Blair Collection > Celtic gleanings, or, Notices of the history and literature of the Scottish Gael

LECTURE I. 27
that in the Celtic vocabulary there is a word
to express that peculiar curse which is be-
lieved to attach to land from which the holder
has been violently dispossessed. It is called
'' eirthear;" and this " eirthear " was thought to
be the occasion of incalculable evils to the new
possessor. It was quite common, not a genera-
tion ago, in certain portions of the Highlands,
when a man was on the outlook for a farm, and
fell in with one to let, to ask, among other things,
" Am bheil eirthear air ?" ("Is there a grudge
attached to it ?") and if there was, it was often
thought to be a sufficient reason for avoiding
it. These ideas gave a peculiar aspect to a
process of eviction, both in the eyes of the na-
tive Irish and the Scotch Highlanders. The
people have not only the natural desire, common
to all men, of having the means of subsistence
secured, but they have deep impressions, found-
ed upon their national beliefs, as to the injus-
tice of violently dispossessing a man of his land.
The feudal system is now, indeed, leavening the
popular mind throughout the Highlands with
its own influence ; the general laws of the king-
dom are being enforced ; and yet the natives
are slow to acquiesce in them as being just.
They retain in a large measure their own views,
and probably will do so until the last of them