THE HORSE PEOPLE OF KINTYRE
Ronald Black, University of Edinburgh
[This is the initial portion of a chapter entitled 'The Horse in Scottish
Gaelic Folklore' which will appear in The Celtic Horse, edited by Sioned
Davies and Nerys Ann Jones, to be published by the University of Wales Press
in 1995.]
Another point that will strike a stranger, in the Uists especially,
is the enormous number of ponies. Where they come from, what they are useful
for, we have been unable to find out, but they literally swarm, and must
be a serious encumbrance to the population. We were offered a splendid little
filly for thirty shillings. (Buchanan 1871: 89) (1)
Had Buchanan visited the Highlands and Islands in
spring he would have found the answer to his question, for spring belonged
to the horse. Ged as e an duine an tuathanach, se an t-each an
saoithriche: 'though the man is the farmer, the horse is the labourer'
(Nicolson 1882: 199). The humble little pony or garron drew the plough and
the harrow through the fertile soils at the edge of the sea and across the
thin soils of the glens, fetched seaweed from the shore in panniers, brought
her master patiently through swollen streams to reach the first market since
autumn. She also provided horsehair for ropes and lines. And when first yoked
with her three or five companions for a communal ploughing, she was given
the last sheaf of the harvest for a meal, so that through her body the good
of the land could re-enter the earth and start its life-giving cycle once
again.
No surprise, then, that the garron lent her name to the time of year. The gearran was one of the winds that whistled through the early spring: not a light, balmy breeze to quicken the soil, however, but a cruel bringer of snow and a killer of cattle. Cuiridh an gearran seachd bolla cathaidh staigh air aon toll tora, leis cho gailbheach 's a tha an t-sid. 'The garron sends seven bolls of blizzard through one wimble-hole, so stormy is the weather.' (Campbell 1902: 130.) And consider this exchange with another of the winds, the feadag or plover:
S mis' an fheadag lom luirgneach luath
Marbham caora, marbham uan.
'I am the plover, bare, nimble and quick,/I kill sheep I kill lamb.'
S mis' an gearran bacach ban
'S cha mhi aon bhonn as fhearr -
Cuiream a'bho anns an toll
Gus an tig an tonn thar a ceann.
'I am the lame white garron/And I am not one whit better - I put the cow in the hole/Till the wave comes over her head.'
(Dwelly 1907: 10; Dwelly 1908: 20.)
It can be argued that, being winds, feadag is not 'plover' but 'whistler' and gearran is not 'garron' but 'cutter', but to me it is quite clear that tradition in each case sees them as both. Nearly all the winds of spring bear (or appear to bear) the names of living creatures, e.g. faoilleach 'wolftime' , damhag 'oxen' , gobag 'dogfish', cuthag 'cuckoo', slonnach 'fox', cailleach 'hag'. So if the gearran of the rhyme is not an animal, how then can she be bacach - lame? In fact the use of the word bacach makes a connection with that ceremonial last sheaf of harvest, for usually it is called the cailleach or 'old woman' (the name of the last of the winds of spring), but in Skye and some other places it was the gobhar bhacach or 'lame goat', perhaps a reference to the cutting of the standing corn by the sickle, or to the memory of a treasured animal sacrificed as a harvest thanksgiving. (Maclean 1964: 193-6.)
An gearran, ciad mhios an earraich, notes Edward Dweily: 'the garron, the first month of spring'. (Dwelly 1907: 8; Dwelly 1908: 16.) The saying is apparently traditional, and certainly An Gearran has settled down nowadays as the month of February. In the Celtic calendar February is the first month of spring, and no animal is more representative of spring and all its labours than the garron. What is more, as the Calendar of Coligny shows, the Gaulish druids of the earliest centuries AD had a 'horse month' too; their name for it in Roman letters was EQVOS, and it, too, seems to have fallen in February of the year.(2)
The ancient spring festival, the 1st of February, is in Gaelic Latha Fheill Brlghde, St Brigid's Day. That means that the spring quarter in general, and the first day of spring in particular, was sacred to Brigid, who was a pagan goddess before she became a Christian saint. (Mac Cana 1970: 34-5, 95; Bray 1987: 209-10. 214-5.) Appropriately for the spring, she is a goddess of fertility, and she faces square across the calendar to her counterpart of autumn and the harvest quarter, the god Lugh, whose festival on 1st August is Lunastal (Lug-Nasad 'Lugh's Feast, Lugh's Horseracing'). and who has now given his name to the Gaelic month of August, An Lunastal.
Can we make any connection between Brigid and the garron? I think we can. The Gauls had a horse-goddess Epona. Her name is the same as EQVOS, and I think it likely, as do others, that the month-names of Coligny represent deities. A character in a Gaelic folktale which has a strong connection with the faoilleach or 'wolftime', the period of two weeks on either side of St Brigid's Day, is called Brighid Mhor Each, 'Great Brigid of Horses'. This name might be thought sufficient in itself to link St Brigid with horses, were it not for the fact that it has been very plausibly explained as deriving from Brigit Mhorshaithech 'Brigid of the Great Appetite' (MacNeil 1987: 90-7; Shaw 1992: l55-6).(3) So far, at any rate, we can say that spring probably has a horse-month in the Coligny Calendar as well as in Scottish Gaelic; the reasons may be simple practical ones involving the usefulness of the horse at that time of year, or complex mythological ones involving Epona and Brigid.
Writing in the second century AD, Ptolemy tells
us of a tribe called Epidili who stretched 'eastwards' from the Epidion Akron
('Horse Point'), by which he meant the Mull of Kintyre in Argyll (Watson
1925: 24). The area of south and mid Argyll and the Firth of Clyde contains
a great many churches dedicated to Brigid (a great many Kilbrides, in other
words), and that suggests the possible existence there of a Brigid cult in
pagan times. The old Irish story Aided Chonroi mentions Aird Echddi
i Cinn Tire. Echde lived there, so the name may mean Echde's Point, or
Horse Point, or the Epidian Point. The tale also mentions Tor Echde
(a broch, perhaps), meaning Echde's Tower, or Horse Tower, or the Epidian
Tower. The Epidii would have been Britons or possibly Picts. Macbain felt
that they must have been so named from their horsemanship (Macbain 1893-4:
230), and Watson remarked that they were probably horse-breeders and
horse-breakers, but I am sure there is more to it than that. Horses lie so
deep in the naming practices of Kintyre and some adjacent areas that one
gets a strong whiff of totemism. Watson himself pointed out that 'Kintyre
is the home of the MacEacherns, whose name is an anglicisation of Mac
Each - thighearna, 'Son of Horse-lord'. (Watson 1926: 23-4) Also meaning
'Horse-lord' is
Eachd(h)onn, which became Eachann or Hector, traditionally
a favourite name in the area from Kintyre north to Mull, Coll and Tiree.
(Macbain 1896: 361-2). According to Peter Campbell, the horse was a symbol
of the MacDougalls, and a 'symbol or friend' of the MacIvers of Glassary,
and he quotes this rhyme:
Crodh maol Chnapadail,
Eich chloimheach Ghlasraith,
Fithich dhubh Chraiginnis
'S coilich Airisceodnis.
'The polled oxen of Knapdale,/The shaggy horses of Glassary,/The black
ravens of Craignish/And the cocks of Ariskeodnish.' (Campbell 1925:
81.) The Craignish people called the Loch Fyne folk na h-oigich, 'the
stallions', while on Loch Fyne itself the same name was apparently reserved
for natives of Minard. In Mull, the Gribun people were na h-eich,
'the horses' , and the Croggan people were na h-eich dhonna, 'the
brown horses'. (MacDougall 1934: 76,91, followed by Friseal 1974-6: 88, 96.)
On the other hand, with one exception (the MacLeods), equine by-names seem
remarkably hard to find outside Argyll. From the Aird near Inverness,
gearran beaga Bail' achonais is translated by Hugh Barron as 'the
ponies of Balconish', but it looks to me more like 'little hares' (Barron
1967-8: 225).
It is to a twice-over bearer of a horse-name, Eachann
M.MacDhughaill from Coll, that I will give the last word on this matter,
translating from his paper Beachdachadh mu Ainmhighean na
Gaidhealtachd ('Some Thoughts on the Animals of the Highlands'). Speaking
of such by-names, he says:
The lona folk, the Jura folk, and the Kintyre folk are called na h-Eich
('the Horses'). At one time the Jura folk in particular would be particularly
enraged at this nickname, The Knapdale people, as their nearest neighbours
on the mainland, were always casting this at them, and since their own nickname
was an Crodh-Maol ('the Hornless Cows'), the insults were never spared
- na h-Eich on one side of the kyle and an Crodh-Maol on the
other.(4) Strangely enough, the same scenario was enacted with reference
to the nicknames on both sides of the Sound of Iona: the eich ('horses')
of Iona were on the one side, and the gamhna ('stirks') of the Ross
and Creich on the other.
After referring to the Epidii of Kintyre he concludes:
This proves that it was not today or yesterday that this name was given to the Kintyre folk, and that in spite of all the new blood that has come into that part of the country, at the time the Scots came over [from Ireland] for one, the name has stuck to them to the present time. Such names go far deeper into the roots of our history than people generally realise. (MacDhughaill 1929-30: 117-8.)
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Barron, Hugh. 'Notes on the Aird', in Transactions of the Gaelic Society
of inverness 45 (1967-8) 196-231.
Bray, Dorothy Ann. 'The Image of St Brigit in the early Irish Church', in
Etudes Celtiques 24 (1987) 209-15.
Buchanan, Robert. The Land of Lorne, vol. 2. London 1871.
Campbell, John Gregorson. Witchcraft and Second Sight in the Highlands and
islands of Scotland. Glasgow 1902. Repr. Wakefield 1974.
(Campbell, Peter.) The Clan-Iver, Historical and Traditional, with Notes
on Leading Families. 2nd edn. Dingwall 1925. Repr. Hove
1989.
Daviet, Roger. 'La mesure du temps en Gaule: Essai d'interprAtation du Calendrier
de Coligny', in Revue archeologique de l'Est et du
Centre-Est 14 (1963) 53-60.
Duval, P.-14., and Pinault, G. Recucil des Inscriptions Gauloises, vol. 3.
Paris 1986.
(Dwelly, Edward.) Am Feillire agus Leabhar-Poca Gaidhlig 1908. Herne Bay.
(Dwelly, Edward.] Am Feillire agus Leabhar-Poca Gaidhlig 1907. Herne Bay.
Forbes, Alexander Robert. Gaelic Names of Beasts (Mammalia), Birds, Fishes,
Insects, Reptiles, etc. Edinburgh 1905.
Frey, O., Kruta, V., Raftery, B., and Szabo, M. (eds.). The Celts. London
1991.
Friseal, Domhnull C. 'Far-Ainmean Duthchail na Gaidhealtachd', in Transactions
of the Gaelic Society of inverness
49 (1974-6) 87-96.
Laine-Kerjean, C. 'Le Calendrier Celtique', in Zeitschrift fur Celtische
Phllologie 23 (1943) 249-84.
Le Roux, Francoise. 'Le calendrier gaulois de Coligny (Am) at la fete irlandaise
de Samain
(*Samonios)', in Ogam 9 (1957) 337-42.
Macbain, Alexander. 'The Horse Element in the Topography of the Highlands
and Isles', in
Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Inverness 19 (1893-4) 217-45.
Macbain, Alexander. An Etymological Dictionary of the Gaelic Language. Inverness
1696.
Mac Cana, Proinsias. Celtic Mythology. London 1970.
McCluskey, Stephen C. 'The Solar Year in the Calendar of Coligny', in Studes
Celtiques 27 (1990) 163-74.
Mac-Coinnich, Uilleam. 'A Measg Tuath na Gaidhealtachd', in The Old Highlands
(Gaelic Society of Glasgow, 1908) 79-105.
MacDhughaill, Eachann M. 'Beachdachadh mu Ainmhidhean na Gaidhealtachd, Earann
II', in Transact ions of
the Gaelic Society of inverness 35 (1929-30) 98-144.
MacDougall, Hector. 'Far-Ainmean is Inisgean nan Gaidheal', in The Active
Gad (Gaelic Society of Glasgow, 1934) 68-94.
MacKenzie, Annie M. (ed.) Orain lain Luim: Songs of John MacDonald, Bard
of Keppoch. Scottish
Gaelic Texts Society. Edinburgh 1964.
Maclean, Calum I. 'The Last Sheaf', in Scottish Studies 8 (1964) 193-207.
MacNeil, Joe Neil. Sgeul gu Latha: Tales until Dawn. Translated and edited
by John Shaw.
Edinburgh 1987.
Mac Neill, Eoin. 'On the Notation and Chronography of the Calendar of Coligny',
in Eriu 10 (1926-8)
1-43.
Meek, Donald E. (ad.) The Campbell Collection of Gaelic Proverbs and Proverbial
Sayings. Inverness
1978.
Nicolson, Alexander (ad.). A Collection of Gaelic Proverbs and Familiar Phrases.
2nd edn.
Edinburgh 1882.
Parisot, Jean-Paul. 'Les Phases de la Lune at las Saisons dens le Calendrier
de Coligny', in Studes indo-Europtennes
13 (1985) 1-18.
Raes,Alwyn, and Rees, Brinlay. Celtic Heritage. London 1961. Rhys, John.
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of the British Academy 2 (1905-6) 71-134.
Rhys, John. 'The Coligny Calendar', in Proceedings of the British Academy
4 (1909-10) 207-318.
Shaw, John. 'Scottish Gaelic Traditions of the Char Sheanchain', in Cyril
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Siadhail (eds.), Celtic Languages and Celtic Peoples: Proceedings of the
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FOOTNOTES
(1) Note also that a Gaelic equivalent of 'carrying coals to
Newcastle' is eich (or capaill) a chur a dh'Innse Gall,
'sending horses to the Hebrides' (Forbes 1905: 161; MacDhughaill 1929-30:
120-1; Meek 1978: 26).
(2) For the Coligny Calendar see Rhys 1905-6 and 1909-10; Mac Neill
1926-8; Laine-Kerjean 1943; La Roux 1957; Rees and Rees 1961: 84-7; Daviet
1963; Whatmough 19970: 996-1004; Mac Cana 1970: 93; Parisot 1985; Duval and
Pinault 1986; McCluskey 1990; Frey etc. 1991: 494-5, 500, 511. Debate about
the Calendar has tended to focus on whether it shows us a year beginning
in Celtic fashion in November, or in June. Rhys and MacNeill favoured the
latter. Laine-Kerjean, La Roux ans Duval have favoured the former, arguing
among other things that no Celtic calendar could fail to begin with November,
and that the notation TRINOX SAMONI SINDIV 'the three nights of Samon(ios)
[begin] today' refers to Samhain. Unfortunately it occurs not at the
beginning of Samonios but on the 17th of that month, and I am more inclined
to agree with Rhys and Mac Neill that it refers to the summer solstice. It
is also hard to believe Laine-Kerjean's argument that Giamoni(os), a name
clearly meaning Wintertime, refers to May. I would conclude that these particular
Gauls were so influenced by the Greeks that they began their year, like the
Athenians, in midsummer. Thus Equos falls in February.
(3) Traditional naming practices would have led one to expect Brighid
Mhor nan Each, and if Each is 'Horses' the omission of the article
must be explained. Dr Shaw's Brigit Mhorshaithech fulfils this
criterion.
(4) The Jibe was returned. The Knapdale people's neighbours spoke of
Cnapadal, far am bi iad a' cur tuir sna h-eich, 'Knapdale,
where they put sense into horses' (Meek 1978: 72), while from a Juraman
MacDougall heard of Cnapadal a' bhuntata mhoir, far am biodh iad
a' striochdadh nan each oga, 'Knapdale of the big potatoes, where they
used to thrash(?) the young horses' (striochdadh MacDougall 1934:
78; strlochdadh Friseal 1974-6: 92). lf the idea is of disciplining
horses as if they were people, then we may have an evocation here of Lagh
Chille Mo Cheallaig, the Law of Kilmacheallag, under which a horse was
condemned to be hanged for desertion of its master; as a location, Kilmacheallag
has never been identified, and has generally been thought to be mythical
(Nicholson 1882: 134; MacKenzie 1964: 116-7, 283-4). For another list of
district by-names see Mac-Coinnich 1908: 83-90.
No 36 Autumn 1994
Page 2: Janet and Marie Morrison's 1999 Trip to Scotland - Part One
Page 3: A Hill-Farm Girlhood
Page 4: John and Mary Morrison of Rocky River - The Fifth Part
Page 5: Rambling in Kilkerran with the Colonel
Page 6: The Horse People of Kintyre
Page 7: Kintyre Smugglers - Part 2
Page 8: By Hill and Shore - Part 2