J. F. Campbell Collection > Prophecies of the Brahan seer (Coinneach Odhar Fiosaiche)

THE PROPHECIES OF THE BRAHAN SEER. 27
was an Englishman. He was truly distinguished for
kindness and liberality to his tenants, and he had a son
and two daughters, although, we are informed, he had
been married for seventeen years before he had any
family. When he came into possession, old people
thought they discerned the fulfilment of apart of Ken-
neth's prediction in his person, until it was remarked
that he had no family as foretold by the Seer. At last,
a son and two daughters were successively born to Mr
Lillingstone. After his death, the son sold the whole
of Lochalsh to Alexander Matheson, M.P. for the
Counties of Boss and Cromarty, and, so far, the predic-
tion has been realized. A castle has been built at
Duncraig, a considerable distance from the spot pre-
dicted by the Seer ; but if Kenneth is to be depended
upon, a castle will yet be built by one of the Mathesons
on Druim-a-Dubh, at Balmacarra. Had this prophecy
been got up after the event, the reputation of the Seer
would certainly not have been staked on the erection of
another castle in the remote future, when the Mathe-
sons already possess such a magnificent mansion at
Duncraig.
During a recent visit to the Island of Raasay we
received a peculiar prediction regarding the Macleods
from an old man there, over eighty years of age, who
remembered seven proprietors of Raasay, and who
sorely lamented the fulfilment of the prophecy, and the
decline of the good old stock, entirely in consequence
of their own folly and extravagance. Since then, we
had the prediction repeated by a Kintail man in iden-
tical terms ; and as it is hardly translatable, we shall
give it in the original vernacular :— '' Dar a thiff Mac-