#dornoch

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What is Crofting?

The land in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, historically, has been too poor in quality to sustain large-scale farming. There was very little land that was good to plant large amounts of crops. The solution to this was crofting. A 'croft' is a small, self-sustaining farm, usually rented from a landowner and worked, most often, by a single family. The best part of the land would be used to grow crops, while rougher land would be used to graze hardy, native cattle like sheep, goats and cows.

While crofts were usually spread out far across the rugged landscape of the Highlands, church and community were still essential parts of crofter's lives. Crofts would often be part of a local Parish (a catchment area for a specific church or town). This meant that the crofters were still part of a community despite their physical distance from their neighbours. In fact, it wasn't uncommon in the Highlands for small churches to be built in remote areas, to make it easier for crofters to be able to access religious services.

Many crofting communities suffered during the Highland Clearances, where landlords forcefully expelled tenants from their lands, including crofters, to make way for profitable sheep farming. It is during this time that crofting started its slow decline into what it is today.

The crofting way of life has become iconic in Scotland, especially in the Highlands. Unfortunately , crofting has been all but destroyed by modern, more profitable farming practices. There are still working crofts today in Scotland but in only a fraction of the numbers there used to be. However, recently there has been a push to revive the crofting way of farming in the Highlands, as research has shown that crofting is better for the environment than modern crofting, and actually lends to the ecology of Highland moorlands.

Tìoraidh!

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Old Dornoch Market

When you think of a village or town market, where do you imagine it takes place? You're probably thinking of a cute cobbled street, or a nice open green space, like a village square. For the most part you would be right. But Dornoch, of course, just had to be different.

Up until fairly recently (the past 150 years or so), the Dornoch market or fair would take place in the cathedral graveyard. That's right, they would have they markets directly on top of graves of the hundreds of people who had been buried there over the centuries. This is because the graveyard (which was open and unwalled at the time) was the exact centre of the town and where the drove road and coastal road met. It was also directly in front of the tollbooth where the people would pay to set up their market stall. When the pedlars (peddlers) would set up their stalls, they would drive the tent poles into the ground, sometimes deep enough to reach the graves of those buried underneath, and coffins and bones alike could be heard splintering!

Because the Dornoch market happened on this site, there are several permanent features that can still be seen today. One of these is the Plaiden Ell. An 'ell' was the old measurement for a piece of cloth. Though the exact measurement of the ell varied from country to country, ell's tended to be between 37 to 45 inches in length. In the graveyard at Dornoch cathedral, there is what we assume to be recycled tombstone, which was used to measure the cloth into ells to be sold to customers. Interestingly, while the typical Scottish ell was about 37 inches long, the Dornoch ell is about 39 inches long. This Plaiden Ell can be seen in the picture below.

The wall that now surrounds the cathedral and graveyard was not originally there, but it was open the the street on the north side. The wall built to stop the animals from getting in or out of the market place. Many farmers would take their stock to be sold here, but sometimes they would escape the market place, or they would break in and wreak havoc. It wasn't uncommon for the pigs that were held at market, to dig through the mud and pull up the bones of the people buried there!

Just next to the graveyard, stands a lonely pillar. This is the Mercat Cross of Dornoch. This was where important announcements were made, but also where all the town's public punishments were served, such as being put in stocks or flogged. It was put here specifically because the tollbooth across the road also served at the jail, but because of the markets, it was incredibly public, which added humiliation to the punishments.

While the graveyard of Dornoch Cathedral is a quiet and scenic place today, one can just imagine the hussle and bussle of the medieval markets that took place here centuries ago.

Tìoraidh!

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Death by Bucktooth

We've looked at the Vikings and their invasions of the Dornoch area, so we know that the Vikings didn't have the easiest of times with the local population. This was also the case, long before the Earl of Sutherland killed the Danish leader with the severed leg of a horse.

Back in the 800's, when the Norse had only recently conquered the north of Scotland, they had a contentious relationship with the Pictish population they had plundered. Fights and skirmishes broke out frequently, disrupting both communities. Things got especially heated when Sigurd "the Mighty" was granted the title of the Earl of Orkney, giving him power over the invaded lands of the Highlands. Now, Sigurd was claiming his rule all the way from the Northern Isles down to the Dornoch Firth. This ended up stepping on the toes of of his Pictish neighbour in Moray, Mael Brigte.

Sometime around 895AD, Sigurd and Mael Brigte decided to settle their differences the old fashioned way: going toe to toe with each other and an equal amount of their fighters. They each agreed to bring 40 of their best warriors and whoever walked away alive would be the winner.

Sigurd, it seems, was not a very honourable man and tried to trich the Picts by taking 40 horses and mounting two men on each horse. When both armies arrived at the battlefield the Picts soon saw that they were outnumbered two to one. Despite this, Mael Brigte urged his men to fight and to kill at least one Norseman each. It is believed that the fight happened somewhere in north Morayshire, though exactly where has been lost to time.

Mael Brigte and his Picts were predictably slaughtered in the ensuing fight. But it is Mael Brigte who had the last laugh.

After the fight, Sigurd cut off Mael Brigte's head to keep as a trophy. He tied the head to his saddle by it's hair and rode back to his lands in the north. Now this is where Mael Brigte's nickname becomes important. He was also known as Maelbrigd Tonn, which meant "Maelbrigte the tooth", because of a long bucktooth that grew out the front of his mouth. As Sigurd rode on, the head bounced and the jutting tooth stabbed Sigurd in the leg. Quickly the leg became infected and from the 'bite' and Earl Sigurd died from the resulting sepsis.

He is believed to be buried near Dornoch in a place called Sidera or, as it's known today, Cyderhall, where there is a known Viking burial, locally called "Sigurd's Howe". Unfortunately, the burial is in poor state of preservation, having been looted sometime in the last 1100 years. The suspected grave can been seen in the picture below.

We know the story of Sigurd the Mighty and Mael Brigte mostly through the Orkneyinga Saga, which describes most of the story of the Vikings in Scotland and the Isles in the 9th Century.

While the local Picts and later Scots, never fully managed to buck off the Norse influence, between dodgy teeth and severed horse legs, we can see that they put up one hell of a fight!

Tìoraidh!

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The Independent State of Embo

Just north of Dornoch, there is a tiny fishing village of Embo. Embo came to be in the early 1800's, to take advantage of the costal position the village sits on, which made it a prime fishing location. At it's height, the village had about 300 residents.

What makes this little village stand out, is that on this day in 1988, Embo declared itself an independent state from the rest of the United Kingdom.

Complete with its own flag (as seen above) and its own currency, called the Cuddie, Embo's new government consisted of a Prime Minister, a Minister of Internal Affairs, a Foreign Ambassador and a Minister of Drinks. The Cuddie could be exchanged at the local public house, called Grannie's Heilan Hame (which doubled for their parliament building), for a dram of Clynelish whisky.

The next year, in 1989, Embo hosted it's very own Embo Olypmics and celebrated it's very first Independence Day on 16th July.

But why did this tiny Sutherland village declare itself independent? It's simple; Fundraising. By 'taxing' people and making visitors pay a 'toll' to come in and out of the village, money was collected and put into a community fund. Over £2000 was raised to create a local community centre.

So when you come to visit Embo, remember to bring your passport and some money to pay the toll!

Tìoraidh!

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The Gizzen Briggs

If you stand in the town of Tain or on Tain Hill and looked out over the waters of the Dornoch Firth, you would see two sandbanks, one stretching out from Dornoch beach, one from the Tarbat Penninsula, and joining them together is a white foamy line of waves breaking over the sandbank. This is the Grizzen Briggs.

Legend has it that back in the time of clans and magic, a man of the Mackay clan, Angus, was sent to meet a witch in Tarbat. His chief had requested help from this witch and had sent Angus in he stead. The witch gave Angus a box, telling him that what was inside the box would fix all of his chief's problems, but warned Angus to never open the box himself.

Like Pandora, Angus let his curiosity get the better of him, and as he walked past Tain, he opened the box to peer inside. Hundreds of tiny faeries flew out and swarmed Angus .

"Work! Work! Give us work to do!" They cried. Angus, overwhelmed and fearful, told them to strip all the heather from Tain Hill.

Happy to work, the faeries all flew off to the hill and Angus ran in the opposite direction, believing that they would be distracted long enough for him to flee and escape them. He had barely made it to the shore of the Dornoch Firth when the faeries found him again. When he looked back, he saw that Tain Hill had indeed been stripped bare.

"Work! Give us work! We want to work!" The faeries cried again.

Thinking a bit harder this time, Angus told the Faeries to build a bridge entirely out of sand, that joined the Tarbat peninsula and Dornoch. The faeries flew down to the firth and began to build their bridge of sand. Every time they build their bridge, the tide came rushing into the firth and the bridge would be swept away.

And so the faeries have stayed ever since, building their bridge everyday and everyday the bridge is destroyed by the tide.

Today, the Gizzen Briggs have lent their name to a popular youth music group in Tain that plays traditional Scottish folk songs.

Tìoraidh!

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The Meikle Ferry Disaster

16 August 1809

It was a calm warm Wednesday morning in East Sutherland. Across the firth in the town of Tain, it was the Lammas Fair, a traditional end-of-summer market. As such, there were many people gathered on the northern bank of the Dornoch Firth at Meikle Ferry, waiting to make the crossing to Tain. Many folk had goods to sell at the Lammas market, while others had brought money with them to be deposited in the bank.

As the ferrymen were loading the people and their goods into the boat, they paid no heed to how low in the water the vessel sat. They continued to pack more and more people on. Sheriff McCulloch of Dornoch argued with the boatmen that the ferry was overfull, but they insisted that everything was perfectly safe.

111 people were crammed onto the ferry by the time it cast off.

The ferry was barely out in the open water when tragedy struck. Because of the excess weight of all the people and goods that were on board, the boat was so low in the water, that the small waves easily found their way over the sides of the boat. As the ferry turned sideways to the current, it was tipped to one side and sank immediately into the freezing waters of the Dornoch Firth.

99 people drowned in the Meikle Ferry sinking. Over half of them were from Dornoch Parish, including Sheriff McCulloch.

This completely preventable accident brought sorrow to many in the area, especially those who now had family or friends who would never come home. The head ferryman left behind a widow and 9 orphaned children.

A relief fund was set up to supply the bereaved families with an income. The tragic story spread across the British empire and money was sent from as far away as Grenada, Bengal and Goa. The total, over the 2 years the fund ran, amounted to £3300.

To avoid a similar disaster from happening, it was decided that a bridge would be built for people to safely cross the firth. Farther inland, a bridge, designed by Thomas Telford, was built at Bonar (yes you can laugh at the name) where the firth was narrowest. However, the journey to cross the bridge added nearly 20 miles to the journey, leading to many to continue taking the ferry, despite the danger. The Meikle ferry ran all the way to the 1950's.

Today, in the place where the ferry cast off from on the north side of the Dornoch Firth, there is an information panel and a small memorial to the 99 who lost their lives that day. In Proncy Croy, a few miles north, there is an individual memorial stone for Sheriff McCulloch, who tried to prevent this tragedy.

Tìoraidh!

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Cholera Shall Not Pass!!!

The 1800's were a dangerous time to live in Scotland. A new disease swept the land, a killer that travelled by water; Cholera!

Cholera or it's scientific name, Vibrio Cholerea, is a bacteria based gastrointestinal disease. Highly infectious, it travels from person to person either through contaminated water or through close contact with an infected person. Scotland is a land of waterways, so when Cholera reached our shores, it spread with devastating speed.

Cholera, when contracted, settles in the small intestines, where it produces toxins that the human body can't handle. This causes intense diarrhea in the infected person, who, as a result, may die of dehydration or other complications. The most severe cases could kill victims in less than 24 hours.

Between 1830 and 1870, Scotland faced 4 major outbreaks of Cholera. Communities large and small were devastated by the disease. In 1832, the City of Glasgow lost over 3000 people to Cholera, when it reached epidemic heights. The average death rated for those infected was around 50%, which made many fearful of being contaminated.

So how did Dornoch handle these epidemics? Well, with a frankly no-nonsense attitude. We may think of lockdown as something that is very modern, but people have known to quarantine the sick for hundreds of years.

With Cholera on their doorstep, the people of Dornoch sprung into action! They didn't know what we know today, that Cholera was a waterborne bacteria. This was still the era when diseases were believed to come from miasmas(bas smells), so if the smells were eliminated, then the disease would be too. Dornoch underwent a deep-clean, to keep the air pure and disease-free. Middens(rubbish pits) and dung heaps were removed from the town and the streets and buildings were washed with quicklime. No one was allowed to leave Dornoch and more importantly, no one was allowed to enter. All around the the boundaries of the town, guards were set up to stop outsiders who could carry disease, from entering the community.

Thankfully, this worked perfectly for Dornoch. The quarantining stopped the disease from being brought into the town, and the cleaning of the streets stopped the local water sources from being contaminated (not that the people of Dornoch knew that). Not a single person inside of the town's boundaries is recorded to have died of Cholera.

Yet, despite Dornoch's successful attempts of holding Cholera back for decades, just outside of where the old town boundary lies, there is what is called the "Cholera Stone".

This grave does not belong to someone from someone who lived inside Dronoch, but to a poor man who was brought to Dornoch to be buried on Christian ground after he had died of a mysterious illness. Fearing that the man had died from Cholera, the guards would not let his body be taken into the town. Tragically he was left to the buried right there, just outside Dornoch.

Below is a transcript of what is written on his gravestone, erected by his son:

We will never know if this man died of Cholera or something else, but his grave and stone have remained undisturbed for nearly 2 centuries and can be visited today.

Tìoraidh!

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Place names around Dornoch

The north of Scotland, including the East Sutherland area where Dornoch resides, has a wonderful blend of Pictish/Gaelic places names and Norse place names.

The native Picts would have spoken a kind of pre-Gaelic language, which of course would have been used to name places in the landscape. But between 800 and 1200AD, there were several Norse invasions from both Norwegian and Danish Vikings, some of whom settled where they landed. The place names you find around Dornoch today exemplifies this cultural mix of Pictish and Norse.

Gaelic/Pictish Names

Dorneich - meaning "horseshoe", which is where Dornoch comes from

Baile - means "farm" with Balloan meaning "pool farm" and Balyraid meaning "street farm"

Achaidh- means "field with Achinchanter meaning "precentor's field"

Bad - means "place" with Badinish meaning "meadow place"

Clais - means "hollow" with Clashmore meaning "big hollow" and Clashmugach meaning "murky hollow"

Camas - means "bend" with Cambusmore meaning "big bend"

Mhor - means "big" with Camore meaning "big path"

Norse Names

Bol - means "farm" with Torboll meaning "Tor's farm", with Embo, Skibo and Skelbo all being named after whoever owned the farm

Dalr - means valley or Dale as we say today, with Ospisdale meaning "Ospak's valley"

Sutherland literally means "Southernland" and was called this by the Norse who settled in Caithness first

The area around Dornoch is only a small example of this mix of Pictish and Norse culture, which eventually blended together to become the highland culture we know today.

Tìoraidh!