taigh dubh to taigh geal

...the whole country will become so utterly desolated and depopulated that the crow of cock shall not be heard north of Druim-Uachdair; the people will emigrate to islands now unknown, but which shall yet be discovered in the boundless oceans after which deer and other wild animals in the huge wilderness shall be exterminated and browned by horrid black rains. The people will then return and take undisturbed possession of the lands of their ancestors... the seer of Brahan

This is for sale. Half the walls seem to be down but the owner says not to worry; there is plenty of building stone available amongst what fell. Uh~huh. It is a *Black House*, Taigh Dubh. They seem to be popular as holiday cottages now. The mind boggles. For starters this is closer to the Ar tic circle than I care to get, especially in winter. For seconds, do you know how these things were built? They were usually built against the side of a hill, using the hillside as support with double dry stone walls packed with dirt. I imagine that would constantly dribble through the cracks in the dry stone. If you were lucky the floor was flagged. Mostly what you got was plain old dirt. You got to share with the animals too. They had the part on the other side of the partition. There was no chimney so the smoke curled all through the house until [hopefully] it found its way through the hole in the roof. The peat smoke contributed to the *black* description. The other part of black refers to the simple fact that many had no windows so were incredibly dark, winter & summer, in full daylight or moonless night.

Along with many others I enjoyed Mel Gibson's Braveheart ~ though every time I see that warpaint I begin a predictable rant: There is no evidence the Picts ever painted themselves like that, let alone the Scotti, & even if they did Gibson was waaaay out of period, but hey, it looks terrific. My kids think I'm a little weird. What eats at me in Braveheart is knowing the rest of the story: that eventually the English got so fed up with the Scots they banned the wearing of the tartan; they banned the playing of the bagpipes; they banned the speaking of the Gaelic, to say nothing of more obvious bans like the forfeit on bearing arms! They broke the honour contract between the Clan Chief & his people until, predictably, profit in the form of sheep, became far more important than the people themselves resulting in the clearances of the 1700's. If you live in one of the preferred countries [America, Canada, New Zealand. Australia] & bear a Scottish clan name the chances are you owe your family's migration to the clearances. I actually don't. My grandfather left Scotland of his own free will & had nothing good to say of any of it apart from her whisky!I don't drink whisky so I can't comment.

Lilian Beckwith made good use of her time in the Scottish Highlands by writing a series of hilarious books about her experiences & in recent times, like so much else, there has been a return in Scotland to the grass roots & people are once again taking up crofting which has always been a little fishing, a little livestock, a few crops. Mostly they seem to be English incomers which is ironic really given William Longshanks wanted his English soldiers to breed the Scots out.

It seems the Scots have had the final word. Many of the old Black Houses are being renovated, painted white [taigh geal] & rented out as summer cottages but as the Brahan Seer foresaw many years ago, & others with him, Scotland is reverting to the Scots & from the 4 corners of the earth Scots are returning to their homeland. Somehow I don't think they'll be wanting the old taigh dubh. They did that the first time round.