198 PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



Haley isles. Very natural gressing within the saids isles: infinit 

 wyld scheipe therein, quhilk na man knawes to quhom the said 

 scheipe apperteinis within them that Hues this day of the 

 countrymen; bot M'Cloyd of the Lewis, at certaine tymes in the 

 zeir, sendis men in, and huntis and slayis maney of thir sheipe; 

 the flesche of thir sheipe cannot be eaten be honest men for 

 fatnesse, for ther is na flesche on them, but all quhyte like talloune, 

 and it is verey wyld gusted lykways. The saids isles are nouder 

 manurit, nor inhabit, bot full of grein high hills full of wyld sheipe 

 in the seven isles forsaid, quhilk may not be outrune; they 

 perteine unto M'Cloyd of the Lewis." So much for Dean Munro's 

 quaint account. 



Next comes the still more curious account of Martin.* He says, 

 "To the North-west of Gallan-head and within 6 leagues of it, 

 lyes the Flannan-Islands, which the Seamen call North-hunters" 

 He adds "they are but small Islands, and six in number, and 

 maintain about 70 Sheep yearly." He relates also how the natives 

 of Lewis "having a right to these Islands," visit them every season 

 "and there make a great purchase of Fowls, Eggs, Down, Feathers, 

 and Quills." The natives never attempt a landing in a west wind, 

 and a novice "not vers'd in the Customs of the place, he must be 

 instructed perfectly in all the Punctilio's observed here, before 

 Landing," which punctilios, Martin in his own quaint language 

 proceeds to describe (p. 16). "This superstitious Account," as 

 Martin justly terms it, he had received viva voce from two fishermen 

 who had visited the Flannans the previous year. 



In connection with the sacred character of these isles, Buchanan 

 writesf : — "There are Seven Islands at Fifty Miles distance above 

 Lewis, which some call Flavanae, others the Sacred, or sanctuary 

 islands." They would appear to be sacred or St. Flann's isles, just 

 in the same way that the Shiants were sacred, being the Virgin 

 Mary's isles. They were, as Dean Munro tells us, "claid with girth 

 and Haley isles," or they may possibly — as suggested by Mr. James 

 Macpherson to me — in lit. — have been sanctuary isles in a legal 

 sense as well. Islands far out at sea, and difficult of access, often 

 seem to have been held as holy isles or places of veneration. 



Wilson in his "Voyage round the Coasts of Scotland," designates 

 the feeling which induced the early Christians to settle upon these 

 outermost isles, "the pertinacity of devotion." St. Flann was "a 



* Martin's Description, &c. (p. 16). + History of Scotland, 1751. 



