on the North of Scotland
Lines on the North of Scotland, delivered in Embro nearly a quarter of a century ago:
Scotsmen have wandered far and wide,
From Moray Frith to Frith of Clyde;
McDonald, from his sea girt isle,
And Campbell from his broad Argyle–
But chiefly here you have come forth
From those countries of the north;
Some oft have trod Dunrobins’s Halls,
And gazed upon its stately walls.
Here to-night in this array
Is Murray, McKenzie and McKay;
And there doth around us stand
The Munroe, Ross and Sutherland.
Your young men have high honour earned;
In all of the professions learned;
Your Bonnie Lasses sung in song,
And youths are famed for muscle strong.
Prince Charlie’s Grandsons
Oft’ times these handsome gentlemen appeared in the garb of old Gaul.
In the year 1843 we were, though but a boy, at a fair at Cawdor Castle. Readers of Shakespeare’s Macbeth will have often found Cawdor mentioned therein; the village of Cawdor is but a few miles from Culloden Moor. While we were there the old Highland people, in their broken English, were declaring that the Stuarts19 were collecting arms, and that the Clans were going to join them; those gentlemen wore the Highland garb, and were highly respected. They had lived in Cawdor for some years; one ox them built a Hermitage of wicker-work on high bank of river, which remains entire and in good repair to the present day.
Long ’ere Her Majesty the Queen
Had visited of Aberdeen,
’Ere she in castle did abide
’Mong glorious hills on the Dee side,
Or visited each Highland glen,
Or won the hearts of Highland men,
Here oft’ was seen in celtic dress
Two Stewarts brave in Inverness,
Well worthy of the poet’s lyre.
They claimed Prince Charlie as grandsire,
And that they also did combine
Stuart with Royal Polish line,
Their names Sobieskie, Stuart,
They won many a Highland heart,
But Royal order did go forth
To build Balmoral Castle North,
Then wondrous change was quickly seen,
All hearts were captured by the Queen.
Scottish Names in Oxford County
We have the Murray and McKay
From the country of Lord Rae;20
McKenzie too from many a loch,
From Dingwall, Fain, and old Dornoch.
Facts About Cheese
When the price of cheese was so low a few years ago that the dairymen seriously thousht of giving up the manufacture of cheese and of selling their cows, we published the following lines and distributed them by the thousand:
Price soon will rise, though now ’tis low,
And brooks of milk will onward flow;
Were it collected in one stream
There would be floods of milk and cream.21
Fairy Tale
Babies carried off and changed by fairies. In mid winter of last winter of 1884, in Burghed, in the North of Scotland, around great fires, incantations were pronounced to drive away the evil spirits. The custom has come down from the time of the Druids.
Where’er you find the Fisher folk
There, under superstitions yoke,
For a strong faith ’mong them prevails.
Of truth of witch and fairy tales.
They think that witch could hurl a shaft
Which would o’erwhelm their fishing craft,
For witches do with Satan truck,
They can give good or bring bad luck;
Fish women do their children teach
To bait the lines down on the beach;
Themselves do wade in sea for net
So husband’s feet will not get wet,
For the women are barefooted,
And the men are heavy booted.
In Fisher, Town of Cromarty,
There once did meet a noisy party,
Confusion worse than Babel’s Tower,
It did prevail for a whole hour;
When from sea shore wives did return
Each one did find good cause to mourn,
For each babe was left in cradle,
Had been changed, ’tis no fable;
They said ’twas fairies did them change,
And left with them but weaklings strange.
Old wife, to end confusion wild,
Said each must bring to her the child;
Soon mothers they did find their dears,
And did wipe then from eyes all tears,
While few young men across the way
They glorious did enjoy the fray,
For while the mothers were at beach
They changed all babes within their reach.
St. Andrew
Read at Anniversary.
Our ancient custom to renew,
We meet to honor St. Andrew,
He was of the Jewish nation,
A fisherman by occupation;
No warlike knight with lance and sword
But humbly following his Lord;
And Scotia she justly claims
Her soil contains his last remains,
In early times the Pilgrims drew
Into the shrine of St. Andrew,
For miracles it gained renown,
And thence sprang up St. Andrew’s town;
Now clansmen twine round maple leaf,22
When rallying at the call of chief,
And time will come when we’ll be one,
And proud of name Canadian,
But Scotia must not be forgot
For sake of Chalmers, Burns and Scott,
But here upon Canadian soil
A man may own where he doth toil,
For here each may enjoy the charm
Of owning fine prairie farm.
Halloween
A tale we’ll tell of what hath been
When maids and youths kept Halloween,
It is a tale of old world lore
What happened in the days of yore,
When fairies danced upon the green
So merrily on Halloween,
And witches did play many a trick
Assisted by their auld friend Nick,
And lovers meet around the fire
Near to the one their hearts desire,
For to burn nuts for to discover
The truthfulness of their lover.
They first did give each nut a name,
This was Sandy, that was Jane.
If they did blaze side by side,
She knew her husband, he his bride,
But if one up the chimney flew,
One knew the other was not true.
And one sure test did never fail,
Blindfold to find good stock of kale,
To pull the first comes to the hand
With heavy roots of earth and sand,
For the very weight of mould
Does denote weight of lovers gold.
In tubs children love to splatter,
Ducking for apples in the water,
For such were the delights of yore,
Which soon will cease for evermore;
At Balmoral Castle Britain’s Queen
Oft’ celebrated Halloween,
But Highland landlords now do clear
Land of men to make room for deer,
But here upon Canadian soil
A man may own where he doth toil.
The tidings now all hearts do please,
That she has
