The peat-fire flame : folk-tales and traditions of the Highlands & Islands

BELL LORE
although the scene of its mystical behaviour is shifted
sometimes to Glen Moriston.
Now, a certain man dwelling in Strathglas stole this bell
from the church, and suspended it from a tree near his
home. At dead of night it commenced to ring inconsolably.
But the man who had tampered with it had not the courage
to rise and investigate matters.
Invested with powers similar to those possessed by the
Bell of Insh, this bell was found in the morning to have
quitted the tree for its rightful place in the western end of
the church.
When this bell chimed of its own accord, it was regarded
in the neighbourhood as a forewarning of death. And
there is a tradition still current in Inverness-shire that,
when, in 1745, a contingent of Lord Louden's men came to
learn of the veneration in which the natives held it, they
deliberately extracted its tongue or ' clapper.' And I am
assured on local authority that some years later the tongueless
bell was seen in a corner of the churchyard.
On the approach of a funeral, the bell which Merchard
had retained for himself sang out the Gaelic words,
Dhachaidh! dhachaidh! gu do leapa bhuan! Home !
home
!
to thy last resting-place !
The people of Glen Moriston also believe that this bell,
when placed in water, would not sink, but would float on
the surface ; but, for all that, everyone was loth to put it to
this test. It is said, however, that the final disappearance of
the bell may have resulted from someone's having
experimented with it in the River Moriston, though the
belief more prevalent in the Great Glen to this day is that
some stranger to the district stole it.
The Bell of Cumine.
Another bell associated with the Great Glen is the Bell of
Cumine. From 657 until 669 Cumine, who was the seventh
Abbot of lona, presided over that island settlement. He
founded Cill-Chuimein, the site of which is now
incorporated in Fort Augustus. His bell was known as the
Buyen, or Bouach (Am Biiadhach), signifying the
Victorious, the Virtuous, or ' the-full-oi-virtue.'
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