Scenes and legends of the north of Scotland : $b or, The traditional history of Cromarty — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Scenes and legends of the north of Scotland : $b or, The traditional history of Cromarty
John Stuart Mill · en
From a peculiar circumstance in the past state of this country, its
traditional history presents us both with the appearance assumed by
superstition when thus connected with religion, and the very similar
aspect which it bears when left to itself. The country had its two
distinct tribes of people, believers in nearly the same superstitions,
but as unlike as can well be imagined in their degree of religious
feeling. No pagan of the past ages differed more in this respect from
the Christians of the present, than the clansmen of the Highland host
did from the poor Covenanters, on whom they were turned loose by the
Archbishop of St. Andrews. And yet neither Peden nor Cargill, nor any
of the other prophets of the Covenant, were favoured with clearer
revelations of the future than some of the Highland seers. What was
deemed prophecy in the one class, was reckoned indeed merely the
second-sight in the other; but there seems to be little danger of error
in referring what are so evidently the same effects to the same causes.
Donald Roy’s vision of the foundering boat, and of the woman perishing
in the snow, is quite in character with the visions of the seers. Peden
was forty miles from Bothwell Bridge on the day of the battle; but he
saw his friends “fleeing and falling before the enemy, with the hanging
and hashing, and the blood running like water.” “Oh the monzies! the
monzies!” he exclaimed on another occasion, when foretelling a bloody
invasion of the French which was to depopulate the country, “See how
they run! see how they run! they are at our firesides, slaying men,
women, and children.” “Be not afraid,” said Bruce of Anwoth, in a
sermon preached on the day the battle of Killiecrankie was stricken;
“be not afraid, I see the enemy scattered, and Claverhouse no longer a
terror to God’s people. This day I see him killed--lying a corpse!” But
there is no lack of such instances, nor of the stories of second-sight
with which they may be so clearly identified. The Tracts of Peter
Walker, and the Lives of the Scots Worthies, abound with the former;
some very striking specimens of the latter may be found in Pepys’
Correspondence with Lord Rea.
[Sidenote: KENNETH ORE.]