The Sun.
London, England, 1846-09-04 00:00:00

DEER STALKING.

ABHORRENCE OF THE DEER TO SHEEP.

The detestation of the deer to sheep is so great that
they will not inhabit the same ground with these
animals. A remarkable instance of this antipathy was
observed in the end of the last century by an old drover
familiarly called "An drobhair Un,"- when crossing one
of the great moors of Sutherland, soon after the first
"head of sheep" had been turned into Lord Ray's forest.
The narrator was surprised by the appearance of a large
column of near a thousand deer, marching out of the
country in a steady determined emigration. Disgusted by
the invasion of the sheep and their dogs, they had col-
lected from all parts, and unable to find " clean ground,'
continued their course out of the country, dispersing
into the most solitary glens From these they never re-
turned, and harassed and killed by the shepherds and
farmers, their numbers became reduced to the few and
scattered fugitives which lingered in a state of outlawry
in remote coires, until the " commercial spirit" of Eng-
land spread to the Highland bills, and it was discovered
that harts and hinds could be converted into marketable
stock like other cattle. Hence deer are now " grown"
for Saxon guns, as wool for Manchester looms, or beef
for Smithfield shambles. The abhorrence of the deer to
sheep did not result merely from the disturbance of their
dogs. It is true that, like the corollary of St. Columbus
concerning cows and women, " Where there are sheep
there must be dogs, and where there are dogs there must
be mischief." But the chief cause for which the deer
shim the society of their woollen enemies is the closeness
of their feeding and the foulness of their fleece. The
deer is very delicate in his food, and exceedingly
fastidious as to the purity of his pasture. Independent
therefore of the abridgement of his provision by the
excoriating teeth of the tree and herb-exterminating
" gallgeall," he cannot endure the oily rancour of their
wool, which poisons the fresh heather and sweet green
shealing. Wanting these nuisances, he exhibits no an-
tipathy to the intercourse of black cattle, his old abo-
riginal brethren of the hill, whose clean coat and mo-
derate feeding spare the grass and leave no taint of
tar and oil in the pasture. Hence the deer and the
stirks may be seen herding in the same coire and re-
posing on the same turf. Sheep in any considerable '
number are an introduction into the Highlands since
the latter end of the last century, in which it was dis-
covered that mutton was not only a safer, but a more
profitable stock than man. It is yet well remembered
in Argyllshire, that the first Cheviot flock brought
into that country was introduced by Mr. Campbell,
of Combie, upon the farm of Balantyre, near Invarary,
in the year 1771. The earliest similar colonisation in
Inverness-shire was in Morven, about the year 1777.
The shepherd of these flocks—of whom the first was a
certain John Todd from the neighbourhood of Dum-
barton ; the second, a Braidfoot from the border, intro-
duced the first " maud," or " shepherd's plaid," worn in
Argyll or Inverness. Similar flocks and their feeders
disseminated the expulsion of the deer, and the intro-
duction of the base " hodden-grey," which has since
usurped the place of the tartans of the clans ; and at its
first appearance, from the calamities by which it was
accompanied, and its degraded supplantation of the national
dress, was truly and significantly named, "Bratgalla,"
"The foreigner's rag," and " an riochd-mallaichte," " The
accursed grey." This hue was to the Highlanders
what black is to their neighbours ; and so destable
for its wan and ghastly appearance, that its asso-
ciation afforded the popular appellation for ghosts and
devils ; hence an apparition—a phantom—" an Riochd."
The grey, or wan—the spectre foreboding death—
' " am bodach glass," the grey earl ; another of an evil
genius, in the shape of a goat—" an Glastig," or
" Glasdidh"*—" the Grey," or wan ; and, as in the
south, the great enemy is named familiarly " The Black
Gentleman," so, in the Highlands, he is called " Mac
an Riochd," the son of the grey. In the ideas of the
old wives and children of the last century, all those per-
sonifications, except one, were as nearly as possible those
of the modern " dubh gall," deer-stalkers, in their
chequered " hodden grey," wanting only the " Jim
Crow," " ruffian," or " crush hat"—enormities which had
not then completed the masquerade of death and Satan.
It is easy to trace the origin of this association. The
ancient Caledonian hell, like that of Scandinavia, was a
frozen and glassy region, an island named " Ifruinn,"
far away among the " wan waters" of the northern
ocean, and involved in the everlasting ice, and snow, and
fog. In this association, the appearace of the evil
spirits, its inhabitants, like that of mortals in similar cir-
cumstances, was believed to be dim, wan, and cloudy
shades, such as men become when seen through a frosty
mist. Thus, a party of modern deer-stalkers, noble, weil
appointed, and gallant though they be, in despite of the
gold Geneva watch chains, and costly Purdie rifles,
which peep from beneath their shepherd plaids, would re-
present to an old `.` Sealgair-nam-beann" the liveliest
vision of the fiend and his familiars; and we have no
doubt that, if " Alasdair Mac-Dhonacha-raidh," or even
" Eoin-dubhdrinachin," had ever met, in the grey of the
morning, either Lord 0., Sir 11. G., or " The Ruffians
of Aberarder," he would have fled the hill for that
time, and never have returned to it again, between sun
setting and sun rising.—[* It has pleased a writer of
the " Cockney school" of Highlanders to convert this
word into " Glastig," which we take leave to observe is
unknown in the Highlands, and did not exist before the
year 1841.]—Caledonian Mercury.