5. After the Norwegians

When I was a teenager, visiting my friend Morag in Strond, I heard a haunting song, a Gaelic tune, but sung in English: Birlinn of the White Shoulders.

Out to Lewis and out to Barra,
Out, far out to Rodil in Harris,
Fareth she, out to sea.....
No, I'm not going to sing it to you, but Kenneth MacKellar does! I remembered the tume so accurately.

As you know, our coat of arms has a birlinn on it. Clinker built, with one square sail, they could be any size, and the number of oars was decided by the size. They appear on many tombs and on many monuments, and the finest is on Alastair Crotach's tomb in St Clement's church in Rodil

Is it not wonderful that this beautiful church and tomb were left untouched by the ravages of the Reformation?

When the bureaucrats went back to Norway, their half-Celtic relatives remained behind. There were no roads in the North until the 18th century, and for centuries the sea was the road. Scattered round the northern and western coats of Scotland are the remains of the "brochs" which some researchers speculate might have been lookout posts. The best preserved is Dun Carloway in Lewis, about which more anon.

Here's one at Dunmore, in the Inner Hebrides. One can imagine the excitement when the forerunners of the Viking ships came inshore. Were they friends or enemies, raiders or traders?

After the Vikings disappeared, warfare was endemic throughout the area, as clan fought clan, and sometimes even the king, who had a tough time trying to bring his truculent subjects to book. Not until James IV sent a navy northwards, were the pretensions of the Macdonald Lords of the Isles limited to fighting with the locals, and exacting tribute from the unfortunate captains of the birlinns belonging to other clans.

The rough forts had, by this time, been replaced  by stone castles, such as Duart Castle, home of the Chief of the MacLeans. The castle came with a MacDonald bride, daughter of the Lord of the Isles, and is a great place to visit. Built right on the edge of the sea, it was a good place to keep an eye on passing traffic.
Nice dungeons, too!

There is a special Visitors' Book for MacLeans and their relatives. My name is there.



Model of Birlinn


The Clan lands, in the eyes of the clansmen, were the property of the clan, protected by the chief. As time went on, rents were charged, and some of the chiefs ceased to be "fathers of their people", and regarded themselves as the owners of their lands.

It seems, from the writings of those who visited the Hebrides, that there was acute poverty  among the ordinary people. For reasons no one quite understands, the population of the planet had begun to rise, and the shortage of agricultural land was to have profound effects on the unfortunate Hebrideans. By the 18th Century, there was an effort to get rid of the surplus population to the Americas, usually as indentured servants, one step up from slavery. There are sad cemeteries in the Carolinas.

And the Cheviot sheep had now made its appearance.