Hew Morrison Collection > Leabhar Nan Gleann

NEIL MORISON,
THE PABBAY POET.
T5) EIL MORISON was born at le-na-
I / Sitli, near Scanista, Harris, in 1816..
For forty-one years lie was a sliep-
herd without goin^ out of his native
ncÌGfhbourhood save once or twice by
steamer to Portree, and possibly once ta
Greenock for a few days. The periods of
his life map themselves out as follows: — (1>
At Cleit-na-ducha, with Mr Macrae, son of
Mai^hstir Fionnladh, a former minister of
North Uist; (2) at Scarista with Mr Mac-
donald; (3) in the Isle of Pabbay, with
Stewart of Ensay. It is the new house of
Ensay that he celebrates in "Oran na Lùch-
airte," and it is of a member of the same
family that he sings in "Marblirann do
Mr Uilleam Stiubhart/' who died on board'
ship on the homeward voyage from Africa,
whither he had essayed to bring tidings of
g-lad things — of the things which have proved
themselves to be best. In was in Pabbay
that he lived most of his life, so that Neil
Morison may fittingly be called the Pabbay
Bard. But Pabbay, i.e., the Pope's Isle, so
named from the produce of its fertile soil,
having in pre-Norweo-ian times been at the
disposal of the missionaries of the day, was
for the poet unspeakingly lonely. Ho com-
plains of its being more of a prison than the
Indies. He scans the tillage operations in