The Gaelic word gruag means ‘hair’, although falt is heard more commonly on Skye, and the word gruagach usually describes a young woman or maiden.
There are many examples in the rich Gaelic song repertoire that reference gruagach as such- songs of unrequited love or heartbreak, describing wistful longing or praising beauty. But this one- ‘Òran mun Ghruagaich’ | ‘A Song about the Gruagach’ (TAD 95653)- notated by Frances Tolmie in 1860 from the singing of Oighrig Ross of Balgown, holds a very different meaning and one that I had no recollection of hearing before.
This song gives voice to a mother’s grief-stricken lamentation on the sudden death of her daughter while staying together at a shieling in Glen Mhic Asgill, Bracadale. In her mourning she implores the dying peat embers to give her light that she might see the gruagach- not in this case the girl, but a tutelary being from the Gaelic Otherworld, described in accompanying notes by Tolmie as a ‘friend of the cattle’, and a strike from whom is believed to have killed the young woman.
The girl’s wrongdoing has been to lose her patience and treat harshly a cow that had become restive while being driven into the fold at night, whereupon the gruagach, who had been standing invisibly nearby, ‘smote the girl for committing such a sin- for the gruagach would not tolerate rough words any more than blows to the objects of his care’.
The supernatural gruagach was firmly believed in across the Highlands and Islands at one time and historical publications record regional variations regarding their role, appearance and nature. Usually they are described as being mischievous but harmless, with long, flowing golden hair and a white breast. Most often they would take the form of a female, but in parts of Skye, as in the song belonging to Bracadale, the gruagach is described as a tall, well-dressed young man with long hair, wearing a white, frilled shirt.
A generally benevolent being, their role appears to be to protect the cattle from illness or harm, but they also have power to control the yield or take the goodness from the milk, and rarely, to kill. They are known to carry a reed, wand or switch with which to strike any who displease them- incurring the wrath of the gruagach could be assured by mistreating the animals, speaking badly of the gruagach themselves, or by neglecting to leave them an offering of cows’ milk in a particular stone.
The Rev. Norman MacDonald from Valtos tells us of the belief in this area of East-side (TAD 75639), noting that that the gruagach hasn’t been seen on Skye in over eighty years at the time of recording, and recalls an old lady telling him that she would see the gruagach on summer afternoons, ‘a’ ruith ‘s a’ dannsa cho guanach, aotram a-mach anns na buailtean am measg na sprèidhe.’ [‘running and dancing blithely, lightly, out in the fields amongst the cattle.’]
Of the custom of leaving libations of milk in a stone, the Rev. MacDonald informs; ‘Mar a dèanadh iad sin dh’fhaodadh iad a bhith cinnteach nach biodh deur bainne aig a’ crodh ‘sa mhadainn. ‘S aithne dhomh cnoc anns a’ sgìreach anns an do rugadh mi anns an Eilean Sgitheanach ris an can iad ‘Cnoc a’ Ghruagaich’, agus ta clach mhòr den t-seorsa seo fathast ri bhith air a faicinn air mullach a chnuic.’ [‘If they didn’t do that they could be sure that the cattle wouldn’t have a drop of milk in the morning. I know a hill in the parish where I was born on Skye that they call ‘the Gruagach Hill’, and there’s a large stone of this kind still to be seen on the top of the hill.’]
There is a stone in Aird, Sleat, yet called ‘Clach na Gruagach’, ‘the Gruagach Stone’, by locals, whose story endures as a vessel into which milk was poured for the gruagach- so far the only known gruagach stone I’ve visited.
Welshman Thomas Pennant, journalling his travels around Skye in 1772, also makes mention of the gruagach in his ‘A Tour in Scotland and Voyage to the Hebrides’, and includes a chapter dedicated to the subject which was composed by one of his correspondants, the Rev. Donald MacQueen of Kilmuir; ‘The Gruagich Stones, as far as Tradition can inform Us, were only honoured with Libations of Milk from the hands of the Dairy, which were offered to Gruagach Upon the Sund-day, for the preservation of the Catle on the Ensuing week’.
Dr Samuel Johnson, travelling in Skye with James Boswell a few short years after Pennant’s visit, reflects; ‘Whether Greogach was courted as kind, or dreaded as terrible, whether they meant, by giving him the milk, to obtain good, or avert evil, I was not informed.’
The belief was not confined to Skye, and Alexander Carmichael, author of ‘Carmina Gadelica’, observes; ‘I have seen such stones in Arran, Kintyre, Gigha, Islay, Mull, Lismore, Kerara, Lorn, Iona, Tiree, Coll, Barra, South Uist, Benbecula, North Uist, Heisgeir, St Kilda, Harris, Lewis, Sutherland, Ross, at Culloden, Cawdor, Lochaber, and in various other places. All these oblation stones are erratic ice-blocks. Some of them have a slight cavity into which the milk was poured; others have none, the libation being simply poured on the stone. In making the oblation the woman intoned a rune-
A ghruagach, a ghruagach,
Cum suas mo spreidhe,
Cum sios an Guaigean,
Cum uap an Geige.’
Brownie, brownie
Uphold my herds,
Keep down the ‘Guaigean,’
Keep from them the ‘Geige.’’
The widely-held belief that cattle had their own spiritual guardian demonstrates how highly they were regarded. The practice of making regular offerings of milk in the hope that this would guarantee the guardian’s protection and goodwill, coupled with a genuine fear of unknown and supernatural retribution if the cattle were mistreated, ensured the most convivial relationship between the people and their animals, who were an invaluable source of food and produce. Storytelling of this kind is a powerful tool well-known in folklore traditions to embed cultural or ecological values, instil respect for nature and discourage harmful behaviour. Whatever the actual cause of the young woman’s death in Glen Mhic Asgill, it is to her own hasty ill-treatment of the gruagach’s charge that it has been attributed in perpetuity.
Last summer I was invited by ATLAS Arts to undertake an artist research residency as part of a wider project called Curious Travellers. Its focus was on the travel journals of antiquarian and naturalist, Thomas Pennant, composed as he travelled around the Hebrides in 1772. My path of research led me to exploring shieling practice and culture, and finding out what vestiges of these remain here on Skye- which is how the gruagach song in the Tolmie collection came to my attention. The resulting exhibition, Ùir-sgeul | Earth-story, is a curation of my own creative responses to the research, artwork created with Clas7 at Bun-sgoil Ghàidhlig Phort Rìgh, and some archaeological finds and drawings from a shieling excavation carried out in south Skye in the early 90s by Martin Wildgoose and the Skye and Lochalsh Museums Service.
This exhibition can be seen in the Skye and Lochalsh Archive Centre, Elgin Hostel, Portree, until Friday August 29th. Open Monday and Tuesday, Thursday and Friday 10-1pm, 2-4.30pm.
EILIDH MACKENZIE