LETHNOT-THE FARMER AND THE CATERANS.

159

amidst much din and confusion, his tormentor entered his room in the shape of a large black cat! How he found his way none could exactly affirm-the minister did not see him enter, and distinguished nothing save his long hairy fangs, which suddenly extinguished the candle! Running in pursuit, however, he saw him clear the steep and narrow stair that led to the lower flat of the house, and falling from head to foot of it himself, Mr. Thomson was so much injured from bruises and fright that he never fully recovered!1

The facts of such pitiful displays of ignorance and credulity as those now told, though absurd in themselves, ought not to be entirely overlooked when delineating the history of a district or a people. They formed at one time a great and prominent part of the beliefs of the old inhabitants, and were as intimately associated with their habits of thought and action as were their domestic customs; thus they show as vividly the ruling passions, and throw as much light on the society of the period, as do the prehistoric remains, and the curious tenures by which old charters tell us that landed property was held.

But apart from these superstitions, the district had also to do with those times

"When tooming faulds, or scouring o' a glen,
Was ever deemed the deed o' pretty men."

An ancestor of the present tenant of Craigendowie (whose forefathers have farmed the same place upwards of two centuries) was reported to be worth money; and the Cateran, believing that the money was stored up in the house, paid the

1 Although currently ascribed to Mr. Thomson, these stories are scarcely in accordance with his real character (supra, p. 157 n.), and the true version of the story is given in APPENDIX No. VI., as put together by the present minister, Mr. Cruickshank. Mr. T. was the last Episcopal minister of Lethnot, and being a determined supporter of the rebellion, was deposed, by order of Government, for praying "for the heads and patriots of the Rebel Army, and that God might cover their heads in the day of battell." He also prayed "for his Noble Patron the Earle of Panmure, that the Lord might preserve him now when he was exposed to Danger," and thanked God for "King James the Eight's safe Landing into these his native bounds," and that "the Army appearing against Marr's Army might be defeat," etc.--(Records of the Presbytery of Brechin, March 7, 1716.) Mr. Thomson married Anna Lindsay of the house of Edzell.-(Decreet-Arbitral, Nov. 22d, 1714.)

family a visit on one occasion about midnight. Being refused admittance they deliberately cut a large tree that grew near the house, and, using it as a battering-ram, soon succeeded in bursting open the door, and walked boldly through the house. They had previously emptied the mill of meal and corn, and laded the farmer's own horses with it; then, despatching them and some of his cows along the mountain track, they next insisted on having his money. This he peremptorily refused, when, with a view to enforce compliance, they set his bare feet over a blazing fire, and, finding this stratagem as unsuccessful as threats, they seized his wife, and rode off with her at full speed. As the farmer made no resistance, and the gudewife perhaps proved a drag on their progress, they dismissed her at Stonyford, when she returned to Craigendowie with much less injury than had befallen the feet of her inflexible partner! The tombstone of this worthy "gudewife" is still in the burialplace at Navar, and the motto may interest the reader. It runs thus:

"A pearl precious here doth lie,

As signifies her name:

Still shining to posterity

By her deservèd fame.

Death battered down those walls of clay

To let her soul go free,

And soar aloft to praise for aye

The Triune Deity.

Sleep thou, frail dust, within thy closest urn,

Till the morning of the Resurrection dawn,

When thou shalt wake, the heaven and earth shall burn,
And be rejoined to thy immortal pawn." 1

1 Jervise, Epit. ii. pp. 296 sq.; Rogers, Scott. Mon. and Tombst. ii. p. 242.

CHAPTER IV.

Finhaven and Oathlaw.

SECTION I.

Here they lie had realms and lands,

Who now want strength to stir their hands.

BEAUMONT.

Finhaven-Etymologies-Church a prebend of Brechin Cathedral-The nine maidens--Old church of Finhaven-The "kirk of Aikenhatt"-Ministers of Finhaven-Oathlaw took the place of Finhaven-Burial aisle-Later ministers -Female rioters do penance-Rev. Harry Stuart.

THE districts of Finhaven or Finavon and Oathlaw are, for the most part, divided from each other by the burn of Lemno.1 The kirk of Finhaven stood on the south-east corner of a rising ground, about a mile east of the castle, near the junction of the Lemno and South Esk, and was frequently called the “kirk of Aikenhatt," but the site is suggestive of the origin of the name of Aberlemno, though that parish, in its present boundaries, has no connection with the Lemno. This name, Aikenhatt, is probably derived from the Gaelic, and may signify "the place of prayer or supplication;" while Finhaven, according to the oldest spelling, "Fothnevyn," may have its origin in the same language, since Fodha-fainn (the Gaelic dh and English th being synonymous) signifies a place lying "under a hill or height." The topographical position and aspect, both of the church and district, accord with these renderings; for the old kirk stood immediately under the

1 Lemno (vulg. pron. Lemla) is perhaps from the Gael. Leum-na, "the small limping or leaping stream," which may correspond with the bounding peculiarity of its motion. Levenach, however, is an old spelling, as it also is of Lethnot. The point where the Lemno falls into the Esk frequently changes, as it is now doing.

L

highest part of the hill, and the greater part of the arable land of Finhaven proper lies along the foot of it, though in strictness of speech some is found on the other side of the Lemno, and some beyond the Esk altogether. But a simple and more natural signification of Finhaven, is "the white river," as suggested in Lord Lindsay's Lives of the Lindsays.1

There has been a kirk at Finhaven from the earlist record, as we find it being rebuilt and erected into a Prebend of the Cathedral of Brechin, by Sir Alexander Lindsay of Glenesk, in 1380; but the saint to whom it was dedicated is matter of doubt. In the ancient Taxatio it was rated at five merks, and there was a chaplainry of St. Leonard's belonging to it in 1587.3 A fountain called "Nine-well" is situated on the hill above the old kirk, and some believe this to be a corruption of the name of St. Ninian, who was a favourite over all Scotland; but, as the Nine "virgin dochters of S. Donewalde who lived as in a hermitage in the Glen of Ogilvy at Glamis" were canonised as the "Nine Maidens," perhaps the fountain and kirk had been inscribed to them. Like most of the primitive saints, they were remarkable for industry and humility, and are said to have laboured the ground with their own hands, and to have eaten only once a day, "and then but barley bread and water." Their father died while they were in the Glen of Ogilvy; on this they retired to Abernethy, the Pictish capital, where they had an oratory and some lands assigned them, and were visited in their retirement by Eugenius VII. of Scotland, who made them large presents. Their feast is on the 15th of June; and, dying at Abernethy in the early part of the eighth century, they were buried at the foot of a large oak, which was much frequented by pilgrims till the Reformation.*

The walls of the old kirkyard of Finhaven were in existence within the present century, as were also a number of tomb

1 Lives, i.
p. 108.

2" By vj1l viij/. & iiijd mo. anno payable to the minister of the paroche of ffinevine, be vertew off ane antient gift dated the 20th of Febry. 1299," presented and approved by the Commissioners of Exchequer, anno 1659.—(Burgh Papers of Forfar.) 3 Reg. Episc. Brech. ii. p. 36. 4 Coll. on Aberdeenshire, i. pp. 595-6.

FINHAVEN-OLD CHURCH.

163

stones. The site of the old church is now railed in, and fragments of tombstones are lying on it. In 1849, when the farmer trenched the graveyard, the floor of the church was laid and two ancient monuments were found at a con

open,

siderable depth. The floor, like those of the cathedral of Kirk

wall, and the Church of the Holy Trinity at Edinburgh,1 was paved with plain square glazed tiles, of the three primary colours of red, blue, and yellow, each of them being about six 1 Wilson's Prehistoric Annals of Scotland, ii. p. 459.