Lady of Lawers

The Lady of Lawers was Mary, likely of the Colquhoun or MacCombaich families, and came from the Appin district in the Scottish Highlands.^[1] Her accurate real name is now believed lost to history, according to The Scots Magazine.^[2] In Gaelic tradition, the Lady of Lawers was known as Baintighearna Labhair.^[3] The Lady was a notable Scottish prophet.^[4] She was renowned in Perthshire, and the prophecies associated with her and comparable regional seers were generally local in nature.^[5]

Circa 1650, Mary wed a son of Sir James Campbell, 4th of Lawers of the Campbell of Lawers family, and moved southeast to Perthshire, to live on a Loch Tay farm.^[2][6] The Lady and Campbell family branch she joined later lived in Finlarig Castle, on a peninsula on the southwest end of Loch Tay at Killin.^[7][8] In 1892, local historian John Christie wrote that the last occupant of the Lawers family residence was known in Scottish Gaelic as Baintighearna Lauthair (Lady of Lawers) and that local histories identified her as a Stewart of the Appin branch who possessed a gift of prophecy.^[9] In 1900, the Lady was identified as being of the Breadalbane family.^[10]

The Book of the Dean of Lismore, a 16th-century manuscript, contained the poem "Is fuath liom".^[11] In the manuscript, the poem is a list of hated things, including in Gaelic the term "Is fuath liom baintigerna labha", which Danielle Fatzinger of the University of Glasgow translated to English as "I hate a speaking (i.e., an outspoken) lady", and used it as an example of misogynistic tone in such ancient poetry.^[12] Fatzinger wrote that "Baintigerna labhar" may have been an explicit contemporaneous reference to the Lady of Lawers.^[13]

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The prophecies were believed to have been preserved in the "Red Book of Balloch", part of the Books of Clanranald; a barrel-shaped book secured by twelve iron hoops or clasps and kept in the charter room of Taymouth Castle.^[14] The Scottish folklorist John Gregorson Campbell wrote that the Red Book's existence and location were as of then a matter of belief and local lore.^[15]

Boar stone

Not to be confused with Knocknagael Boar Stone.

One of the Lady of Lawers's prophecies concerned what was called the Boar Stone, which Campbell described as a boulder weighing approximately two or three hundred tons in a meadow near Loch Tay.^[16] It was predicted to topple when a "strange heir" came to Taymouth.^[16] The house of Breadalbane was also said to reach the height of its honour when the face of an unidentified rock became concealed by wood.^[17]

Breadalbane

In a recording preserved by the School of Scottish Studies, Perthshire resident William Forbes recounted a tradition that the Lady of Lawers had predicted the end of the Breadalbane estate.^[18][19] Her prophecies principally concerned the house and lands of Breadalbane.^[20]

Fir tree regrown

Michael Newton identified a prophecy attributed to her, which apparently survives only in English translation, as an example of the tree symbolism found in Gaelic oral narrative.^[3] According to the prophecy, the MacNab lands would be incorporated into the Breadalbane estates when a broken branch from one fir tree fell upon another fir and grew as part of it.^[3] Newton notes that trees in Gaelic symbolism more commonly represent individuals or dynasties than their possessions, and interprets the grafting of the two trees as a metaphor for the amalgamation of family legacies.^[3]

Lawers Church traditions

One traditional prophecy maintained that if the top stone were ever placed on Lawers Church, none of the Lady's predictions would come true.^[15] She was also said to have predicted that the church would split when the red cairn on Ben Lawers fell.^[15] Campbell reported that a cairn erected on Ben Lawers by sappers and miners fell in the same year as the Disruption in the Church of Scotland, in 1843.^[21]

Sheep skulls will make the plough useless

A prophecy attributed to the Lady of Lawers was the Gaelic saying, Cuiridh claigionn nan caorach an crann o fheum ("Sheep skulls will make the plough useless").^[3] Michael Newton in the journal Scottish Studies interpreted the saying as predicting that the introduction of sheep would bring the work of men in the fields to an end.^[3] The prophecy was not attributed exclusively to the Lady of Lawers, and was also associated with Thomas the Rhymer, Am Fiosaiche Ìleach ("the Islay Seer"), and probably other prophetic figures.^[3] Newton identified this prophecy as used to express and attempt to contain the cultural damage caused by the Highland Clearances, evictions of a significant number of tenants in the Scottish Highlands and Islands, mostly in two phases from 1750 to 1860.^[22][3] The prophecy appears in at least five Gaelic songs.^[3] Campbell recorded the five-line Gaelic prophecy as:^[23]

A mill will be on every streamlet,
A plough in every boy's hand.
The two sides of Loch Tay in kail gardens;
The sheep's skull will make the plough useless.
And the goose's feathers drive their memories from men.

The prophecy was said to be fulfilled during the time of "John of the three Johns, the worst John that ever was", after which there would be no improvement until the coming of Duncan.^[15] Its earliest recorded appearance may have been in a song composed by Seumas Shaw, Bard Loch nan Eala, in the late eighteenth century.^[3] It also appeared in Òran air cuairt do dh’America ("A Song on the Voyage to America") by An Cùbair Colach, probably composed in the late eighteenth century.^[3] Ailean Dall Dubhghallach included it in Òran do na Cìobairean Gallda ("A Song to the Lowland Shepherds"), composed between 1798 and 1800.^[3] It also appeared in Donnchadh Stiubhart's Caoidh air son Cor na Gàidhealtachd agus Fògradh nan Gàidheal ("Lament for the Highland People and the Eviction of the Gaels"), probably composed in the early nineteenth century.^[3]

White horse heirs

One prophecy held that an old white horse would carry the lineal descendants of Taymouth across Tyndrum Cairn, in Strath Fillan, at the southern edge of Rannoch Moor.^[15] Campbell also recorded a variant in which the riders would be the last Breadalbane Campbells.^[15] According to the accompanying tradition, there were thirty sons in the family when the prophecy was made, but twenty five were soon afterward killed at the battle of Sron-a-chlachair near Killin.^[15]

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Today Lawers is a small village between Killin and Kenmore on the A827, but the old village was set close beside Loch Tay and had a particular importance as the terminal for the ferry across the loch to Ardtalnaig on the southern shore^{[citation needed]} Even today, ruins of the old village may be seen together with the old church of Lawers.^{[citation needed]} It was while this was being built in that the Lady uttered the first of her prophecies: "The ridging stones shall never be placed on the roof of the church."^{[inconsistent][2]} This was received with some amusement, as the carved capping stones had that day been brought by boat from Kenmore, but in the night a violent storm blew up and the stones were washed into the deep waters of the loch and could not be recovered.^[2]

From then on, the Lady of Lawers was regarded with a new respect and a certain fear. Close to the new church was planted an ash tree, beside which she was later buried. "The tree will grow", said the Lady of Lawers, "and when it reaches the height of the gable the church will split asunder."

The church roof did indeed collapse in 1833,^[24] when it was said that the height of the tree reached that of the gable. Others linked the prophecy to the Great Disruption of 1843 when the congregation of Lawers left the Church of Scotland and formed the Free Church.^[25] There were two other prophesies concerning the ash tree. "When the tree reaches the ridge of the church the house of Balloch will be without an heir." This happened in 1862 when the Marquis of Breadalbane died without an heir.

She also prophesied that anyone who damaged the tree that she had planted would meet a bad end: ""Evil will come to him who harms the ash tree." In the 1870s, even though he had been warned of the prophecy, local farmer John Campbell chopped it down. He was later gored to death by his own bull, his assistant went mad, and the horse, which pulled the farm cart, dropped down dead.

There were a number of predictions concerning the Breadalbanes. Few were very complimentary for she was no lover of the family. The final one said "The last laird will pass over Glenogle with a grey pony leaving nothing behind." After the war, the Countess of Breadalbane, the last of the family, who had been living at Kinnell House beside Killin, finally sold it in 1948 and she indeed crossed Glenogle on her way to the station at Killin in a trap drawn by a grey pony. The last laird of Breadalbane had departed leaving nothing behind.

Other prophecies include:

• "A ship driven by smoke will sink in the loch with great loss of life." (indeed, for many years steam ships were used in Loch Tay, but there is no known record of a sinkage with large loss of lives)
• "The time will come when Ben Lawers will become so cold that it will chill and waste the land for seven miles."

• Brahan Seer – Alleged Scottish prophet of the 17th century