COLL SEERS

Hugh MacKinnon No doubt quite a few of us have heard of, and read about, the prophecies of the Brahan Seer, Coinneaeh Odhair, or to give his English name, Kenneth MacKenzie.

It is not of him that I am writing, however, but of our own late local seers, of which my own uncle Ncil was one.

During the Highland Clearances, my paternal grandfather was moved from Caolis an Eilean. Rather than emigrate he got permission from the then owner of Cornaig Estate to rent a croft and build a house for himself. This he did at Cornaig Mhor where he raised a family of five sons and two daughters. Later he moved to Glaic at Bousd.

One late Autumn evening, on finishing the lifting of the potato crop and securing it in underground pits for winter use, Neil was told to go for the cow who had the habit of wandering as far away from the house as was possible when it came to milking time.

As Neil searched up the hill and down the dale, he had a vision in one of the hollows in the dunes of what he later described as a large rounded quantity of goods as tho' off the cargo boat covered over with a tarpaulin. A fair description of one of the caravans that today are dotted all over that part of the island.

On another occasion he was walking from Bousd to Totamore at Ballyhough to visit his sister. (She, incidentally, was married to the Land Leaguer, John Johnstone, who did so much for the crofters' rights at the end of the last century. There is a monument to his memory erected by the people of Coll. It stands like a soldier on guard on the hill at Creag Dharaich in the village). As Neil climbed to the summit of Uchd na Carn (the raised beach where the two round 'lifter' stones sit on top of a large square one) he looked ahead to the Windy Gap and had a vision of what looked like companies of soldiers marching in single file.

Today, if you happen to arrive on that ridge, especially after a shower of rain, you must say to yourself, what a true description Neil gave of his vision.

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Now, to the West end of the island and to the lady who left her thatched cottage at Totronald to visit friends at Lonban. Her route took her over the flat plain, or machair, between the two townships. When she entered the Lonban house they noticed that she looked worried and excited.

On being asked as to what was wrong she answered by saying, "If you had but seen what passed over me when I was halfway down the machair. It looked like a monster bird or a hoat with very large oars." Many years later, the ambulance plane often landed there as did private ones.

And now to another Coll Seer who in his young years emigrated to Australia where he spent most of his early life trapping rabbits. But, like all Highlanders, he yearned for his native homeland and eventually returned to live in No.1 High Street.

Often he told his neighbours of thehouses that would be built above High Street. Today, there are fourteen council houses on the spot that he indicated and a school. He also talked of two dwellings across the bay at Airidh Bhaorich. Well, there aren't two houses there but when the owners are in residence and the whole house lit up, it certainly looks like two separate houses.

None of these people lived to see their visions in reality yet some strange intuition seemed to be at work within them. There are many more tales like this but they will keep for another time