Legends of the isles and Highland Gatherings :: :: University of Virginia Library

Legends of the isles and Highland Gatherings

By Charles Mackay. Second Edition

Mackay, Charles (1814-1889)

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PROLOGUE.

THE SEA-KING'S BURIAL.

THE DANCE OF BALLOCHROY.

ST. COLUMBA; OR THE COUNTING OF THE ISLES.

THE “DREAM,” BY BEAULY, ROSS-SHIRE.

THE INVASION OF THE NORSEMEN.

THE EVE OF FLODDEN.

THE KELPIE OF CORRYVRECKAN.

LORD NITHSDALE'S DREAM IN THE TOWER OF LONDON.

THE SHOAL OF WHALES.

THE WITCH OF SKERRIEVORE.

THE BURN OF ABERIACHAN.

THE WRAITH OF GARRY WATER.

THE KING'S SON.

THE LADY OF DUART'S VENGEANCE.

THE BRIDGE OF GLEN ARAY.

THE PLANTING OF THE ACORNS.

THE FALL OF FOYERS,

FOYERS BEFORE THE FALL.

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THE INVASION OF THE NORSEMEN.

I

Haco, king of Norway, call'd his men of might,
Sea-captains and Vikinger—his veterans in fight;
And set sail for Scotland's coast
With a well-apparell'd host,
Fully twenty thousand strong—
When the summer days grew long—
In the fairest fleet that ever the North Sea billows bore,
To harry it, and pillage it, and hold it evermore.

II

Mile on mile extended, o'er the ocean blue,
Sail'd the ships of battle, white and fair to view—
Running races on the sea,
With their streamers waving free,
From their saucy bows all day
Dashing up the scornful spray,
And leaving far behind them, in the darkness of the night,
Unborrow'd from the firmament, long tracks of liquid light.

III

Past the isles of Shetland lay the monarch's path,
Round the isles of Orkney and the Cape of Wrath,
'Mid the Islands of the West
That obey'd his high behest—
The Lewis, and Uist, and Skye,
And the countless isles that lie
Between the wide Atlantic and Albyn's mountains brown,
And paid him homage duly, and fealty to his crown.

IV

Music and rejoicing follow'd on their way,
Drinking and carousing nightly till the day.
Every sailor in the fleet
Felt his heart with pleasure beat,
Every soldier in the ships
Had a smile upon his lips,
As he drank, and saw, in fancy, reeking sword and flaming brand,
And the rapine, and the violence, and the carnage of the land.

V

Not amid the mountains of the rugged North
Would the mighty Haco send his legions forth;
Not by highland loch or glen
Would he land his eager men;—
Not on banks of moorland stream
Were their thirsty swords to gleam;—

But further to the southward, from the rocks of bare Argyll
To the sloping hills of Renfrew, and the grassy meads of Kyle.

VI

In the vales of Carrick, smiling by the sea,
In the woods of Lennox, in the Lothians three,
There was fatness all the year—
There were sheep and fallow-deer—
There was mead to fill the horn—
There were kye and there was corn,—
There was food for hungry Norsemen, with spoil to last them long,
And lordly towers to revel in, with music and with song.

VII

Like scarts upon the wing, by the hope of plunder led,
Pass'd the ships of Haco, with sails like pinions spread.
But the tidings went before
To the inland, from the shore;
And from crag to mountain crag,
At the terror of his flag,
Arose a cry of warning, and a voice of loud alarm,
That call'd the startled multitudes to gather and to arm.

VIII

Every mountain-summit had its beal-fire bright;
All Argyll, ere sunset, crown'd its hills with light,

And from Morven to Cantyre
Lit the chain of signal-fire;
From Cantyre to Cowal's coast
Blazed a warning of the host
Of savage Norse invaders that to spoil and harry came,
With their lust and with their hunger—with the sword and with the flame.

IX

Glen call'd out to mountain—mount to moorland brown,
Village call'd to village, town gave voice to town;—
And the bells in every tower
Rang the tocsin hour by hour,
Until old Dunedin heard,
And the Lothians three were stirr'd,
And sent their yeomen westward to struggle hand to hand
For their wives and for their children, for their home and native land.

X

Wives had no endearment for a laggard lord;
Maidens had no love-looks and no kindly word
For the lover who was slow
To march out against the foe.
Even maids themselves put on
Coat of mail and habergeon;
Threw the snood off for the helmet, left the distaff for the spear,
To die for sake of Scotland, with a sire or lover dear.

XI

Young King Alexander march'd his legions forth,
From eastward to the westward, from southward to the north:
High his flashing falchion gleam'd,
In his blue eye valour beam'd,
In his heart high courage glow'd,
As in pride of youth he rode
With the flower of Scotland's people, to defend her sacred soil,
And repel the Norse marauders that came down for blood and spoil.

XII

With him rode the Comyn, grown in battles gray,
With a thousand bowmen ready for the fray,
With a tongue to give command,
And a rough untiring hand;
With a cheek in combat scarr'd,
And a soul to pity hard;
When he drew his sword for battle, and flung away the sheath,
It was death to him who struggled with the Comyn of Monteith.

XIII

And the Bishop of St. Andrew's, a priest but in his name,
In his heart a soldier, with all his warriors came.
And the stalwart Earl of Fife
Led his vassals to the strife—

Full a thousand fighting-men,
Strong of hand and sharp of ken,
And ready each to die at the bidding of his lord;
But readier still for Scotland to draw the avenging sword.

XIV

From his northern mountains and his lochs afar
March'd the Earl of Caithness, ready aye for war,
With his pibroch sounding shrill
To his clansmen of the hill;
And the Earl of March, new wed,
Left his happy bridal bed
At the first war-cry of danger that broke upon his ears,
And join'd King Alexander, with twice a thousand spears.

XV

Thirsting for the conquest, eager for the fray,
Haco sail'd by Arran at the dawn of day;
But as up the Firth of Clyde
He came proudly with the tide,
Rose a storm upon the deep,
And with wild and fitful sweep
Howl'd aloft amid the rigging; while the sun look'd pale and wan,
Through the clouds and driving vapours as the tempest hurried on.

XVI

To the ship of Haco came his stanchest men—
Holder, Sweno, Ratho, Hingst, and Innisfen,
Irminsule, and Loke and Harr,
Each a chieftain fierce in war;
In the foray, hand to hand,
On the sea or on the land;
Loving fighting more than counsel, blazing torch than morning shine;
The foremost in the battle, and the hindmost at the wine.

XVII

Short was Haco's counsel, and the signal flew
From captain on to captain, from crew again to crew,
That by Largs, ere noon of day,
They should land within the bay,—
And through all the ships there ran
A rejoicing, man with man,
That the hour had come at last, when the sword should leave its sheath,
And the cloth-yard shaft its quiver for the revelry of death.

XVIII

Scotland's king was ready—Scotland's patriot men,
Marshall'd round their monarch from mountain, strath, and glen,
And from every height around
Seem'd to issue from the ground.

Thirty thousand men that day
Met the Norsemen in the bay,
And fought, but not for pillage, nor for glory in the strife,
But for God and for their country—for their freedom and their life.

XIX

Loud the shock resounded on the battle-field,
Clink of sword and buckler, clang of spear and shield;
Whirr of arrows in the blast,
On their errand flying fast;
And a shouting loud and high,
And a shrill continuous cry,
From either side arising, as th' impetuous legions met,
And the green fresh sward was trodden deep, and dank, and gory-wet.

XX

Loud the voice of Haco sounded 'mid the fray,
Alexander's louder cheer'd the Scots that day;
And the kings press'd on to meet,
Through the arrows thick as sleet,
Through the living and the dead,
Holding high the dauntless head—
To fight in single combat, and to struggle hand to hand,
For the glory of the battle and the mastery of the land.

XXI

And the fierce Earl Comyn sought the Norseman Harr;
The Bishop singled Ratho from the ranks of war;
And the Earls of March and Fife,
In the sharp-contested strife,
Fought with Irminsule and Loke,
Thrust for thrust, and stroke for stroke;
And the Earl of Caithness drove the haughty Innisfen
Back again into the ocean with a hundred of his men.

XXII

Harr fell deadly wounded by the Comyn's blade;
Ratho fled to seaward, faint and sore dismay'd;
While Loke, with mortal wound,
Fell exhausted on the ground,
And Hingst sank down to rest
With the death-shaft in his breast;
When a sudden panic seized on the whole Norwegian foe,
And they fled like flying dust, when the Norland tempests blow.

XXIII

Down upon them swooping in their sudden rout,
Came King Alexander with exulting shout—
Crying, “Strike for Scotland's sake,
And a bloody vengeance take
For the insult borne too long—
For the centuries of wrong,—

For the murder and the ravage they have done within our lands;—
Down upon them, Scottish hearts! Strike, and spare not, Scottish hands!”

XXIV

Fighting, flying, struggling—with his scatter'd host
Haco saw, despairing, that the day was lost.
Of his twenty thousand men
Not a third were left him then,
The fearful tale to tell
Of the slaughter that befel;
And Haco, iron-hearted, who had never wept before,
With his hands his pale face cover'd, and sobb'd upon the shore.

XXV

Flying their pursuers, faint, with pallid lips,
Haco and his captains stagger'd to their ships;
And ere nightfall, many a one,
That had sail'd when day begun
As if life were in her sides
To defy the winds and tides,
Was driven before the tempest, her tall mast snapp'd in twain,
A helpless wreck on Arran, ne'er to sail the seas again.

XXVI

Through the Kyles, storm-batter'd, Haco held his way,
By Cantyre and Islay on to Colonsay:

And when dawn'd the morning light
Not a vessel was in sight,
But his own ship scudding by
On the gloomy shore of Skye,
Dismantled 'mid the hurricane that still around him blew,
With danger all around him and a spirit-broken crew

XXVII

Thus he sail'd to Orkney; but by night nor day,
To his men around him, did one word betray
All the anguish of his heart—
Though at times a sudden start,
And a short uneasy pace,
And the flushing of his face,
Show'd the grief and rage within him, as he mourn'd with silent lips
For his hope of conquest lost, for his sailors and his ships.

XXVIII

In the bay of Kirkwall, shelter'd from the gale,
His sad crew dropp'd their anchor, and furl'd the tatter'd sail.
And the King was led on shore,
Weak, and faint, and spirit-sore,
Seeing—heeding—knowing nought
But his own despairing thought—
A thought of bitter shame, that he had not died that day,
With his face towards the mountains, in the thickest of the fray.

XXIX

To his couch they led him, once so bold and strong,
And they watch'd beside him tenderly and long;
But all human care was vain
To relieve him of his pain:
So the mighty Haco died
In his sorrow and his pride,
And they buried him in Orkney; and Norsemen never more
Set sail to harry Scotland, or plunder on her shore.