498 HISTORY OF THE OUTER HEBRIDES. 



garment sewed together in patchwork, well daubed with 

 wax or pitch, with an over-garment of deerskin. The 

 musical instrument of the " wild Scots " was the harp, the 

 strings of which were of brass. Major confirms the state- 

 ment of Fordun as to their hatred of Lowland Scots and 

 English alike. 



Hector Boece (1527) states that Lewis is sixty miles in 



length and has one river. The latter is obviously meant 



for the Barvas River, for he mentions a superstition which 



Martin, writing circa 1700, repeats about that river. " It 



is said if any woman wades through this water at the 



spring of the year, no salmon will be seen that year in the 



river ; otherwise it will abound in salmon." He names only 



two churches in Lewis, viz., St. Peter (Swainbost) and St. 



Clement (North Dell). He refers to the custom of keeping 



a fire constantly burning on the altar a custom which the 



Norsemen followed in their churches and affirms that 



according to current report, the fire, when it went out, was 



re-kindled miraculously. The person " haldin of maist 



clene and innocent life " laid a wisp of straw on the altar, 



and while the people were engaged in prayer, the wisp 



kindled in a blaze. In Hirtha, which he says is the 



" Irish " for " sheep," there were great numbers of those 



animals with wonderful horns and tails. In the month of 



July every year, a priest went from Lewis to St. Kilda to 



baptise all children born since his previous visit, receiving 



in return, the tithes of all the islanders' goods. Boece, with 



his talent for the fabulous, found a tit-bit in the sea-geese 



(" clakis ") which were self-engendered in the worm-eaten 



holes of trees floating in the Hebridean waters. He quotes 



the well-worn fable of the fowl-producing barnacles, in 



support of the wonderful properties of generation possessed 



by those seas. 



The first really valuable account of the Long Island 

 which we have, is from the pen of Donald Monro (i549)> 

 High Dean of the Isles. He travelled through the 

 Hebrides in his pastoral capacity, and has left a most 

 interesting record of his visit, which would have been still 



