On
our way south after the trip to the Outer Hebrides, we stopped at
Brahan
-
Brathainn in
Gaelic, the ancient
seat of the Seaforths, the chiefs of the great Mackenzie clan and
erstwhile home at the beginning of the seventeenth century, of
Coinneach Odhar," Brown Kenneth" otherwise known as
the Brahan Seer.
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| Brahan today |
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| The stable block and clock tower at Brahan |
There is little left of Brahan, the house long demolished but the
legend of the Seer lives on.
Coinneach was credited with forseeing the Highland Clearances - the
crow of a cock will not be heard north of Drumochter, people would
flee from their country before an army of sheep to islands as yet
unknown; the Caledonian Canal - Ships in full sail shall pass
by Tomnahurich; the coming of the railway or motor car- long
strings of carriages without horse or bridle; the
Battle of Culloden-Drumossie, thy bleak moor will be stained with
the best blood of the Highlands and even the discovery of oil -
black rains; as
well as many many more.
It
is his prediction of the fall of the clan Mackenzie with all the
detail of the characteristics of the neighbouring lairds alive at the
time which allowed for the incumbent to know when his fate would
come, that has captured people's imagination since then.
The
Countess of Seaforth had summoned Coinneach and asked him of news of
her husband, the third Earl, who was in Paris as an ambassador for
King Charles II. Coinneach applied his divination stone, a pebble
with a hole through it, to his eye and replied that the Earl was well
and happy. The countess plagued him with further questions until the
Seer, perhaps feeling aggrieved that his strange abilities were being
trivialised, admitted that he saw the the Earl in the company of a
young woman enjoying all the delights of Paris. The countess' fury at
her husband's behaviour was inflamed further in that it had been made
known in front of retainers and servants. In a rage, she condemned
Coinneach to a cruel death at Chanonry Point, to be burnt to death in
a tar barrel.
Before of his execution he
predicted the death of the last Earl of Seaforth, predeceased by all
his four sons and the downfall of the House of Mackenzie with such
accuracy that the last Earl would be in no doubt that his line was
coming to an end.
In
1815, the last lord Seaforth died in the circumstances predicted by
Coinneach Odhar.
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| Did these giant oaks at Brahan witness the end of the Seaforths? |
The
Seer made his predictions after peering through a natural hole in a
stone. Such "holey " stones are sometimes called hag
stones, Odin's stones, or in Scotland, adder-stanes and there is a
long-held belief that they enable the viewer to catch a glimpse of
other worlds or, like the Seer, the future. They were also worn or
hung from doors and boat prows as charms. Some are made by boring
molluscs called piddocks, others by the action of sea currents on the
stones, swirling one upon another.
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| Holey Stones |
On
the point of his execution, after making his famous prediction
foretelling the end of the Seaforths, all the more powerful for its
being made before an assembled company and in such dramatic and
violent circumstances, Coinneach Odhar threw his stone into a loch.
It was lost forever.
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| Dungeness |
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| Flowers in the shingle |
A
year or two ago, I found such a stone on Dungeness beach or, as is
the belief, it found me.
It
lies on my desk today.
I
have often held it to my eye but no glimpses of the future or of
Faerie has it offered me. I live in hope.
A
word of warning. Attempts to make such a stone by artificial means
are said to bring bad luck on the perpetrator.
