“Fhaic! Fhaic! Fhaic!”^[1]

Mourie – the new Moon – Rioghainn na h-oidhche^[2] – rises above the shoulder of Beinn Mor.

Domhnal and his friends have come, with Peigi and her brothers, to the top of Maol na Coile Mòire for this moment.  When the moon waxes after Càisc Mhòr[i], it will be Peigi’s wedding feast and this excursion to see the stars is a step towards that celebration.

After the day’s festivities, the climb, up the glen of Allt Achad na h-Innseig, has tired her more than she had expected but there was enough hilarity and left-over whisky to lighten the work.  Her baby feasts and revels in her womb, like one of the Daoine Shith beneath their hillock, growing more insistent by the day as it turns and twists, feet and fists pressing through her belly as if already looking for an exit.

Dòmhnall stands close as the first sliver of their moon edges up and into view.

She was glad that it was Domhnal who sowed the seed among the Nollaig fires and feasting.

For those twelve daft days he courted her like a daftie and, this year, she was no coy lassie.  She liked him well enough and liked the feel of him in her.  Maybe a bit too much.

It snowed heavily in Faoilleach[ii].  Her morning sickness hadn’t come before Dòmhnall’s best man, Oengus, came to call on her father.  Drink was taken and the inevitable booking made.  Her mother noticed the change in her a few weeks later: smiled beneath raised eyebrows.

The weather has been more clement since St. Bride’s Day and now, at Inid[iii],  the promise of  new growth, in Piegi and in the world, is cheery.  They have come to propitiate Mouri, here, on the cusp of Lent, full of seal and whelk broth, bannocks made from the dregs of last year’s bere, cheese.  The hens are laying again.  It is a little more than their usual fare – enough to mark the lean days of Lent to follow which – truth to tell – will be no leaner than most others.

By his name, her belly will be showing by the time her wedding comes.  But everyone in the baille and all the way to Kinnord knows well enough.

Peigi NicFadden and that orra loon, Dòmhnall Maol!

And what if he has no hair?  All his other bits seem to work fine!

This Tuesday has been fine.  The piper played and she is not so big yet that she cannot prance and jig on the green outside their house.  The bard sang and the bodhran drummed.  Seven short weeks of Lent lie ahead but news from Chaluim Chille inspires the question:  how will they feast as her parents had done?

The rumour is that all beggars, jugglers, bards and vagabonds are to be pilloried and bards sent into exile. (Though they will have to walk a distance to find a set of stocks!)

Importing wine or uisghe is banned for all but gentlemen.  (But luckily their stills remain their own.)

The carrying of pistols and hagbuts and shooting at deer, hares, or fowls is forbidden.  (At least within earshot!)

It is as if the distant King in London is intent on stripping all the joy out of their lives.

Chilled by a premonition, Peigi tugs her plaid around her, as she remembers the birlins steering South towards Chaluim Chille.

Fearing a raid, the women and children of the baille took to the heather and Dòmhnall and her brothers found whatever iron and powder was to hand – dirks and broadswords, heuks and scythes, a few hagbutts – whatever could be mustered to resist a raid from the North.

The birlins converged on Chaluim Chille. Word spread that the chieftains of MacDhubhsith, Mac’Illeathain and MacDòmhnull were summoned to meet the Bishop of the Isles at the Abbey and hear read-out the rules by which the folk must live under this double King James. The chieftans had come from Colla, An t-Eilean Sgitheanach and Hearadh

The bere was almost ripe on the rigs then.

Kings and lords say things far away.  Piegi’s folk, the MacPhàideins had this land before the MacDòmhnull Lord of the Isles  favoured the Mac’Illeathains[iv].  Mac’Illeathain took no time ousting Eachann MacPhàidein from the richer land around Loch Bui but  the black soil of Ardmeanach is rich and the steepness of the slope down from Bearrach drains the cleared ground. 

Last year, the crops were sown in good time and the summer was clement.  The richness of that harvest fed the Nollaig feasting, malted mash filled the stills.  They danced to the music the piper played in the light of those Mid-Winter fires and comforted themselves that they were very far away from London or Edinburgh and locked in the fortress of winter.

Eachann MacPhàidein withdrew to Beinn an Aoinidh where he grew rich on the gold that sparkled in the bed of Allt a’ Ghuail. The great grandsons of his tacksmen serve as gentlemen in the court of Mac’Illeathain of Coll.  But Piegi’s folk cling to the rich soil of Ardmeachan, gazing out across Loch Scridain towards Chaluim Chille with its abbey and its ancient gravestones.

The moon continues to rise above Beinn Mor.  Dòmhnall stands close, the warmth of his breath on her neck.

“Bu chòir dhuinn tilleadh sìos, Piegi[3].”

It feels so holy here.  High up so that they can almost touch the stars in their firmament.  The ueen of the Night blessing them.

“Crois Chrìosd maille rinn, seadh, Dhòmhnaill.[4]”

This King in London, so far away it is beyond imagining, declares a whim to cancel bards and jugglers at Piegi’s wedding feast.  They will put a prohibition on dancing and smiling next.  But it is the ban on firearms that disturbs her.

Though pink-footed geese still flock on the shoreline and there are deer on the hill, Dòmhnall’s generation have not the skill with the bow their grandfathers had.   Without guns, how will their larders be filled in the lean months before the next harvest.  Perhaps the herring will come in numbers but she has no appetite for months of smoked herring and partans whilst her baby grows in her.

[1] See! See! See!

[2] Queen of the Night

[3] We should go back down, Piegi.

[4] Christ’s Cross be with us, yes, Donald.

[i] Big Easter

[ii] February – The Wolf Month

[iii] Shrovetide

[iv] The MacPhàideins also controlled Coll and Tiree.