Uilleam an Cròmpa. Ach cha b'e paipeir goirid a chaidh a sgriobhadh ann a' cabhaig mar a chaidh am paipeir so a bheireadh ceirteas do Dhunnachadh Bàn agus d'a chuid bàrdachd.

Bha sinn a' toirt cliù dha agus a' faotainn coire dha; ach tha sinn a' creidsinn nach cuir aon choire a gheibh sinn dha tolg no dealg 'n a chliù. Tha dòchas againn gu 'm bi a chliù mar bhàrd cho seasmhach buan ri beanntan a dhùthcha. Agus tha eagal orm gu'm bi iomadh latha agus linn mu'n siubhail Gàidheal eile firichean Bheinn Dòrain a ni a feum de 'bheul agus de 'shùilean, agus a chuireas urad de bheatha agus de mhaise ann an cainnt agus ann am bàrdachd ar dùthcha's a chuir Dunnachadh Bàn Mac-an-t-Saoir.

Niall MacLeoid.

the oldest scottish ms.

[SOME NOTES ON THE BOOK OF DEER]

The early literature of Scotland cannot, unfortun­ately, compare with that of the sister kingdom. We cannot boast the rich literary remains of Ire­land. We have no such annals as those of the Four Masters, or of Clonmacnoise—no such his­torical tract as that of the Wars of the Gaels vrìth m *

The Oldest Scottish MS. 287

the Galls. The trail of the destroyer has passed with a vengeance over our early national MSS., leaving what should have been a fruitful field barren and bare, scored and seamed by the ruth­less agencies that have been at work. Time was when it was the fashion to ascribe the depletion of our national literary exchequer to causes other than those which were really responsible for it.

Margaret, Saint and Queen, was said to have ordered the wholesale destruction of priceless Gaelic MSS., under the mistaken impression that such national possessions savoured of ungodliness, and interfered with her self-imposed task of " Ro­manising " the nation. This, of course, was a Pro­testant superstition—perhaps calumny would be a better word—invented to coincide with the pet Protestant dictum that St. Columba was a sort of Presbyterian forerunner, and that the early Celtic Church held strict evangelical views which, of course, St. Margaret made it her business to upset. Even Protestants know better nowadays, however. With none of the clergy was St. Margaret more popular than she was with the Culdees; and her many munificent grants to the churches of such religious show how thoroughly she valued and appreciated their holy work. As for the alleged destruction of Gaelic MSS. by the Saint's orders, there is not a particle of evidence to support so ignorant and contemptible a charge. From all we know of the Queen, we are more than justified in believing that she would have been the last person in Christendom to act in so barbarous and un­worthy a manner.

Edward I. of England—the hammer of the .Scots—is yet another character who is charged with having laid violent hands on our national

MSS.; and in his case, part of the charge, at leastJ may be admitted as proven. Without doubt, the! English King negotiated the destruction of a great! number of MSS.; for our Scoto-Norman chroniclers inform us to that effect; but I much doubt if therèj were many Gaelic MSS. amongst the number sacri¹] need to the rage and barbarity of the Saxon mon-| arch. Besides, Longshanks's real prey was thej Anglo-Norman literature dealing with the status ofl the Scottish crown in relation to the presumptuous] claims of England. All that he could seize andl burn in that direction he certainly did, without! the slightest remorse, or consideration for the well! merited curses of Scottish posterity. His Scottish^ expeditions, moreover, were confined to the Fringes Here and there, indeed, he penetrated into the! country of the Gael, but his visits brought him little! grist to his mill, in the shape of either credit orj pelf. The Western Highlands, and, more particuj larly, the Isles, were then the home, as the reposi^ tories, of our national literature ; and these he] never so much as set foot in. Consequently, thel number of Gaelic MSS. carried away and destroyed! by Longshanks cannot have been large. And if to this you add the fact that Edward cared about nothing which did not bear on his own case—hiaj quarrel with the Scots touching the throne—you! will probably believe, as I do, that Edward's bon-3 fires contained few, if any, Gaelic MSS.

The real destroyer of our national records wasj no doubt, the unspeakable Lochlannach. To him! literature and art seem to have been as rousing! as the proverbial rag to the bull. Whatever he] could lay hands on in that way he, generally! promptly destroyed. He does not even seem much to have contented himself with the minoq barbarity of carrying his spoil away with him— pence, no doubt, the comparative infrequency of [Celtic "finds" in modern Scandinavia and their' relative poverty. For over three hundred years the Lochlannach infested the Western Highlands [and Isles, and even when he turned nominal [Christian his barbarous propensities largely re­mained with him. Several times he devastated 'Iona, butchering the pious inhabitants and con­signing their books, historical as well as religious, to the flames. And what he did in Iona there' is every reason to believe he perpetrated else­where. From Mull, Kintyre, Islay, Skye, Eigg, [and from the mainland itself, come the same dismal [tales of wholesale slaughterings, and burnings of books and art treasures for mere barbarity's sake. rLittle wonder, then, that the early national records lof the Gael of Scotland are few and far between t The marvel is that, considering his then stormy story and the dark, troublous pages of his later I romance, there should be a single Gaelic MS. left to us in the land of our fathers.

The MS. known as the Book of Deer was discovered in 1860 by Mr. Bradshaw, the librarian of Cambridge University. It had lain unnoticed in the library of that University since its purchase-in 1715 from the executors of John Moore, Angli-ican Bishop of Ely. Its previous history (says Dr. MacBain) is unknown, but that it was once—in the [eleventh and twelfth centuries—in the Columban ■Monastery of Deer in Aberdeenshire is a fact testified by the book itself in a manner that can 'admit of no doubt. The contents and appearance [of this remarkable book are thus described: It consists of eighty-six parchment pages, and its 'contents are the Gospel of St. John, which is complete, preceded by portions of the other three Evangelists. These are all in the Latin text of St. Jerome. The book ends with the Apostles' Creed and an old Irish colophon, which asks a blessing on the soul of the " traughan " who wrote it from every reader of it.

These, says Dr. MacBain, were the full con­tents of the original MS., and experts in the hand­writing of Irish MSS. ascribe its composition to the ninth century of our era. The book, of course, is written in what is called the Irish character, which is merely a modification, like all the other so-called national alphabets of Western Europe, of the Roman writing. Irish writing is descended from the Gallo-Roman cursive handwriting of the fifth century, and was introduced with Christianity. The writing of the MS. is good throughout, and there are illuminated figures (for the most part not very well done) of the four Evangelists separately and in groups; whilst the initial letter of each Gospel is enlarged, illuminated and ornamented.

As a work of art the Book of Deer cannot compare with the best known Irish religious MSS., whose embellishments are justly the admiration of the polite world. But for Scotsmen the little time-worn tome must ever possess an attraction and an interest which such gorgeous productions as the Book of Kells can never lay claim to. In the first place, it is our very own- -all that remains to us of our early national literature—a solitary (almost melancholy) fragment of the great wreck of the past. In the second place, it is a Scottish produc­tion—the sole record that we possess of the time when Scotland was indeed Scotland, when Gaelic was the daily language of even so "Lowland" a country as Buchan. In the third place, it allows us to peep through the curtained past into the Scotland of our far-away ancestors in a manner which no other existing MSS., Scots, or Irish, or foreign, enable us to do. For these things, surely, the famous Book of Deer deserves to be venerated —to be inwardly digested—by every patriotic Scots­man. How many of our sons and daughters, I wonder, are aware of even the existence of this wonderful book ? Is there a so-called school throughout the length and breadth of the land wherein it is so much as mentioned ? I doubt it. " Literature" there is in a measure; but, alas! it is not our literature, which makes all the difference. They expound Shakespeare and Scott (by way of graceful concession to "national" prejudice per­haps), but the Gael, even in his own land, they leave to shift for himself! How long will these things be ? How long will the following remark­able words, written by a good patriot though bad man, Simon Fraser, Lord Lo vat, continue to fall short of being realised ?—

"So that it is plain that our age is more de­generate, more corrupt and more cowardly than the worst time of King Balliols reign who gave himself and his nation up as tributarys to the cruel and barbarous Edward the First of England, who had such an inveterate malice and hatred to our nation that in his own time he had almost ex­tinguished the name of Scots, and to use his own expression when he sent his last army against us he said it was ad delendum nomen Scotorum. And if Providence had not taken him at that very time out of the way and that he was succeeded by a fool and a coward by all probability he would have accomplished all his wicked designs against our nation; and I admire (wonder) how any true well-

born Scotsman can forget those days in which our] ■country labour'd under such dismall oppression andj ■slavery, and that we should be again infatuate toj give up our libertys and independency which we] then recovered at the expence of the blood of al great many brave and heroick persons by the] singular providence and protection of Heaven] against such a powerful and cruel nation. Thol we see no more now of the glorious spirit and re-J .solution of our antcestors, yet I hope Divine provi-1 dence will be alwayes the same towards us and] that when God is satisfied of our just sufferings] and punishments for our manifold sins and offences] He will in His own good time take away His scourge] from us and relieve us from the iron yokes than •our necks are too clossly bound to at this time.'j

Observations touching the Book of Deer natur­ally fall under two heads - those which refer to the etymological aspect of the work; and those] which concern its social and political character-J istics. The first has been admirably treated of by] Dr. MacBain; the second has been learnedly disl ■cussed by the late Dr. Stewart, the accomplished Editor of the version of this celebrated MS. pub-] lished, a good many years ago, by the Spalding] Ciub. Of the two accounts Dr. MacBain's (Jwl ■ness Gaelic Society's Transactions) is perhaps tha more interesting. It is certainly the more "sugj .gestive"; for in it the author rides his familian hobby touching the origin of the Picts with no] .small skill if, as I hope to show, with but littll profit to himself.

It is noticeable that, in support of his contention that the Picts were not Gaels, Dr. MacBain else! where asserts that the social system " outlined by] the Book of Deer " was not the same with that of]

Ireland, though he acknowledges that it bore a great resemblance to it. And it is just on this point that I wish to join issue with that author. I am not aware, however, that Dr. MacBain has jever publicly indicated the point at which this resemblance ends; which, it must be allowed, is an unfortunate omission on his part; for without feome such guide the task of criticising his criticisms .is rendered considerably less easy than otherwise it would, and should be. However, let us take the ■"social system" itself, as outlined—-to hold Dr. MacBain's own language—by the Book of Deer, and see what it amounts to.

In the first place, the Gaelic entries do not err on the side of prolixity in this respect. They consist, for the most part, of brief records of grants of lands on the part of local magnates. The legend of the founding of the Monastery of Deer, as related by the Scribe, contains little, if anything, tof which to construct even the foundations of a