Topographical, statistical, and historical gazetteer of Scotland > Volume 1

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ETI
remarkable custom prevailed. At any anniversary of
that fair, unmarried persons, of the two sexes, chose
companions suitable to their taste, with whom they
agreed to live till next anniversary. This strange
paction was called 'hand-fasting,' or 'hand in fist.'
If, at the return of the fair, they were mutually
pleased with their companionship, they continued
together for life ; and if not, they separated and
were free to make another choice.* The parish is
traversed from north to south along the White Esk
by one line of road, and diagonally from south-west
to north-east by another. Population, in 1801, 537;
in 1831, 650. Houses 114. Assessed property, in
1815, £6,329. — Eskdalemuir is in the presbytery of
Langholm, and synod of Dumfries. Patron, the
Duke of Buccleuch. Stipend £220 15s. lOd. ;
glebe £20. Unappropriated tends £719 14s. The
parish originally constituted part of Westerkirk, and
was disjoined from it in 1703. The church was
built in 1826. Sittings nearly 400. There are 2
schools ; one of them unendowed. Parochial school-
master's salary £34 4s. 4id, with school-fees amount-
ing to about £10.
ESSIE. See Rhtnie and Essie.
ESSIE and NEVAY, two parishes consolidated
into one, on the western verge of Forfarshire. They
are strictly coterminous, and of not unequal size, —
Essie on the north, and Nevay on the south. The
united parish is bounded on the north by Airlie ; on
the east and south-east by Glammis ; on the south
by Newtyle ; and on the west by Perthshire. It is
of somewhat an oblong form, stretching from north
to south; and measures, in extreme length, from
Dean river near Blackhill to Banquho tower, 4J
miles; in extreme breadth, from Newmill on the
west to a point near Eanie on the east, 22 miles ;
and in superficial area about 5,120 English acres, or
8 square miles. The eastern division consists of the
declivity of the Sidlaw hills, and the western of a
portion of Strathmore. The Dean river flows slug-
gishly along the north, forming the boundary-line
over a distance of 2i miles ; and is noted for the
large size and delicious flavour of its trouts. Three
rivulets, two of them indigenous, intersect the par-
ish, or, for a short way, trace its boundary. One
of these, the burn of Essie, rises at the hill of Auch-
terhouse, in the parish of the same name, flows
northward through Glammis, and, after entering
Essie, drives a mill, bathes the wall of the church-
yard, and at length, 6 miles sinuously from its
source, falls into the Dean. The soil of the eastern
or upland division is a thin black mould on a bottom
of mortar, and more fertile than that of any part of
the opposite declivity of the Sidlaws ; but toward
the summit of the hills it degenerates, and is suitable
only for plantation or for pasturage. The soil of the
eastern or strath division is, in the south, a level and
marshy tract continuous with the moss of Meigle ; and,
in the north, it is in some places thin but fertile, and in
others a strong and rich clay, partially subject to oc-
casional overflowings of the Dean. A vein of silver
ore, too inconsiderable, however, to be worked, was,
at one time, discovered in the south-east corner.
There is a quarry of excellent freestone of a light
g.ey colour, and capable of a fine polish. The parish
is intersected by the turnpike between Perth and
Forfar, and by three other roads, one longitudinally,
and two across its breadth. Population, in 1801,
* Persons of hiqh rank seem to have taken the benefit of this
custom. Lindsay, in his reign of James II., says : " James,
sixth Earl of Murray, begat upon Isabel Innes, daughter of the
Laird of Innes, Alexander Dunbar, a man of singular wit and
courage. This Isabel was but handjist with him, and deceased
before the marriage ; where-through this Alexander he was
worthy of a greater living than he might succeed to by the laws
and practices of this realm."
638; in 1831, 6.54. Houses 130. Assessed property,
in 1815, £2,195 The parish is in the presbytery of
Meigle, and svnod of Awrus and Mearns. Patron,
Lord Wharnctiffe. Stipend~£161 5s. 2d. ; glebe £15.
Both parishes have churches in which divine service
is performed alternately. The manse, situated near
the church of Essie, has a commanding prospect to
the west and north-west. The parishes were united
before the middle of the 17th century Schoolmas-
ter's salary £34 4s. 4Ad., with school-fees £17 5s. 7d.
Besides the parochial school there is one unendowed.
ESSIL, an ancient parish, now comprehended in
that of Speymouth : which see. It is 3 miles north
of Fochabers. *.
ETIVE (Loch), a navigable inlet of the sea in
Argyleshire, nearly 20 miles long, but of very un-
equal breadth. Its shores are pleasant, being indent-
ed with creeks and bays, which afford safe anchorage
in any wind. The extremity of Loch Etive bends
its course, from Bunawe ferry, in a north-easterly
direction, till it terminates in a point, where it re-
ceives the waters of the Etive river, running through
Glen Etive. About 7 miles from its entrance from
the sea, it contracts into a narrow channel ; see article
Connal. " Loch Etive, between the ferries of
Connal and Bunawe," says Professor Wilson, "has
been seen by almost all who have visited the High-
lands — but very imperfectly ; to know what it is
you must row or sail up it, for the banks on both
sides are often richly wooded, assume many fine
forms, and are frequently well embayed, while the
expanse of water is sufficiently wide to allow you
from its centre to command a view of many of the
distant heights. But above Bunawe it is not like
the same loch. For a couple of miles it is not wide,
and it is so darkened by enormous shadows that it
looks even less like a strait than a gulf — huge over-
hanging rocks on both sides ascending high, and yet
felt to belong but to the bases of mountains that
sloping far back have their summits among clouds
of their own in another region of the sky. Yet
are they not all horrid; for nowhere else is there
such lofty heather — it seems a wild sort of brush-
wood ; tall trees flourish, single or in groves,
chiefly birches, with now and then an oak — and
they are in their youth or their prime — and even
the prodigious trunks, some of which have been
dead for centuries, are not -all dead, but shoot
from their knotted rhind symptoms of life inex-
tinguishable by time and tempest. Out of this
gulf we emerge into the Upper Loch, and its ampli-
tude sustains the majesty of the mountains, all of
the highest order, and seen from their feet to their
crests. Cruachan wears the crown, and reigns over
them all — king at once of Loch Etive and of Loch
Awe. But Buachaille Etive, though afar off, is
still a giant, and in some lights comes forwards,
bringing with him the Black Mount and its depend-
ents, so that they all seem to belong to this most
magnificent of all Highland lochs. ' I know not,'
says Macculloch, ' that Loch Etive could bear an
ornament without an infringement on that aspect of
solitary vastness which it presents throughout. Nor
is there one. The rocks and bays on the shore,
which might elsewhere attract attention, are here
swallowed up in the enormous dimensions of the
surrounding mountains, and the wide and ample
expanse of the lake. A solitary house, here fear-
fully solitary, situated far up in Glen Etive, is only
visible when at the upper extremity ; and if there be
a tree, as there are in a few places on the shore, it
is unseen; extinguished as if it were a humble moun-
tain-flower, by the universal magnitude around.'
This is finely felt and expressed; but even on the
shores of Loch Etive there is much of the beautiful;