A NIGHT ON EILEAN MUNDE.

Otago Witness, Issue 3775, 20 July 1926, Page 81

A NIGHT ON EILEAN MUNDE.

By M. E. M. Donaldson. * Does not the mere suggestion of a company of people circling round a fire after dark in wintertime conjure up one of the cosiest pictures imaginable? Could there be a more suitable setting for the telling of tales of the occult? Bui the circumstances under which the following tales were narrated were very different from the conventional winter’s fireside, and were entirely lacking in that element oi cosiness with which one associates the usual Highland “ceilidh.'' For we were a shivering company of travellers, waiting, as so many dwellers in the Western Highlands are doomed to wait, for some wretched boat in the small hours of a cold winter’s morning. The scene was one of the islands—fortunate in the possession of a pier—and there were three of us extracting what heat we could fivm a small and inadequate fire extemporised in the hearthless shelter where we were waiting our boat’s arrival. As none of us lived within miles of the pier, and as there were no cottages near it, we had no alternative but to time our arrival at the pier for the hour at which the boat was scheduled as due, lest this should prove the unique occasion of her being up to time. Needless to say, however, we had weary hours of waiting, as usual, before us, and in order to beguile the time, we fell to gossiping: Seated on the none too comfortable seat provided by a tin of sheep dip was a native of Glencoe, who was full of stories of that romantic country, and he led off with the following tale of Clachaig and Eilean Munde, the famous burial isle of Loch Levent

“A company c-f men—all except one, natives—were drinking together in the inn, when a heated argument broke out between the stranger and one of the natives. Just before midnight the men left the inn, with the exception of the two who had been having a difference of opinion, and who were still quarrelling. Next morning the native who had been in verbal conflict with the stranger was seen at work as usual, and it was naturally assumed that, as the stranger was seen no more, he had continued his journey home. Indeed, the very ordinary incident of the quarrel would never have been recalled but for a strange event which happened years afterwards.

“One night, during a ceilidh that was held in the cottage of an old tailor, the question was raised whether anyone would have the courage to spend a night on Eilean Munde. No one was attracted by the proposal until a bet was made, and then the host himself agreed to go. Next night about 10 o’clock some of his companions ferried the tailor across to the Durial island, and there left him alone. The old man made his way over to the little ruined church, and therein its shelter he sat down, lit a candle, and began to sew. For nearly two hours the most intense silence prevailed, unbroken even by the lap of water on the rocky shores of the island. Shortly before midnight, however there came an ominous sound, and a nollow voice said: ‘Tailor, look rounds The old man did so, and saw a flesMess hand beckoning him from the ground. The tailor (who must have been of a singularly cool nature) merely re-

plied: ‘I see that, but I sew this.’ Again the voice adjured the tailor to look round, and looxing, the old man this time saw a skeleton arm raised out of the earth. A second time the unperturbed tailor replied: ‘I see that, but I sew this.’ A third time the ghostly voice repeated its injunction, and this time half of a man’s skeleton was protruding from the ground. This gruesome spectacle did succeed in upsetting the tailor’s calm, and he shook with fright as the spectre addressed him the third time. £The ghost told the horrified old man that he was the spirit of the stranger who had been killed so many years ago outside the Clachaig Inn after the quarrel, that the murderer had carried the corpse on his back, ferried it across to Eilean Munde, and there buried it. The skeleton concluded by asking the trembling tailor to place his finger at the back of the ghost’s skull. This the old man did, finding the base crushed from the deatn blow. No sooner had the tailor d »ne as the spectre requested than it gradually disappeared from view into the ground again. The next morning, when his companions returned to fete’ the tailor, they found him wandering about half demented, and only after he had been taken home and given time to recover was he aLle to recount his ghastly experience. He begged them to verify his statement by digging U” the bones of the murdered man, and this they did. proving to this e~tent the trut!. ot the tailor’s story. Moreover, the man who was accused by the ghost as his murderer confessed that the charge was trr , though apparently he never suffered for his crime.” In the oppressive gloom of the shelter which our meagre fire scarcely safficed to lighten, we shivered anew as we listened to this gruesome tale, and I observed that a very similar story was told of the beautiful old Priory Church of Beauly, and that it also reminded me of the tale of the “tailor’s hole” in the Abbey Church of lona. Here, it is said, the mediaeval monks kept the tailor who made their habits, but they kept him so mercilessly at work that he began to have fearful visions at night. The worst of these was of a fleshless hand that used to thrust itself out from the wall with the unattractive invitation to “Take a great grey paw that is without meat!” The Beauly version of a story similar to that of Eilean Munde is as follows: The interestng Priory Church, now in an ideal state of repair recently completed, was at one time said to be haunted by an apparition that added aggressiveness to the more usual characteristics of ghosts. Nothing would induce people to go near the church after sunset until at last a tailor vowed he would finish two pairs of hose there on a certain night. As good as his word, the tailor duly repaired to the church at midnight, and settling himself within its dark and deserted walls, he began his stipulated task. He had not long been at work when he was suddenlty confronted by a gigantic spectre that, stretching out a skeleton arm, exclaimed in blood-curdling tones: “Behold, tailor, a great hand without flesh and blood!” The tailor merely observed, as the Glencoe ghost before (or after?) him did: “I see that and l sew this.” Three times were these sentences exchanged oh either side, by which time the tailor had finished his self-appointed task and sought to make his escape as speedily as possible. But the spectre, not to be thwarted, with uplifted hand pursued the tailor, and struck out at him. Fortunately, however, the tailor was too quick for the apparition, and the blow intended for his head, struck the wall instead, so that to this day you can see on the north wall of, the church the imprint of the hand of the baffled apparition. “Were you knowing another story of a ghost that was haunting Eilean Munde?” diffidently asked a quiet man perched on the edge of some coils of wire. “I was hearing it from a cousin that was staying at Ballachulis.” As the native of Glencoe disavowed knowledge of any other tale of the burial isle, and the other two of us encouraged our diffident oempanion, this was the story he told us. “There was a young Cameron that was making love to a girl of the Macdonalds, and he was vowing to be faithful to her as long as his ksad was on his shoulders. But it was the false one he proved to be, for he was soon throwing her over and- walking out with another girl altogether. Well, it was not long after this that the fever was taking hold of him, and he died and was buried, and then it was that there was no peace on Eilean Munde whatever. For one day after another theie were terrible shriekings on the island, and they were never stopping at alb At last there was a man who was the bold fellow, and he said he would be going over to find out what was wrong. So he went, and what was he seeing but the head sticking above ground of the young man that was dead of the feveT? All the rest of him was buried except his head, and he was begging the man that came over to be drawing his sword and cutting off his head for him, that he might rest in peace at last. And the man did what he was asked, and there was no more noises heard again from Eilean Munde.” “I was never hearing that story,” said the native of Glencoe meditatively, “but there was no place like Glencoe for the strange tales, indeed.” The third of our company, who, up to this time had not spoken, now said: “I was belonging to the Braes of Lochaber, that is still the Catholic country, and there was an old tale of noises in the churchvard there. Cille Charoil, where the chiefs of Keppoch were buried, is high up on the hillside, and it would be sofcnewhere about the year of Young Charles (1746), that a Protestant was buried there. After that, nobody that was living round about could get any

peace at all, for the fearful fighting that was going on in the burial ground. So there was some of them that went to the Presbyterian minister, and they were asking him to be taking away the body of the Protestant that was disturbing all the rest that was lying in Cille Charoil. “ No, indeed,” said the minister. “If all the rest of them are up in arms and fighting, why were they not turning him out for themselves ? ” As the minister was not helping them at all, they just went home again, and they were not doing any more, till one terrible night, when the sounds of fighting in the churchyard were worse than ever, and were frightening the women and children something awful. So this time one of the men said he would go for the priest of the Braes, Maighstir Aonghus Mor MacDhughaill, who was living on the other side of the River Spean, right opposite the churchyard. He was getting the priest, and they crossed the river, and climbed the hillside, but before they were entering Cille Charoil, Maighstir Aoanghus was taking off his shoe filling it with water from the burn. Then he did bless the water, and went into the burial ground, and there he was sprinkling the holy water, and was using the office of exorcism. After that the dead were all settling down peaceably again, and there was never any more trouble at all.” “ I’m thinking they would be the better of calling in the priest to-day in another Catholic part of the country, where a ghost was driving away the minister and his family from the manse.” This remark fell from the quiet man who had told us the second story of Eilean Munde, and, urged by all of us, this is what he told us. “ Indeed, there was not very much to te telling you, but it was true, right enough, for the priest there was telling me himself, and he was getting the story from the minister himself. It was just this. There was some bad spirit loose in the manse. No one was ever seeing it, but they were all feeling it, and knowing, moreover, that the ghost was trying to drive them out. At last the minister, poor man, was getting quite ill when the son came home. He was the fine fellow indeed that had won some sort of medal in the war for his bravery, and he was saying that he would see what lie could be doing with the ghost. But for all he was that brave and a fine fellow, moreover, the ghost beat him the same as everyone else in the manse. The son was telling the priest that he could not be saying what the ghost was any more than it was an evil spirit that was making him feel that if they were not leaving the manse their heads would be crushed to death. So they did leave the manse, and there it is, still empty.” We all agreed that this was a very strange tale, and one and another were making conjectures about this peculiar ghost when the welcome sound of our boat’s whistle gave the signal that it was time for us td Inputting out in the ferry boat. And so our ceilidh came to an abrupt close, and if it was not the cosiest in which we had taken part, none of us are likely to forget it because of its unusual circumstances. —The Weekly Scotsman.