An Cùbair Collach agus a' Chuibheall-Chnò'

Abstract

In this article, the author presents a tale told by his grand-uncle Charles MacDonald (1874–1960), whose storytelling was part of his childhood in Tiree. The tale concerns Alexander Maclean (1776–1822), the ‘Cùbair Collach’, a Coll man whose reputation as a daring whisky-smuggler made him the subject of colourful anecdotes. In this one, the Cùbair persuades a mermaid to give him two devices: a ‘wireless’ that allows him to track the exciseman’s whereabouts, and a ‘smoke-screen’ that obscures his own. The author compares MacDonald’s narrative with an outline of the same story summarised by a Coll writer, Hector MacDougall (1889–1954), who says he heard it from a Tiree man. Although it relates to an early nineteenth-century character, the story’s technological references strongly indicate that it was first told in the early 20th century. This article is written in Gaelic.