Lochbuie’s Two Herdsmen

"This tale was written down as it was told by Donald Cameron, Rùdhaig, Tiree, more than twenty-five years ago, and to whose happy and retentive gift of memory it is a pleasure to recur. He had a most extensive stock of old lore, and along with it much readiness and willingness to communicate what he knew. In this the ludicrous element is natural, and the events seem to follow each other as a matter of course, so that the tale, so far as probability is concerned, may be true enough. It is one of the few tales to which a date is attached, and so far as history can be consulted the state of the country at that time makes it probable enough. Loch Buie is a district lying to the South of the Island of Mull, pleasantly situated. The tale runs as follows:--

In 1602 Lochbuie had two herdsmen, and the wife of one herdsman went to the house of the other herdsman. The housewife was in before her, and had a pot on the fire. “What have you in the pot?” said the one who came in. “Well there it is,” she said, “a drop of _brochan_ which the goodman will have with his dinner.”

“What kind of _brochan_ is it?” said the one who came in.

“It is _dubh-bhrochan_,” (see note 1) said the one who was in.

“Isn’t he,” said she, “a poor man! Are you not giving him anything but that? I have been for so long a time under the Laird of Loch Buie, and I have not drank _brochan_ without a grain of beef or something in it. Don’t you think it is but a small thing for the Laird of Loch Buie though we should get an ox every year. Little he would miss it. I will send over my husband to-night, and you will bring home one of the oxen.”

When night came she sent him over. The wife then sent the other away. The one said, “you will steal the ox from the fold, and you will bring it to me, and we will be free; I will swear that I did not take it from the fold, and you will swear that you did not take it home.”

The two herdsmen went away. In those days they hanged a man, when he did harm, without waiting for law or sentence, and at this time Lochbuie had hanged a man in the wood. The herdsmen went and kindled a fire near a tree in the wood as a signal to the one who went to steal. One sat at the fire, and the other went to steal the ox.

The same night a number of gentlemen were in the mansion (2) at Loch Buie. They began laying wagers with Lochbuie that there was not one in the house who would take the shoe off the man who had been hanged that day. Lochbuie laid a wager that there was. He called up his big lad MacFadyen (see note 3), and said to him was he going to let the wager go against him. The big lad asked what the wager was about. He said to him that they were maintaining that there was no one in his court who could take the shoe off the one who had been hanged that day. MacFadyen said he would take off him the shoe and bring it to them where they were.

MacFadyen went on his way. When he reached, he looked and saw the man who had been hanged warming himself at a fire. He did not go farther on, but returned in haste. When he came they asked him if he had the shoe. He told them he had not, for that yon one was with a withy basket of peats before him, warming himself. “We knew ourselves,” said the gentlemen, “that you had only cowards.”

The lameter, who was over, said, “It is a wrong thing you are doing in allowing him to lose the wager. If I had the use of my feet, I would go and take his leg off as well as his shoe before I would let Lochbuie lose the wager.”

“Come you here,” said the big lad, “and I will put a pair of feet that you never had the like of under you.” He put the lameter round his neck (lit. the bone of his neck), and off he went. When they came in sight of the man who was warming himself the lameter sought to return. MacFadyen said they would not return. They went nearer to the man who was warming himself. The one that was at the fire lifted his head and observed them coming. He thought it was his own companion, the one who had gone to steal the ox, who was come. He spoke and said, “Have you come?” “I have,” said MacFadyen. “And have you got it?” “Yes,” said MacFadyen. “And is it fat?”

“Whether he is fat or lean, there he is to you,” and he threw the lameter on to the fire.

MacFadyen took to his heels (lit. put on soles) and fled as fast as ever he did. Off went the lameter after him. He put the four oars on for making his escape. The one at the fire rose, thinking there were some who had come to pry upon himself, and that he was now caught. He went after the lameter to make his excuses to the Laird of Loch Buie. The lameter was observing him coming after him, feeling quite sure that it was the one who had been hanged.

MacFadyen reached, and they asked him if he had taken the shoe off the man. He said they did not; that he asked him if the lameter was fat, and that he was sure he had him eaten up before now. The lameter came, and that cry in his head for to let him in, for that yon one was coming. He was let in. The moment this was done, the one who had been on the gallows knocked at the door, to let him in. Lochbuie said he would not.

Editor’s Note:

The translation of lines 6 and 7 renders the Gaelic idiom exactly. Translated more freely into English it would run, “and the lameter came, and with yon terrified cry demanded admittance, saying that the hanged man was coming after him.”

“I am your own herdsman.” They now let him in. He then began to tell how he and the other herdsman went to steal the ox, and that he thought it was the other herdsman who had returned, and it was that made him ask if he was fat. Lochbuie and his guests had much sport and merriment over this all night. They kept the herdsman till it was late on in the night telling them how it happened to him.

The one who went to steal the ox now came back and reached the tree where he left the other herdsman, but found no one. He began to search up and down, and became aware of the one dangling from the tree.

“Oh,” said he, “you have been hanged since I went away, and I will be to-morrow in the same plight that you are in. It has been an ill-guided object, and the tempting of women that sent us on the journey.”

He then went over and took the man off the tree to take him home. He went away with him and never got the like, going through hill, and through mud and dirt, till he came to the house of the other woman. He knocked at the door. The wife rose and let him in.

“How have things happened with you?” “Never you mind, whatever; but, alas! he has been hanged since we went away.”

The wife took to roaring and crying.

“Do not say a word,” he said, “or else you and I will be hanged to-morrow. We will bury him in the garden, and no one will ever know about it. And now,” he said, “I will be returning to my own house.”

The one that was in Loch Buie thought it was time for him now to go home. He knocked at his own door. His wife did not say a word. He then called out to be let in.

“I will not,” said the wife, “for you have been hanged, and you will never get in here.”

“I have not yet been hanged,” he said.

“Be that as it may to you,” she said, “you will never come here.”

The advice he gave himself was to go to the house of the other herdsman. He called out at that one’s door to let him in.

“You will not come in here. I got enough carrying you home on my back, and you after being hanged.”

There was a large window at the end of the house. He went in at the window. “Get up,” he said, “and get a light, and you will see that I have not been hanged any more than yourself.” When he saw who he had, he kept him till morning, till day came. They then talked together, telling each other what had happened to them on both sides, and thought they would go to Lochbuie, and tell him all that occurred to them. When Lochbuie heard their story, there was not a year after that but he gave each of them an ox and a boll of meal."