The Book of Garth and Fortingall. Historical sketches relating to the districts of Garth, Fortingall, Athole, and Breadalbane

Front matter

TI be JBoofc OF Bartb anb Bortingall HISTORICAL SKETCHES RELATING TO THE DISTRICTS OF GARTH, FORTINGALL, ATHOLE, AND BREADALBANE. TOME OF THE WOLF OF BADENOCH IN DUNKELD CATHEDRAL. Inbtxntes : THE NORTHERN COUNTIES NEWSPAPER AND PRINTING AND PUBLISHING COMPANY, LIMITED. 1888. [ENTERED AT STATIONERS HALL. PRINTED FOR FRITATE CIRCULATION.] PREFAC E. A T the request of Sir Donald Currie of Garth and Glenlyon, the following historical sketches relating to the districts of Garth, Athole, Fortingall, and Breadalbane, have been written by Mr Duncan Campbell, formerly Parish Schoolmaster of Fortingall, and now of Inverness. They com plete the record of interesting facts connected with the districts of Appin, Breadalbane, and Glenlyon, which have already appeared from Mr Campbell's pen in the volume printed by Sir Donald Currie, for private circulation, entitled, " The Lairds of Glenlyon." July, 1888.

Part I. The Dale Of Fortingall

THE beautiful dale of Fortingall, some six miles long, is, strictly speaking, the first section of Glenlyon ; but the two lofty mountain ranges, which closely press on the Lyon throughout the whole of the long part of its course, stop and change at the upper end of the dale of Fortingall, and this, with other things, gives it a distinct character of its own. The towering Ben Lawers range throws the rampart of the Culdares hills right across the head of the dale, and so folds back upon the northern range as to leave no apparent entrance to the glen beyond. Drummond Hill, leaving a good gap between itself and the Culdares hills, rises up as the outlying sentinel of the Ben Lawers range, and forms, so to speak, the southern wall of the Fortingall valley. It is not a high hill, but, like most outliers, it produces on the beholder's mind the impression that it is an imposing sort of hill, if it cannot be called a real mountain.

Drummond Hill absolutely terminates the Ben Lawers range, just a little above the confluence of the Lyon and the Tay. The northern range does not termin ate, but it changes character. Leaving Coire Pheighinn out of account, although it deserves more respect, there are two glens and two streams which pour their waters into it, lying between the Lyon and Sith-Chaillionn, namely, Glen more and Glenmuillinn, and at the heads of these glens are the lofty Geal Cham, Cam Mairg, Creag Mhor, and Beinn Deirg. The back glens and their bounding hills slope away from high initial altitude until they fit in, and harmonise with, the green heights of Litigan, Drumcharry, and Fortin gall village, where the limestone crops out. Sith-Chaillionn, lying behind the two back glens, is invisible, until one climbs the heights, and so is Ben Lawers.

Fortingall was not of old the name of the village, but of the district. They called its Kirktown Clachan Fartaichill, and so do they yet. This section of Glenlyon is, perhaps, the best sheltered and most fertile of all the purely Grampian districts. It possesses arable and pasture lands in due proportion, and both are very good. Sir Donald Currie is now the owner of the whole north side of the valley to which the back glens and most of the excellent arable land belong. The Culdares farms, three in number, belong to Mr Menzies of Chesthill, and the Marquis of Breadalbane has all the back of Drummond Hill. Fortingall is situated in the very heart of the Grampians, but in climate, soil, and appearance, it is more like a lowland recess among the hills, than like the beginning of the longest, narrowest, and most Highland of all the Highland glens.

A century ago the valley was divided into several small estates, owned by families of considerable standing, who planted beeches, sycamores, elms, and other trees, that now add much to the beauties of the district. Few British elms can be compared with Craobh nam Baintighearnan, or " Ladies' Tree," near the village, and among sycamores Craobh Ailein, "Alan's Tree," has scarcely a superior, unless it be that magnificent one which hides itself behind the Breadalbane Mortuary Chapel — once St Mary's Chapel — at Finlarig. The two trees above-mentioned are giants of their kind, but about Garth House, Glenlyon House, and Duneaves, are others which rank pretty well up to them ; while in the Garth burial place, in the Church-yard of Fortingall, is to be seen in flourishing decay — or rather much recovered during the last thirty years — the celebrated yew tree to which Baron Humboldt ascribed the astounding past duration of 2000 years, and which it is, at anyrate, safe to say, must be as old as the time of St Adamnan and the foundation of the church dedicated by him, or, in his time, to the then lately deceased St Cedd.

As St Adamnan died in the year 704, we get nearly twelve centuries of legitimate church-yard life for this unique tree — and surely that is enough. The old riveted time-worn bell, in the custody of the minister and kirk-session of Fortingall, is probably as old as the tree. But leaving antiquities for future consideration, let us revert to matters which claim preliminary attention. Garth House, the fine and finely-situated residence of Sir Donald Currie, represents the taste and luxury of modern times, while in Glenlyon House, and in Duneaves House we have well preserved specimens of the dwellings which the "smaller barons" built for themselves in the Highlands during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Up in the gap of the hills — like Castle Campbell in the cleuch of the Ochils — is the grim feudal tower of the old Stewarts of Garth, standing on a wedge of rock, where two mountain streams meet.

Sir Donald Currie has strengthened the walls of this old keep, and it is now in a state fit to defy the assaults of time for the next four centuries, even more successfully than it has defied them during the last four. It is a noble relic of feudalism, which well deserves the care and cost bestowed upon it by its new owner. It was inhabited down to the middle of last century, and the neglect with which it was treated by its former occupier, when he succeeded to Drumcharry, is quite inexplicable. The Fortingall section of Glenlyon combines in small space all the beauties of mountain and lowland scenery. It has, indeed, no lake of its own, but Loch Tay is close at its door, and anyone who wishes to look at Loch Tay through the gap, between the Culdares hills and the outlying Drummond Hill, will only need to climb the first height above the village to enjoy the sight.

Fortingall, roughly speaking, is half way — following the course of the river — between Dunkeld and Bencastle, at the head of Glenlyon. It divides a river line distance of some sixty miles. Another thing to be observed here is, that past it, up by Glengoulandie and old Garth Castle, is the opening in the hills which Marshal Wade chose for continuing the road from Crieff to Dalnacardoch and the North. By Crieff and Tay Bridge, by Dunkeld and Blair Athole, by the Pass of Leny and Glenogle, did the old roadmaker penetrate the recesses of the Highlands. He only followed on the footsteps of men of earlier ages. Nature limited the choice of routes by only providing three feasible ones. But before Wade's bridge at Aberfeldy spanned the Tay, men and cattle passing south or north crossed by the Ford of Lyon and the Ford of Tay, at Inchaidin, below Taymouth Castle.

The Ford of the Tay is called in Gaelic Crossgadh Mhic Dliughail — The crossing of the son of Dugald ; or, perhaps, Dugald had been got out of Dungall or Tuathal, as the Celtic fortress on the lower point of Drummond Hill, a little above the ford, is called Caisteal Tuail or Caisteal Tuathail. It is interesting to consider the meaning of the name of Fortingall, which in Gaelic is Fartaichill to-day, and which the curate of Fortingall, a little more than three hundred years ago, variously spelt " Fothergill," " Fortyr chill," and " Fartyrchill." There can be no doubt that the most correct form is Fotherchill. Now, what „ , „ „ , „ _. , . FOTHERCHILL. was " Fother or Forther ? Simply one of those Celtic fortified places or towers that are found stretch ing in a continuous line, where the plough, the mattock, and Vandal destroyers have not obliterated them, from Bencastle to Dunkeld, at which place the defence line bi-forks, or even becomes triple.

It would be tiresome to prove here step by step all that can easily be proved from the " Pictish Chronicle," the Irish annalists, the existing monuments, and their still brokenly-lingering ancient designations. At Fortingall we are not only in the heart of the Grampians, and midway between Dunkeld, the ancient capital, and the march of Alban with Dalriada, but we are also in the heart of the great defence, or strength, province of Fortrenn, which never had a Maormor, because it was peculiarly the kingly province. Excepting patches given to the Church, the lands about the Tay and the Lyon remained Crown lands long after King David's time. It is true enough that before his time Athole had been made a sort of separate appanage for cadets of the Royal family. But that old Athole was not the modern Athole.

It was thrown back into Gowrie, and did not touch the Tay or cross the Garry. Broadly speaking, the Crown lands along this line remained in the main unbroken, until Bruce began to partition them among his adherents. Toisich, or captains of districts, no doubt abounded in plenty, and probably wherever a toiseach was stationed a round tower or small fort and a motehill on which to hold courts were constructed. But here at Fortingall we are among the King's own forts. Here we have the line on which he called out his immediate followers — his kindly tenants — for yearly musters, accompanied, no doubt, by hunting and feasting when no war was on hand. And on this line from 503 to 850, the Armies of Alban rallied when hard driven by Strathclyde Britons, Gael of the West, Saxons, and Scandinavians.

We learn from the " Pictish Chronicle," written about 990, that Kenneth the son of Malcolm then fortified the fords of the Forth. It can be gathered from the Irish annalists that Kenneth Macalpin, after obtaining possession of Scone, and uniting Alban and Dalriada, built the strong fortress of Forthuir-tabaicht, or Fertebeith (fort of the birches), now Forteviot, on the Earn, where he after wards died. A generation later, Grig the usurper, a mighty warrior in his day, made Dundurn, or Rath-erend (Rath of the Earn), his capital stronghold. There he was besieged and killed "by the men of Fortrenn." With several small ones, Fife had one large "Fother," or "Forther," which was of so much importance, that it gave a whole district the designation of" Fothereve," or " Fothriff" — that is, "Fother of Fife."

But although there were isolated strongholds everywhere, the southern defence line of Alban, from immemorial time till Alban became modern Scotland, was that which began at Bencastle, and ended at Dunnottar. This line continued to retain much of its old importance, even after the removal of the Scottish Court first to Fife, and then to Edinburgh. His brother, David, having got Lothian, Strathclyde, and Cumberland, Alexander the Fierce was the last King of Alban proper, and to him this line was what it had been to his ancestors, except that there was not so much danger of invasion from the south, since his brother ruled there. King Alexander must have been exercising his Feinne, hunting his deer and eating the produce of his patrimonial estates on the old defence line of his kingdom, when his queen died, and when he buried her in the island of Loch Tay.

He had a choice of residence between the fortified rock, at the east end of Drummond Hill, and the "fother" which gave the Fortingall valley its name. This " fother," although it has suffered damage at different times from people wanting stones for building purposes, is still in what must relatively be called a good state of preservation, and its future immunity from quarrying robbers may be safely assumed. It is placed on the height to the north west of Garth House, not on the highest but the second height. This custom of not choosing the highest but the second eminence seems to have been a kind of rule. The Drummond Hill fortified rock is commanded by a higher cliff, on which there was probably a beacon tower. Dun Geal, the higher eminence which commands the Fortingall fother, also shows signs of having been used for a similar purpose.

The old name of the valley, variously spelt as it is, readily resolves into two 'words with clear meaning. Fother is the fort itself, and the terminal word, whether written "kill," "chill," or " gill," is the modern Gaelic word " cuil." But that word means either " recess " or " back," as the case may be. So Fotherchill is either " the fort of the recess," or " the back fort." In the one case the compound word described the valley in reference to the fort, and in the other the fort in reference to the forward or advanced "dun" on Drummond Hill. The Fortingall people must have had at an early period a predilection for "sorter" in preference to "fother;" for Alexander the Second issued a precept, recorded in the Chartulary of Scone, page 41, addressed to his " theyns and other good men of Dul and Forterkill," in which he grants to the Canons of Scone the right of taking material — -oak, no doubt — from his " thanages of Dul and Forterkil for the work of their Church at Scone."

It may be convenient here to gather together the different names by which the old forts of Alban were designated. F0™thR dunRT' These are a11 the Purelv Albanie names of ancient forts, but it is doubtful whether " brugh," the Gaelic equivalent of " broch," should not be included, as the old bards used it often when speaking of places of strength. For instance, the bard who lamented the death of Sir Duncan Campbell in 163 1 called Taymouth Castle " Brugh Bhealaich." Not only is Broughty resolvable into " Brugh-Tae" — " Castle of the Tay" — but in a description of Scotland, written, in Latin, about 1165, the author, who received his information in France from Andrew Bishop of Caithness, "a Scot by nation," says that one of the seven provinces of the original Scottish Kingdom extended from the Spey ad montem Bruinalban* — " To the Mountain of Bruinalban."

Mr Skene seems to miss the meaning of this compound word. Will it not readily break up into " Brughan Alban" — " the Castles of Alban" — and thus make the provincein question stretch from the Spey to the /Castles of Alban, extending in a long line along the banks of the Lyon from Drum alban ? If this be not the true meaning, it is certain that the stretch of mountain land in question is omitted from the description altogether. No Highlander of the present day would ever think of calling a fort or place of strength " brugh" or " fother," yet he houses fairies in " brughs" underground, and says that women in child-bed are sent "to the fother," which was very likely the custom in ancient days. The two words have died out of the spoken language, while they remain alive in topography. Feart has not died out of the language, but its primary meaning has been superseded by a strangely abstract secondary one.

People in sudden fear or astonishment still exclaim " O Righ nam Feart !"— " O King of Strengths !" Probably that was at one time the cry of appeal to the High King of Alban. When Mr Kirke, the minister of Balquhidder, made his excellent Gaelic metrical version of the Psalms, about 1684, he did not hesitate to call the Almighty " Righ nam Feairt ;" and the gentlemen who subsequently revised his work went a step further, and, putting into " feart" the * Brunhere, another word used in the old description of Scotland, does not surely mean a mountain range, but "the Castles of the Earn." Dundurn, Forteviot, Apurfeirt, &c. Irish meaning of attributes or virtues, called God directly " Dia nam feairt" — " God of strengths." A Breadalbane old man, who did not seem to know the primary meaning of " feart," gave me the following proverb a long time ago : — ■" 'S ann eadar roinn Labhair agus modagan na moine a tha feairt na h-Alba" — " It is between the point of Lawers (on Loch Tay) and the deepest part of the moss (of Rannoch) that lie the strengths of Alban."

I have since heard the proverb in two or three degraded forms, but still preserving the true meaning. The substitution of known for old obsolete words is so natural that it was no wonder at all " feart" should yield its place to " neart," or even to the English word " garrison." At Fortingall they had lost before the end of last century all recollection of " fother," but they remembered " feart," and tried to make out that the name of their district was " Feart-nan-Gael" — " The strength of the Gael." Their then minister — Mr Duncan M'Ara — who, as a native of Crieff, had Lowland proclivities, maintained that the true form was " Feart-nan-Gall" — " The strength of the strangers ;" and he vexed his people by getting that idea of his published in the first " Statisti cal Account of Scotland."

Mr M'Ara drew his inspiration from the Roman camp. That, he thought, was " the strength of the strangers." Rath is, in primary meaning, simply a circular space. Every rath was not fortified. Some of the raths were mounds on which courts were held. At Logierait — "the Hollow of the Rath"— there was a combination of fortalice and judicial mound. The rath there, which was the head of the whole county, with the fort enclosing it, was on the point of the hill where the memorial cross of the late Duke of Athole now stands. Dun was not necessarily a fortified hillock. In its general sense it was the hillock as Nature made it. But all the duns and raths to be hereafter mentioned were fortified circles, on rocks and hillocks, forming links in the long chain of forts stretching, with a huge bend and offshoot lines, from Drumalban to the eastern sea.

T,. • ., (.., , ..c , . , .. DUN-MAC-TUAIL. lhis is the name of the fortified rock at the east end of Drummond Hill, as given in the " New Statistical Account of Scotland" in 1838, by the Rev Robert Macdonald, then the old minister of Fortingall, who was a native of the parish, and a very good Gaelic scholar. Mr Macdonald had got hold of a tradition which wrongly ascribed the fortifying of this place to a natural son of a King of Denmark, " who figured much in this quarter during the Fingalian period." Obsolete proper names are slippery customers in most languages, but in Gaelic, owing to aspirate and declensional changes, with the growing ignorance of for getfulness superadded, they become exceedingly protean. " Tuail" is the genetive case. What is the nominative ? Mr Macdonald tried to spell the word phonetically, but the genius of the language required that such a collocation of vowels should be separated by the scarcely-sounded con sonants "th."

Tuathal, therefore, is the nominative case of the word, and the proper Gaelic for " the son of Tuathal" is Mac Tuathail. Now, the fragments of very old Irish annals, transcribed by Macfirbis, the Pictish Chronicle, and Tighernac furnish us with contemporary and fairly well connected information regarding the different invasions of Fortrenn by the Northmen, both Danes and Norwegians. They ravaged Magh Fortrenn, or the lowlands of the province, many times. They took spoils and captives. They were repulsed at Cluny on one occasion. They took and spoiled Dunkeld on another occasion. The Northern Scandinavians once or twice raided as far as Athole. But the silence of history, and the absence of military, monu mental, and traditional traces of them on the course of the Lyon, as well as the nature of the country and the nature of the invaders themselves, go far to negative the supposi tion that Dun Mac Tuathail was first the stronghold of a Danish captain.

Yet, it is very likely, indeed, that the outlying fortresses in Breadalbane — Dun Mac Tuathail commanding the ford of the Tay, and Finlarig defending the ford of the Lochay, with Loch Tay as a big fosse between — were of mighty importance as the outer defences of the Glenlyon and Fortingall line during the two centuries of troubles from the sea robbers. The following extracts from Macfirbis's fragments throw some light upon the worst of the Scandinavian invasions of Fortrenn, and almost suggest an Episcopal Celtic origin* for the captain of the Drummond Hill fort : — " 869 — Fortrenn was plundered and * As at a much later, and canonically, a far more orthodox time, we find the son of an Abbot of Dunkeld — Gracious King Duncan — on the Scottish Throne, we may well assume, since tradition connects him with the period of the Scandinavian invasions, that Tuathal, the bishop, was the father of the fortress captain.

But there were many Tuathals before the bishop. Under the date 663, Tighernac records the "death of Gartnaith Mac Domnail Righ Cruithneach (King of the Picts), and of Domhnail Mac Tuathalain and Tuathal Mac Morgainn." Mr Macdonald must have wrongly mixed up matters ; the sgeulachd, which older people than himself told to me, was that Mac Tuathail fought with the son of the King of Denmark, and defeated him. About one thing there can be no dispute. Mac Tuathail certainly lived and fought during the period of Scandinavian troubles. He, therefore, must have been the son of a ninth century Tuathal. Probably the bishop, like the after Abbots of Dunkeld and early Earls of Athole, was of the blood royal. ravaged by the Lochlans, and they carried off" many hostages with them as pledges for tribute, and they were paid tribute for a long time after.

Tuathal Mac Artgossa, chief bishop of Fortrenn and Abbot of Dunkeld, dies. 870— In this year the King of Lochlan laid siege to Strath clyde (Dumbarton) in Britain, and they continued the siege for four months. At length, however, after having wasted the people who were in it by hunger and thirst — having wonderfully drawn off the well they had within — they entered upon them. 871 — Amlaebh and Imar came again from Alban to Athcliath (Dublin), having a great number of prisoners — Britons, and Albans, and Saxons. The number of their ships was two hundred. 909 — Almost at the same time the men of Fortrenn and the Lochlans fought a battle. Vigorously, indeed, did the men of Alban fight this battle, for Columcille was assisting them ; for they prayed to him fervently, because he was their apostle, and it was through him they had received the faith.

On a former occasion, when Imhar Conung was a young man, he came to plunder Alban with three large battalions. What the men of Alban, both laity and clergy, did was to remain until morning, fasting and praying to God and to Columcille; and they cried aloud to the Lord, and gave many alms of food and clothes to the churches and to the poor, and to take the body of the Lord from the hands of the priests, and to promise to do every good as their clergy would order them ; and they would have as their standard at the head of every battle the crozier of Columcille, for which reason it is called the Cathbhuaidh from that time forth ; and this was a befitting name for it, for they have often gained victory in battle by means of it, as they did afterwards at that time, when they put their trust in Columcille.

They acted in the same way on this occasion. This battle was afterwards fought fiercely and vigorously. The Albanich gained victory and triumph. The Lochlans were slain in great numbers and defeated, and their King was slain, namely, Olter, son of Iargua ; and it was long after this until either Danes or Lochlans attacked them, but they enjoyed peace and tranquility." Dun-Mac-Tuathail is an excellent specimen of the dun, or natural fortress, further strengthened by the art of man. It is like the rocks on which the castles of Edinburgh, Dumbarton, and Stirling are situated, but remains in the state in which these strengths were when they were first walled in. It must have been impregnable when held in days of old by a strong garrison as long as food and water lasted. The rock, whose sheer descent protected it on three sides, appears to have been walled in all round its top, although portions of the wall have now disappeared.

A deep trench was dug down at the back of the rock, and three walls, the one overlooking the other, met the assail ants who dared descend into the ditch. The enclosed top of the rock is in rough, natural state, but there are many stones lying about which were probably the foundations of the wooden buildings of a small garrison town, for which there was sufficient space. How the indwellers did for water is a mystery, supposing they were long besieged. Dun-Mac-Tuathail, after having nearly been lost in dense wood for fifty years, is now, thanks to the action of axe and wind, becoming fairly visible once more. In these days of long range guns, it could have been easily shelled from the higher point, which was probably its out-picket and signalling station, whence old-world telegrams could be flashed westward to Killin, eastward to Logierait, and, through the co-operation of the Fortingall or recess fother, westward through Glenlyon to Bencastle.

The Rev. Mr Macdonald, who saw Dun-Mac-Tuathail before the then newly-planted larch and fir trees hid it from human view, does not mention any other Drummond Hill fort. Yet, there are pretty plain indications of a circular feart or fother on the point over looking the " dun," and the whole hill is so placed in relation to the chain of forts behind, to the route from the south by Crieff, and to the other outlying fort, and block the-ford station at Finlarig, that we should naturally expect to find it occupied by the Feinne, from whom it takes its name of Druim-Fhinn, from end to end. We know not of any place which answers so well as this hill to the Drum- Feinne mentioned in the ancient poem of Mordubh. A beacon flame lighted on it would soon call out the King's toisich and warriors along the whole line of defence.

Before leaving Dun-Mac-Tuathail, and turning back to the antiquities of Fortingall, it may be useful to indicate slightly and imperfectly how runs the line of forts to the Eastern Sea. „,tit, T„T„ „„ THE LINE OF The first two are cases of substitution, forts to the „,, , , ,, .. ._ . ., ... EASTERN SEA. The feudal hall at Tom-an-t-siogail, anciently Tom-an-togail, above Tirinie, apparently superseded a fort of the Feinne at some unknown time, for the place still retains a traditional connection with the other forts. The curate of Fortingall called the hall itself " the old hall," when the Duke of Chatelherault and other chiefs of Queen Mary's faction held a meeting in it about 1570. Weem Castle must be near the site of the fort in which the King of the Picts dwelt when St Cuthbert resided above " Doil Wem."

The King's place was close to the saint's hermitage, when the King's daughter accused the saint falsely. Pitcastle in Strath tay does not take its name from a feudal but from a circular fort. The Rath of Logierait and Rait-a-bhile, now called St Colms, proclaim their history by their names. So does Dalnefert, near Balnaguard, on the other side of the river. Dunkeld was the capital of Alban, or at least of the Southern Picts, until Kenneth Macalpin removed the regal seat to Scone. Kenneth's own name is closely con nected with Cluny, at the back of Dunkeld. Fortour, in Glenisla, which, with other lands there and elsewhere, was given by Malcolm the Maiden to the monks of Cupar- Angus in 1 164, assumes the slightly varied forms of " Fortur," " Forthir," and " Fortour" in the Abbey records. In all forms the original "fother" is but slightly disguised.

Here the main line, clinging to the mountains, crossed Strathmore, and sending outposts along the Sidlaw range, it followed the chief extension of the Grampians to the sea at Dunottar, called in the chronicles Dun-fother and Fother-dun indiffer ently. Vitrified forts became the rule wherever fusible lime was obtainable. Dunsinnan, Dunnichen, of old Dun Nech tan ; Fother-carn, now Fetter-Cairn ; and Fertesach, now Fetteresso, are some of the many forts of the main chain. To the south the regal seat of Scone was protected by Perth, Baile-feairt, to this day, and by the Rath of Inver ammon, at the confluence of the Almond and the Tay. At the mouth of the Tay was Dun-Tae, the fortress of the Tay, now Dundee, and Broughty, belonging perhaps to the later period when the Scandinavians plagued the land and caused changes in the works of defence as well as in their names, became the Brugh or Broch, that is the castle, of Tay likewise.