Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 10.djvu/21

Rh GAE year 181 9, by the Rev. Donald Mackintosh, and, to form some idea of the number of them, it is only necessary to observe that, under the letter “ I ” alone, they reach the number of 382 in the ﬁrst edition of the book. A large number of these proverbial sayings escaped the notice of Mr Mackintosh, and additions were made in the second edition, while some of the very best are not recorded even yet. Prover- bial sayings in English are represented by sayings of a different kind in Gaelic, having the same meaning. “There is many a slip between the cup and the lip” is represented by Is le deiine an ni a s/iluigeas e, ac/L c/ia leis an ni a c/mgciineas e, “ What a man swallows is his own, but not what he chews.” “ It never rains but it pours ” is repre- sented by .112 miir (L t/ieicl a’ c/iailleac/i ’n (i ruit/i, t/ieid i ’n. (i clecmn-ruit/i, “ When the old woman takes to running, she runs with a will.” “ Sour grapes ”——J[i0m1(m. a’ (2/Laird ris ct’ c/zaisteal, c/ui téid mi f/zéin do’n c/iaisteal b/ireun, C/lcl. teizl, clia lcig icul (um mi, “ The bard’s oath to the castle, ‘ I w'ent go to the vile castle; no, they won’t let me in.’ ” The Gaelic proverbs are full of interest, and add much to the power of either speech or writing when skilfully used. b'yeula.c/ulun, or Tales of Fiction.—~These at one time abounded in the Highlands, and had much in common with the tales collected and published by Grimm and Dasent, from the German and the Norse. Until lately, these tales were entirely oral, and were little known beyond certain 1))1'ti0I1S of the West Highlands. Recently they have been collected, translated, and edited, with peculiar care'and skill, by Mr J. F. Campbell, in four Svo volumes. This is a real ad-lition to Gaelic literature, and Mr Campbell has laid every friend of that literature under obligation. One real service it has done in preserving for us admirable specimens of the most idiomatic and popular forms of the Gaelic language. Ve have it there as used by the tellers of popular tales among the people for generations. Wheuce many of these tales have come it is hard to say, but tales have been collected in the small islands south of Barra, where the people seldom treadithe soil of even their main island, containing ideas and forms of thought which never could have originated there, and the preservation of which, in such a locality, is a remarkable fact. Are they relics of
 * 1 higher civilization existing in ages long gone by? It is

remarkable that the Thomas the Rhymer of Lowland tradition is well known in the traditions of the Highlands, and that stories of him related on the borders in broad Scotch are related in the Highlands in Gaelic as tales of great antiquity. Clan II isz‘0r_y.—A portion of the literature of the Gaelic Celt consists of clan history. The clan system does not seem to be very ancient. In all probability it dates from the period when the Gaelic kingdom of Scotland ceased to exist. It has been already said to date from the era of charters. But the two eras are pretty nearly identical. Down to the reign of Malcolm III. the Gaelic kingdom appears to have been to a large extent homogeneous. There were no elements in it but what were Celtic, as it never really embraced within it the Scandinavian sections. Then the land was governed by its maormors and toiseac/zs, men who represented the central governing power. It would seem that when, in the reign of David I., the kingdom became largely Anglo—Saxon and Anglo-Norman, the Gaelic people became estranged from their native kings, and gathered themselves in sections under the sway of their own chiefs; and hence came chiefs and clans, instead of a king and his subjects forming a united nation. The change was a serious one for the Gaelic people, as they never became again what they had bee11 before. Clan names appear at an early period, and in some form or other must have existed before the time of the Saxonized kings; but not one of the great clans of Highland history—tl1e Macdonalds, LIC 11 the Macleans, the Campbells, the Macleods, the Mackenziea_ the Mackintoshes, or others—appears at all. In the book of Deer, supposed to be of the 11th or 12th century, the names of two clans —tl1e clan Morgan and the clan Canan— appear ; but it is very questionable whether these represent any clan existing now, although clan Morgan is said to be the old name of the Mackays of Strathnaver. But the names in that interesting record are for the most part purely patronymic, and do not indicate any connexion with existing clans. The fact is that, till very recently, the clan name was conﬁned to the chief, as records of old deeds and processes at law serve to show. The Gaelic historical literature of one kind or another is of considerable extent, and consists of relics, written and traditional, of the old sennachies or family historians. In certain sections of the country the local traditions are full of the stories of old feuds, and, though not to be implicitly relied on, contain usually an element of truth. In Suther- land the feuds of the Sutherlands and the Mackays, in Lewis those of the Mackenzies and Macleods, in Skye the feuds of the M‘Leods and the Macdonalds, in eastern Inverness- shire- those of the Mackintoshes and Cummings, in Lochaber those of the Mackintoshes and the Camerons, in Perthshire those of the Campbells and the Macgregors, and others in other quarters are largely related. I'ative accounts of the clans were sometimes committed to writing, a specimen of which appears in the transactions of the Iona Club. For a good deal of what is historical regarding the Highlands, recourse must be had to the Irish Annals, which occasionally refer to events occurring in Scotland. JIS. Literal-m'e.—Tl1e written Gaelic literature was at its earlier period so mixed up with that of Ireland that it is not easy in every instance to distinguish them. The early church of both countries was one, and the early litera- ture was the offspring of the early church. The very ﬁrst notices we have of the church, whether among the mission institutes of Ireland or in Iona, indicate the existence and extensive cultivation of a native literature. The transcrip- tion or translation of portions of the Scriptures is shown to have been one of the frequent exercises of the early mis- sionaries, and they all learned to write the same dialect and make use of the same letters. Many of the MSS. written in Iona may be credited to Ireland, and vice rersa; and writings found in Continental libraries may be presumed to have been the work of Scottish as truly as of Irish writers. The early treatises, and glosses upon Latin treatises, on theological and other subjects still existing in the early Gaelic dialect are numerous, and have afforded materials for the: acute and masterly criticism of Zeuss, De Nigra, Stokes, and others ; and these are accompanied by treatises on grammar, history, medicine, astrology, metaphysics, poetry, and similar subjects, which are of much interest. Most of these remains are found in the collections in Trinity College, Dublin, and in the library of the Irish Royal Academy; but there are numerous remains in the Edinburgh Advocates’ Library, which prove at least that there were in Scotland persons who valued and collected this literature. There can be no doubt that tl1erc were many contributors to it as well. The earliest specimen of Gaelic writing, which can be- pronounced to be Scottish beyond any question, is the Book of Deer, said already to be a work of the 11th or 12th century. The book itself consists of portions of the New Testament written in Latin. The Gaelic portion consists of historical references, with notices of grants of land bestowed on the old monastery of Deer, in Aberdeenshire. These references and notices are, for the most part, written on the margin. They show that, at the time the book was written, the Gaelic language was used, both for speaking and writing, in the district around Deer, where it is now un-