LITEJ?ARy REGISTER SUPPLEMENT: 
AND CEYLON 
''NOTES AND QUERIES." 
fUnc'er this heading, in fatnre, we mean to give a small "Supplement" with owe Tropical AfjriculturUt 
from quarter to quarter, according as there ia matter of aufficient value so to be preserved.] 
JXJNE, 1903. 
THE "BRAHAN SEER" IN THE 
SEAFORTH FAMILY. 
March 13. 
Dear Sir,— I have been much interested 
in all you have told us about Lady 
Ashburton and the Stewart-Mackenzie 
family. Can you add to the favour by saying 
when the " Brahan Seer " lived, — what he 
prophesied, — and how it was fulfilled ? and 
oblisre — Yours truly, 
CURIOUS. 
[Kenneth Mackenzie, better-known as 
Coinneach Odhar, the Brahan Seer, was 
born about the beginning of the 17th 
century. He was burnt to death under 
atrocious circumstances by order of a Countess 
of Seaforth, about the middle of the century, 
because he had divined and told her of the 
unfaithfulness of her husband, the Earl, who 
was absent in Paris. By killing the Seer, the 
Countess hoped to make the people believe 
his report publicly made, was a slander. 
Wfc read : — 
" When Coinneach found that no mercy was to be 
expected eitlier from the vindictive lady or her 
subservient vassals, he resigned himself to iiis fate. 
He drew forth his white stone, so long the instru- 
ment of his supernatural intelligence, and once 
more applying it to bis eye, .'?aid — ' I see into the 
far future, and I read the doom of t!:e race of my 
oppressor. The long-descended line of Seaforth 
will, ere many generations liave passed, end in ex- 
tinction and in sorrow. I see a chief, the last of his 
house, lioth deaf and dumb. He will be the father 
f four fair sons, all of wlioni he will follow to the 
tomb. He will live careworn and die mourning, 
knowing that the honours of his line are to be e.v- 
tinguished for ever, and that no future chief of the 
Mackeuzies shall bear rule at Brahan or in Kintail. 
After lamenting over the last and most promisiu!? 
of his sons, he himself shall sink into the grave, 
and the remnant of his possessions shall be in- 
heritRd by a white-coifed (or whiti-hoodeil) lassie 
from the East, and she is to kill her sister. And as 
a sign by which it may be known that these things 
are coming to pass, there shall be foiu' sreat laii ds 
in the days of the last deaf and dumb Seaforth — 
Gairloch, Chisholm, Grant and Ramsay— of whom 
one shall be back-toothed, another hair-lipped, 
anotlier half-witted, and the fourth a stammerer. 
Chiefs distinguished by tuese personal marks shall 
be the allies and neighbours of the last Seaforth ; 
and when he looks around him and sees them, he 
may knov/ that his sons are doomed to death, that 
his broad lands shall pass away to the stranger, and 
that his race shall come to an end.' We believe Sir 
Hector Mack erizie of Gairloch was the buck- 
toothed laird (an Tighearna Storaoh); the Chisholm, 
the hare-lipped ; Grant, the half-witted ; and 
Ramsay, the stammerer, all of whom were contem- 
poraries of the last Lord Seaforth." 
Then of the hist Earl, bovn nearly 100 years 
after this prophecy, we are told : — 
Francis Humberston Mackenzie was a very re- 
markable man. He was born in full possession of 
all hia faculties, and only becatue deaf from the 
effects of a severe attack of scarlet fever, while a boy 
in school. He continuetf to speak a little, and io 
was only towards the close of his life, and parti- 
cularly during the last two years, that he was 
unable to articulate— or perhaps, unv/illing to make 
the attempt, on finding liimself the last male of his 
line. He may be said to have, prior to this, fairly 
recovered the use of speech, for he was able to con- 
verse pretty distinctly ; but he was so totally deaf, 
that all communications were made to him by signs 
or in wilting. Yet he raised a rei,'iment (the 78th), 
at the beginning of the greatEuropean war ; he was 
created a Britisli peer in 1797, as Baron Seaforth 
of Kintail ; in 1800 he went out to Barbados as 
Governor, and afterwards to Demerara and Ber» 
bice ; and in 1S08 he was made a Lieutenant- 
General. These were singular incidents in the life 
of a deaf and dumb man. He married a very ami- 
able and excellent woman, Mary Proby, the 
daughter of a dignitary of the Clinrch and 
nioce of the first Carysfoit, by whom he had 
a fine family of four sous and six daughters. One 
after another his three promising sons (the fourth 
died young) were cut off by death. The last, who 
was the most distinguished of tlieni all, for the 
finest qualities both of head and heart, was stricken 
by a sole and lingering disease, and had gone, 
with a part of the family for his health, to the 
South of Diigland. Lord Seaforth remained in the 
north at Brahan Castle, A daily bulletin was sent 
to him from the sick clanber of his belovedsou. A 
few posts later, brought to Seaforth the tidings of 
the death of the last of his four sons. At length, on 
the 11th January, 1815, Lord Seaforth died, tTie last 
of his race. His modern title became extinct, The 
chiefdoiii of the Jf^ckenzies, divested of its rank 
and honour, passed away to a very remote collateral 
who succeeded to no portion of the property, aad 
