and cross themselves. It seemed as if all who had ever been buried there were up and at it. The wind blew as 'twad blawn its last, The rattlin' showers rose on the blast; But above the bellowing of the thunder, the rattling of the showers, and blowing of the raging wind, came the shrieks of that "hellish legion" and the noise of their demoniac warfare. At length one man stronger in faith than his neighbours volunteered to go for the priest, for he could no longer bear to see the state of terror in which his wife and daughters were, and he feared they might even die before these awful hosts would "scent the morning air." Sic a night he took the road in, And his brave heart was duly rewarded, for he got safe to the priest's house, and told his tale in eager haste. The priest, who was a very holy man, set out for the scene of the dreadful melee. In crossing the River Spean, the man carried the clergyman on his back, and when they got to the further shore, he took one of his shoes and made holy water in it, and after many prayers, he went alone to the burying-ground, leaving the messenger in a state of terror at the river-side. In "that hour o' nicht's black arch the keystone," the priest bravely entered the scene of unholy warfare, and he reconsecrated the place amidst the yells of the vanishing spectres, and from that day to this, silence reigns in Cillechoireal: "and there at peace the ashes mix of those who once were foes." And the respectable and sensible man who told me this tale, and who believed in it himself most devoutly, lies now there asleep quietly with his ancestors. Another story was told me by a sailor from the West Coast of Rossshire. Near his native place was a wild moor that for years was so haunted that no one would venture upon facing it after dusk. The most awful lamentations were heard as from a young man in great distress. He always frequented the one spot, and at the same hour every night the agonising wail that loaded the night winds with pain began. They knew he wanted to communicate his grief to some person, but no one had courage enough to venture near him. At length an old soldier came the way, and when he called at the roadside inn for refreshments, they advised him not to face the moor as night was near, but to take his bed there at once, as he seemed worn with travel, and he would be sure—if he did face the moor-to return as hundreds had done before him, whenever the voice of woe that haunted the place would fall upon his ear. The soldier laughed their fears to scorn and passed on. In the middle of the moor he heard the plaintive cry, and he fearlessly asked the young man the cause of his wail. "Alas!" he cried. "Alas! I cannot cease to wail, there is no rest for me whilst my false love-who vowed in this spot so often to be mine for ever, and whose falseness caused my early death-sleeps nightly in the bosom of the man whom she married because he had more of the world's goods than I had." "And where is this false love of thine, young man, whose voice is so full of sorrow?" said the soldier. "She is the mistress of the inn you passed near the end of this moor" replied the young man in the same sad tone. "Come with me and you will get the hand she falsely promised you," said the soldier, and the young man followed him to the window of the inn. The soldier cried for a draught of ale; and the landlady--who was in bed- -arose hastily, saying, "I was sure you would return; I had better undo the door and let you in?" "Not just yet," said the soldier, "I have a friend with me who cannot enter-hand him a draught of ale-you need not bring a light." The woman hastily obeyed, and when she opened the window and gave out the pot of ale, her hand was clasped by an icy cold one, and her eyes fell upon the pale, sorrowful visage of her dead lover. She gave a loud cry, and fell lifeless upon the floor; and the lamentations of the broken-hearted young man were never again heard on the moor, and the wayfarers got leave to travel undisturbed. I will send you again shortly more of these stories that are nightly related and regarded as facts by so many of our countrymen. MARY MACKELLAR. 6 KYLE-CAOL.-A correspondent "imperfectly acquainted with the Gaelic language, but who takes a great interest in the Celtic language, literature, people, and history," writes:--"In Mr Maclean's letter on the Ossianic controversy, he suggests that the derivation of Kyle' is Coille -a wood. Now this derivation disconcerts all my previous ideas of the derivation of Kyle.' Many years ago, I happened to be the fellow traveller, in the steamer from Glasgow to Oban, of a great Gaelic scholar, the late Mr Macdonald, Roman Catholic Bishop of Lismore; and passing through the Kyles of Bute, I asked him the meaning of the word Kyle?' His answer was, What is the meaning of Calais?' and explained that the sound of K, or hard C, was always associated with narrowness either of land or water. I have often amused myself since (I cannot give my researches a more scientific name) by tracing the derivation of the names of places, and discovered that I could find a Celtic origin for many names not only in Scotland and Ireland, but in England and on the continent of Europe. Many ferries in the Highlands, where narrowness is the distinguishing characteristic, have the K or hard C-Connell, Corran, Cregan, Craignish, Kessock, &c.-while a ferry that is not narrow has no C, but merely the sound sh, descriptive of water, such as Shean; and where neither narrowness nor expanse of water is the one characteristic, but the ferry combines the two, we have the combination of both sounds-Ballachulish—which, as I should translate it, would be 'the town of the rushing narrow water.' Perhaps my derivation may be fanciful, but if you can spare space, will you take some notice of my suggestions, and perhaps some Gaelic scholars may be induced to take up the subject of Celtic derivations, which, even in the imperfect way I have been able to carry out, has made me find a fresh charm in travel." THE ALIEN CHIEFS. Old Caledonia widowed! pours her griefs, Where now are the chieftains of song and of story, They live but as aliens encircled with shame : They court the gay paths of dishonour and death, Behold them! vile nurslings of Luxury's breath. Empoisoned and pampered with night-ushered revels, The valleys and mountains by ancestors guarded, To reap the cold glamour of hate-bringing gold; Alas! Caledonia, alone and forsaken, May weep for the sons who her laurels have shorn; Descendants of heroes once mighty and brave! WM. ALLAN. SUNDERLAND, ANNUAL DINNER OF THE GAELIC SOCIETY OF INVERNESS. 0 THIS annual re-union of the members of the Gaelic Society and their friends took place in the Station Hotel, on Friday evening, the 12th of January-Old New Year's eve. It was in every respect the most successful meeting of the kind ever held in connection with the Society. Chief Professor Blackie presided, supported by Sir K. S. Mackenzie, Bart., Captain Chisholm of Glassburn, H. C. Macandrew, Charles Stewart of Brin, Charles Innes, Ballifeary, Bailie J. Davidson, Colin Chisholm, ex-President of the Gaelic Society of London; Revs. Alex. Macgregor, M.A., and Maclauchlan; Messis Jolly and Sime, H.M. Inspectors of Schools; Wm. Mackay, solicitor; Peter Burgess, factor for Glenmoriston, and many other influential Celts, to the number of about seventy. Apologies were received, among many others, from Cluny, Tulloch, Lochiel, Charles Fraser-Mackintosh, M.P., Deputy Surgeon-General W. C. Mackinnon, C.B.; Raigmore, General Sir Patrick Grant, G. C.B.; C. S. Jerram, M.A., Oxford; and Osgood H. Mackenzie of Inverewe. The Chief, while proposing the toast of the evening, delivered one of his characteristic speeches, in which he compared the incongruity of his being Chief of the Society with a full-dressed Highlander strutting about in a dress hat. He, however, considered it one of the greatest honours of his life that he had been asked to be the Chief of the Inverness Gaelic Society, even though it were but for the brief period of one year.* The memory would remain as long as he lived, and perhaps it would be inscribed on his tombstone. He certainly thought that if any University had the sense to make him D.C.L., or D.D., or LL.D., he would never esteem it half such an honour as being Chief of the Gaelic Society of Inverness. The real human sympathy which he felt in this matter would, he hoped, obliterate the aesthetical incongruity which he personally afforded. They required such a combination as the Inverness Gaelic Society. It showed that there was a consciousness in the minds of the people in the Highlands that they had a right to walk on God's earth as a peculiar people like the Jews, to whom they owed so much. They owed to the Jews their Bible and religion, just as they owed to the Greeks their wisdom; and to the Highlanders their chivalry, and the most brilliant passages in their history. He was proud to think that the Highland people were now thoroughly conscious of it themselves-that they thought they were not merely made for being rubbed out, stamped out, or smothered off by south-country civilization. The Professor then prophecied that the Gaelic would be extinct in two hundred years, and adduced his reasons; but it ought to be cultivated and cherished. The speedy death, however, which he prophecied for the language would be the fault of Highlanders themselves. The Welsh had cultivated their language, and it was found staring every traveller at Welsh railway stations; but the Highland people had not cultivated nor honoured their language as they ought to have done. They did not read their own volumes, but went a whoring after strange gods, as the Israelites did, and paid the penalty. How could they think others would respect Gaelic when they did not respect it themselves? The Gaelic could not, he urged, be wisely neglected by any man who wished to do the Highland people justice as a moral or an intellectual educator. The man was not in a truly natural state who did not love the language of the people among whom he was born. The Professor concluded:-The English language is a mixty-maxtya kind of hodge-podgee-a mere devil's soup brewed up of all materials which came from nobody knows where. It would require the most learned man in Germany-perhaps half-adozen of the most learned men-to make a good etymological English dictionary. The words * He has since, as a well merited special honour, been elected for the second time. M have no meaning except to a man who knows Latin and Greek, and sometimes Gaelic. To a poor Highland boy what significance will the word "publican" in the Gsspels convey? The only kind of publicans he knows are those of a kind which my friend the Rev. Mr Macgregor does not like to patronise; but he would make a great mistake if he thought they were the publicans mentioned by Luke. But if the boy opens his Gaelic Bible he will find the word cismhaor, and knows at once that this is the man who gathers the taxes. Another thing struck him the first time he read the first chapter of Genesis in Gaelic. The first verse in English is, "in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." What idea do you attach to the word create? Go back to the Latin, Greek, or even the Sanskrit, and you will not learn ; all that you arrive at is that it signifies "doing or acting." In Gaelic the same verse runs-"San toiseach chruthaich Dia na nèamhan agus an talamh." The Professor slowly spelt the third word, chruthaich. Now, strike off the termination and see what you have-cruth. That word means shape or form, and there you have the key to the whole Platonic philosophy, and the Gospel philosophy too. To give form to the formless is one of the prime functions of creation. Having made that boy a philosopher by the help of Gaelic, I ask how can any man despise and trample it under his feet as a language of savages? If any man dare say that it is a barbarous language, he is either a fool or a savage himself, he is still in the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity-of course in a philosophical sense. Let such a fellow come before me, and I will smash him to powder. Let a man be ever s0 mighty, truth is mightier; and nothing but gross ignorance or prejudice can explain the hostility of those people who would stamp out the Gaelic. If they dare to come to the front before me, whose Gaelic is only of yesterday, I will squelch them into jelly. I once received an epistle from a gentleman who refused to subscribe to the Celtic Chair, and attributed all the evils of the Highlands to two causes-the one being Gaelic and the other feudalism. Now, feudalism never was in the Highlands except in the shape of law-deeds; and such things only show the insolence of John Bull, who knows of nothing beyond the Grampians except grouse, and deer, and ptarmigan. I could mention several things that have ruined the Highlands. Their own folly in rising in '45 helped it. Even Lochiel saw the danger at the time, and yielded to mere sentiment. Next to that, two things have done mischief. One is absenteeism, or the possession of property by persons who do not perform the duties which belong to a proprietor in all well-organised societies; and the second is selfishness masked in the words of a political economy which regards the product only and not the producer, which measures the wealth of nations merely by the amount of external products which they gather together, and not by the real well-being of the people who belong to the country-a political economy divorced from human love and evangelical morality, and also from the best maxims of a sound social policy. Not to detain you longer, let me say that if you wish this Society to prosper, and if you wish yourselves to be respected as Highlanders and as men, you will cultivate your Highland traditions ond the Gaelic language along with your noble Gaelic sentiments in all your schools. (The speech was cheered to the echo throughout, and the audience kept in roars of laughter.) 66 Mr Wm. Mackay, hon. secretary of the Society, delivered a speech, while proposing Celtic Literature, so much in our special groove, and so interesting and suggestive in many ways, that we give it entire :-Two days ago I happened to mention to a gentleman whom I am glad to see here this evening, that I had been requested to propose this toast. "I suppose," said he, with a knowing smile on his countenance, your first and most difficult duty will be to prove that such a thing as Celtic literature exists." Now, gentlemen, taking my friend's words as my text, I shall, with your permission, endeavour to show not only that we have a literature, but also that it is one which is ancient and not altogether worthless. The subject is however so wide that, so far as the rich literary remains of the Cymric branch of the Celtic nation are concerned, I shall merely allude to them in passing. Some of them, as old as the sixth century, you may find in Skene's Four Ancient Books of Wales. We of the Gaelic branch are more im |