Deeside Tales

[Alastair]

Or Men and Manners On Highland Deeside since 1745 by John Grant Michie (1908)

PREFACE

IN his will Mr. Michie nominated as his literary executors the late Dr. Robert Neil of Cambridge and myself, with full discretionary powers to deal with his literary remains. Dr. Neil having predeceased him, it fell to me to examine a large number of manuscripts in varying degrees of completeness. The principal items are “Annals of Deeside,” “History of the family of Gordon,” and “Annals of Mar.” The first is a large and ambitious project, on which Michie worked intermittently during the greater part of his life, but of which he completed only a preliminary excursus on the topography and geology of the Dee basin. The History of the Gordon family extends to two closely written volumes, but it has been superseded by the “Records of Aboyne ” and by Mr. J. Malcolm Bulloch’s accurate and exhaustive investigations. The Annals of Mar was partly utilised for the contribution which Michie made to “Under Lochnagar.” After careful consideration I have come to the conclusion that none of these are of sufficient value to warrant their publication. In a class by itself is an autobiographical fragment, which unfortunately stops short at the beginning of his career, but which is of interest both for the account of his early struggles and for the vivid picture which it presents of peasant life in Crathie in the earlier half of last century. It is included in the present volume, and I have added a few paragraphs giving the chief facts of the remainder of Michie’s life, which it may be interesting to have put on record regarding the author of “Deeside Tales,” a book which seems likely to retain a permanent position among works of local history.

Whatever may have been Mr. Michie’s wishes with regard to the writings already mentioned, it was certainly his desire and intention to issue a second edition of “ Deeside Tales,” and for this he had been making preparations before his death. There is no evidence that he proposed making any substantial alterations on the body of the work, but the memoranda and jottings which he left indicate that he intended to make some additions to the historical side. As his notes unfortunately were in too fragmentary a state to be used in the present edition, the editor has contributed a few historical articles by way of enlarging the scope of the work in the direction which the author contemplated.

J. Macpherson Wattie.
Broughty-Ferry,

PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION

THE aim of this little work is to present the reader with a picture of Highland manners and customs as they existed on Deeside during the century subsequent to the Rebellion of 1745. It does not pretend to be a connected history of the period, but merely a sketch of five phases of life, all of them now things of the past, though some of them probably not yet uninteresting or unworthy of recollection. These are— 1 st, The Cateran Life; 2nd, The Military Life; 3rd, The Life of the Sennachie; 4th, That of the Man of Superstitious lore; and 5th, That of the Free Forester.

The individuals of whom short accounts are given as representatives of these classes are real characters, and the particulars stated regarding them are neither legendary nor imaginary, but such as the writer has reason to believe are substantially true.

The sources of his information have been very various, while his opportunities of collecting it have been numerous and extending over many years. For the materials of the memoir of Alexander Davidson, and in great part also for the form in which they are presented, he has been indebted to a friend who probably knew that singular man more intimately, and understood him better than any one now living.

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Alastair