Series 1 > Grameid: an heroic poem descriptive of the campaign of Viscount Dundee in 1689, and other pieces

82
PANURGI PHILOCABALLI
[53-67
Oceani, penitusque alio sub sidere gentes
Vidimus indomitas, toto et procul orbe revulsas
Hebridas, et populos incinctos cernimus usque
Montibus aereis, gelidoque sub axe jacentes.
Gens ubi progeniem materno a ventre calentem
Et simulac teneris feriit vagitibus auras,
Usque pruinosi gelido sub gurgite Roae
(Haud secus ac chalybem candentem flumine vivo)
Immergit, coelique minas, boreaeque procellas
Grandineas, tenera jam primum aetate docebat
Spernere, et immanes durare in vulnera vires.
Utque tener gelidis infans immergitur undis,
Obstetricis ope, magicis quae docta susurris
Nascentis pueri casus aperire futures,
Ille excantatis stygio cum murmure verbis
of men have settled under another sky, the Hebrides—tom off
from the rest of the world. We see around us peoples enclosed by
lofty mountains, under a bitter climate. These are they, who under
the waters of the frozen Roy—like the red-hot iron plunged in the
flowing river—dip their new-born babes,1 and teach their offspring
in their tender years to despise the hailstorms and tempests of
the North, and to harden themselves against wounds. The infant
is plunged in the wave by the midwife, skilled to unfold the
future of the babe in mystic mutterings. Suspended in the air, he
1 In Letters from a Gentleman (English) in the North of Scotland to his
Friend in London, written before the year 1730 (Mr. Skene says 1716), and pub¬
lished by Pottinger in 1759, there is this remarkable testimony to the accuracy
of our Poet in this matter. In Letter XI. he says : ‘ The moment a child is born
in these northern parts it is immerged in cold water, be the season of the year
never so rigorous. When I seemed, at first, a little shocked at the mention of
this strange extreme, the good women told me the midwives would not forego
that practice, if my wife, though a stranger, had a child bom in this country. ’
A practice called Dessil—from Dess, ‘fire’—was in use in the Western Isles
up to the time of our author. Fire was carried round about women before they
were churched after child-bearing, and about children till they were baptized.
This ceremony was performed in the morning and at night, and was practised
by some of the old midwives in Martin’s time. Some of them told him that
the fire round was an effectual means of preserving both mother and child from
the power of evil spirits. Browne’s History of the Highlands, vol. i. p. 14;
Glasgow, 1838.
Doubtless the author is accurate enough in his account of passing the child
round the fire, and three times was the regular number, and sunwise the direc¬
tion in similar rites.