THE CSTLE OF I
A Bonnie Lassie Recalls
Her Summer in Scotland
And Old Family Legends
FHE MACNEIL CLAN
A
Year of Study in
France
By MARTHA MacNEAL
LEGEND has it that in the good old
days of the Middle Ages, when the
chief of the Scottish clan MacNeil sat
down to his evening meal, a trumpet
sounded from the ramparts of the castle
to announce to the rest of the kings of
the earth that MacNeil had been seated
and now they, too, could dine. That,
however, was a long time ago.
Today, the chief of the clan, Robert
Lister MacNeil, also of Brattleboro, Ver-
mont, is slowly and painfully reconstruct-
ing the same aged castle, stone by stone
and penny by penny as funds are wrested
from the British government and from
the purses of MacNeils, MacNeals, Mac-
Neills and McNeils all over the world.
Spelling saves no one whose heart recalls
his vague Highland ancestry. And a
stirred heartstring usually results in a
loosened pursestring.
Kisimul castle rises out of the sea on
a tiny rocky excrescence in a bay just
off the Isle of Barra in the outer Hebrides
of Scotland. Out of pure sentiment (a
rare thing, which must be jealously
guarded these days) I visited the Isle of
Barra for a month, staying in a rooming
house overlooking the castle in the bay.
On the day of my arrival, I asked another
of the roomers, an elderly, professorial
Briton with a twinkle of humor in his
eye, what the castle was like inside. He
adopted a diplomatic expression and said
gently, "Well, I guest that sort o' depends
on who's doing the looking." He was right.
Objectively, Kisimul castle has little to
recommend it. It is small, simple, and
remarkably unspectacular in both appear-
ance and history, relative to all the other,
more famous castles throughout Scotland.
Subjectively, if you happen to care par-
ticularly about MacNeils, it breathes
ghosts from its lichenous walls.
Whenever a MacNeil, however remote
his descent, arrives on Barra and tele-
phones the castle, the Chief duly dis-
patches John the boatman, who comes
rowing across, low in the water, to the
dock, and ferries the clansman "home."
The MacNeil meets him at the entrance,
takes him on a tour, tells him all the his-
tory, and invites him in for 4:30 p.m. tea
with Mrs. MacNeil. She is likely to serve
tiny strips of buttered toast with heather
honey - a rare, thick, cloudy honey made
only from heather. Another time, after
lunch or dinner, the Chief serves Athel-
brose, his own special liquor, made by
the mix-and-taste method from unspeci-
fied amounts of Scotch whiskey and
heather honey. The general public, un-
fortunately, gets no such welcome; there
are public tours conducted by a hireling
every Saturday at 3:30 p.m.
TWO HUNDRED years before Christ
the Roman invasions on the European
continent drove several barbarian tribes
to the British Isles, and these tribes in
turn drove the Celtic tribes-to the He-
brides. Among these tribes the Clan Mac-
Neil either existed or developed. At the
time of the Norman invasions, one of the
Norse royal family married a MacNeil and
the Norse king gave Barra and some of
the neighboring islands to the clan as
a dowry. Construction of the castle proper
was begun in 1030, but the tiny rocky islet
where it is located had been named "Kisi-
mul" by the Normans some time before.
However, since "Kisimul" in the old Norse
tongue means "castle island," some sort of
structure must have existed there prior
to that date, according to The MacNeil's
research.
The islands had been converted to Ca-
tholicism, and so a tiny chapel was built
even before the walls and battlements.
The "great hall" - not really very great,
perhaps 100 by 50 feet-housed the sol-
diers, crowded about sleeping on the
earthen floor, with a single peat fire burn-
ing in the center. Thanks to' some sort
of geologic fault, although Kisimul castle
is situated in the middle of a salt-water
bay, it has a natural fresh-water well-a
decisive factor in sustaining siege.
Most of the MacNeils were simply a
motley crew of various pirates, raiders,
and warriors, but the history sports one
truly colorful character, Marion - fondly
known as "Marion of the Heads." Marion
was originally a MacLean who lived on
one of the neighboring islands, Coll.
Sometime in the 14th Century, the wife
of the reigning MacNeil died, leaving the
Chief with two sons. He imported Marion
from Coll, married her, and they had a
son, Rory. Later the MacNeil also died.
By the clan rules of succession, the eld-
est of MacNeil's sons by his first marriage
was in line for the chiefship, and then
the younger. But Marion wanted Rory to
rule.
SO, ONE DAY when the two older boys
went off to nearby Vatersay to hunt,
Marion dispatched one of her underlings
to follow them. He waited until they fell
asleep on the beach and murdered them,
casting their bodies into the sea and car-
rying their heads triumphantly home to
Marion. Because Marion was deeply re-
ligious ,in the somewhat schizophrenic
Medieval sense, she had the heads buried
with elegant ceremony befitting their roy-
alty, and Rory ascended to the throne.
Marion, of course, ruled Rory. Unfortun-
ately for moralists, Rory and Marion were
excellent rulers, and the clan prospered
under them.
Marion, however, never forgot her na-
tive island, Coll. She loved it and longed
for it, but a nagging fear of insurrection
in the ranks kept her from daring to leave
the castle to visit her home. She left a
message in her will, asking that she be
buried standing up in her coffin, facing
Coll, so that when the day of judgment
came, she could walk forth to greet her
Maker and the Isle of Coll at the same
time. It was so done.
Though clan wars were plentiful and
fierce (rocks, fire, boiling oil) the castle
was never taken by an' enemy in 900
years. It was finally lost, not to the clank-
ing swords of human foes, but to the most
terrible enemy of all to the Scottish soul
-bankruptcy. Sometime in the 19th Cen-
tury the British government took over
everything, and the castle wasted away
until Robert Lister MacNeil, the present
Chief, was able to scrape together enough
funds to buy it back and start the re-
construction in 1936. The castle had fall-
en into disrepair .not because of the rav-
ages of time (in those days, things were
built to last) but because of vandalism.
The fishing industry is gone from Barra
now, but when it was in its heyday with-
in the last century, salt boats from Oban
on the mainland came to Barra to supply
salt for packing herring. On the way back,
the empty boats needed ballast, and the
crews tore down parts of the old castle
walls to use the rocks. Sic transit gloria.
Now, when you prowl through the
castle, you can ask the reticent native
workmen where they learned how to re-
construct a castle, but they will only
reply in a vague, instinctive reference to
centuries past, "It's just local knowledge,
I guess." Then, they go on their myster-
ious way, carpenters rulers in their back
pockets, and you are left to stand alone
In the great hall and try to imagine the
soldiers who once thronged there.
THE TRAVELLER to Barra can take
the ferry from Oban, but if he is more
adventurous he will choose the plane from
Renfrew airport outside of Glasgow. The
airplane is tiny and takes off with many
shudders and gasps and false starts. But
it gets there. The adventure comes when
it lands, because Barra has no airport.
Demonstrators Protest Algerian Policy
ing, "OAS Assassin, OAS Assassin." But
another of my French friends applauded
every violent act of the OAS, and, upon
seeing photographs of an explosion, said,
"Tres bien fiat," "Very well done."
Are French students more .politically
active and interested than Americans?
The answer is a qualified yes. The tur-
moil of events in France has encouraged
many groups, otherwise apathetic, to en-
gage in political activity and French
students, especially the Catholic Youth
Organization, are more powerful than
most American student groups and in a
position to yield more influence.
AMERICAN periodicals and newspapers,
which I read before mydeparture, had
sung the praises of de Gaulle and marv-
eled at his popularity. I met few Parisians
who were in sympathy with the Algerian
policies of "Le Grand Charles."
It is ironic that de Gaulle, a conserva-
tive, should have been the man to con-
struct liberal policies which led to Alger-
ian independence. He came to power in a
general's rightist revolt in 1958, and then
proceeded to disavow those who supported
him.
It was this "sellout," as the Parisians
called it, which angered them. I was at
Orly Airport with one friend, an archi-
tect and graduate of Ecole des Beaux
Arts, when we saw a group of Algerian
refugees, waiting wearily outside a new
office'set up to help them find housing
and work in Paris. In Marseilles the lines
are longer and the city faced with over-
whelming problems of welfare with the
constant flow of French from this strife-
ridden land.
My friend colored and grew angry, as
the French always do when they talk
about Algeria. He muttered a few words,
most of them in obscenities, about the
fool of a man who was responsible for
the tragic plight of these fleeing French-
men.
My hostess at the Paris apartment was
of very good family and proud of its long
history of distinguished military service.
One of her sons was in Algeria and the
other at the naval academy at Brest. She
was one of the few French to vote against
the referendum which provided Algerian
independence in cooperation with France.
For her, it was a question of the honor of
the military coupled with a fear of a
Communist takeover.
My liberal political professor laughed at
the King, as he called de Gaulle. Other
liberals were appalled by press censorship
-Time magazine was seized, for example,
when they ran a cover of Salan-but at
the same time, I have never seen political
satire as biting and cruel as in "Le Canard
Enchaine."
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"In my heart I behold the Hebrides."
Consequently, the plane comes in among
the cockle shells on a wide strip of flat
sandy beach, if the weather is good and
if the tide is out.
The old way of life goes on on Barra.
Most of the inhabitants speak the ancient
Gaelic as well as modern English, and
Gaelic as well as English church services
are held every Sunday. There are still
several of the old low stone cottages with
thatched roofs. The thatch is covered
with a netting of rope weighted down by
stones, presumably to secure it against
the wind. If you stop on the road to look
at one of them, the old woman who lives
there will come outside and greet you and
perhaps walk a little way with you. There
is no electricity on the island, except in
the school, which has its own generator.
The sheep and cattle fences are very
inefficient, so that these animals roam
about freely everywhere, in the roads and
on the beaches. The sheep are dyed with
a brilliant splotch of red or blue for iden-
tification. The cattle are often stabled in
those thatched cottages which have been
abandoned by humans; they are incred-
ibly tiny, completely dark, and usually a
good four inches deep in mud. Sheepdogs
abound. They all look alike and are un-
doubtedly of the same family. When off-
duty, they run about freely, and should
you be so patient or so lucky as to be-
friend them, they will play with you in
rough-and-tumble madness for hours.
Tiny puppies come tearing out into the
roads, wagging all over.
FOR THE lover of solitary wandering
in barren wilderness, the hills and rock
and beaches of Barra are ideal. Nobody-
cares if you climb through the sheep
fences, so long as you do not break them,
and once you are in the hills, you will
find no other living creatures except the
half-wild sheep and perhaps a sea-bird.
You cross a field choked with brilliant
yellow buttercups, and a tiny stream
where you can drink if you are thirsty,
and then begin the long climb through
the thick, twisted purple heather. There
are sheep grazing there among the rocks,
who raise their heads as you approach
and then trot softly away. From the top
of the hill you can see a small corner of
blue ocean far below, and there is noth-
ing, nothing in all the world except those
hills, and the heather, and one sheep
studying you warily, and a single bird
circling and crying. The clouds straggle
heavily over the higher peaks in the dis-
tance, and the wind sobs deeply some-
where.
Much later, should you want the com-
panionship of a wandering creature like
yourself, it takes about thirty patient
minutes to tame a sheep enough so that
it will allow you to touch it. You must
find one by itself, and very slowly move
close to it, and then stay perfectly still
and tall to it softly, and hold out your
hand. If it comes at all, it will circle you
and then come nearer and nearer, watch-
ing you carefully out of huge, brown dull
eyes, and then at last it will let you
stroke its wool and feel the warm sticki-
ness of lanolin, and touch its horns, and
scratch its rough, black face. (But you
are essentially a stranger, and it can only
happen if you and the sheep share some-
thing of the same nature.)
THE BEACHES on Barra are brilliantly
white, with grass-topped dunes, some
as high as 100 feet. Here the ocean comes
in over the flat sand, exactly that deep,
glowing turquoise color of the waters of
the south seas. At North Beach, across
the road from the beach where the air-
plane lands, the stretch of sand is a good
two miles long, with the great dunes ris-
ing in wind-ripples to the sky. The whole
beach is utterly deserted except for a
few cows. If you are a lover of boundless,
exultant freedom, you can climb the
dunes and then-leap down them, running
faster than you have ever run before,
shouting aloud. No one else has ever
known this place.
I remember the night I left. Since I
had come by plane, I decided to take the
Oban ferryboat on my way home. It was
1:00 a.m. and utterly dark except for the
brilliant clarity of more stars thap I had
ever seen or imagined. It was cold and
windy as I stood by the deckrail, watch-
ing. We slipped away soundlessly, and the
castle was only a dark shadow and then
gone, but the mountains remained, black
and stark, receding imperceptibly. Every
now and then a shooting star made a
quick, fiery arc and was extinguished.
In my bags I had dozens of tiny,
strange sea shells, yellow and purple and
pink; two perfect white sheep's skulls
and the bleached skull of a.rabbit, and
pressed heather and bracken from the
hills.
ropean standards, is too loud, enthusiast-
ic and friendly. Americans primarily need
to try to understand European culture
and adjust themselves to the ways of the
land they are visiting. In this case, "When
in Rome, do as the Romans do," is a
good by-word. To paraphrase another,
"Americans should not be seen, and barely
heard ... but absorbed." A few quiet, re-
served, well-mannered ones restored by
faith in my country.
PARISIANS take their city for granted
and these reserved, thoughtful Amer-
icans and other foreign tourists like them
probably know Paris, and its monuments,
parks and art museums better than the
residents.
I took Catherine, the talented and
bright older sister of my French family,
to Comedie Francaise. It was her first
time, and she has lived all her life in
Paris.
We saw "be Cid": It was a good begin-
ning. I had read the play before the per-
formance-we were studying Corneille in
17th century literature at the Sorbonne--
and this was a habit I continued. By sec-
ond semester, I was buying student tickets
for a dollar at least once or twice a week.
The national theatres-Comedie Fran-
caise, Theatre de l'Odeon and the Theatre
national populaire at the Palais de Chail-
lot always had good productions. The
smaller, out of the way theatres were
numerous and many of the plays excel-
lent.
There were the Opera and Opera Comi-
que, and equally satisfying opportunities
for concerts and for art investigation. I
spent many afternoons at Jeu de Paume,
the Impressionist Gallery, and the Louvre,
at the Museum of Modern Art, and at the
expositions of private galleries, seeing the
very paintings I was studying!
But most of my time was spent in the
Latin Quarter, in cafes with friends and
at school. All the student agencies which
help with housing and provide cards for
the mediocre student restaurants, are lo-
cated there. As a sophomore abroad-this
proved to be a disadvantage as the French
baccalaureate is equivalent to two years
of American university-I was often re-
fused housing information and unequiv-
ocally refused a student restaurant card.
I also was barred from schools like Science
Politique and Ecole de Louvre, which I
wanted to see very much.
Participation in a Junior Year Abroad
program might have provided the possi-
bility for study in these institutions. How-
ever, these observations should be con-
sidered. The difficulties and trials were
part of the total experience; program stu-
dents have "everything done for them"
and are coddled more than an independ-
ent student. They often. attend classes
with fellow Americans, stay with these
cliques, use an American grading sys-
tem, are watched over by an American
faculty, and are subject to the rules and
regulations of an American university
(housing and hours) thus detracting from
the idea of a European experience.
Programs are considerably more expen-
sive. Independently one need spend no
more for a year in Paris than for a year
in Ann Arbor, including a two way boat
fare, board and room, tuition and books
and incidentals.
I MOVED from the wealthiest district of
Paris, the sixteenth arrondissement to
one of the poorest, the student quarter of
W fifth and the sixth, near the end of
r stay. I wanted a change of scene. The
student quarter was exciting, for reasons
that were uniquely Parisian: the year was
one of political turmoil in France, and
much activity was centered here.
In May, after a long day of study in
my room at Saint Germain de Pres, I went
out for a late-evening rendezvous. My
friend and I planned to take in some jazz.
The crowds on Boulevard Saint Michel, in
the heart of the Latin Quarter, seemed a
little louder, and larger than usual: stu-
dents mingled on the sidewalks in little
groups, or walked lazily up and down the
street, as though awaiting something.
We approached the Seine and Notre
Dame and neared the Palace of Justice,
where the crowds were even larger and
noisier, and in a sudden wave of con-
sciousness I remembered that this was
Raoul Salan's judgment day.
The notorious leader of the OAS had
been captured and was being tried for
treason. The news of his acquittal, which
would obviously be a great blow to the
prestige of the de Gaulle Government,
was a surprise. But the crowd seemed
pleased with the verdict.
My friend and I gave up all ideas of a
night of jazz and with hundreds of other
students, men and kicking and screaming
women, we were shoved along Boul Mich
by the gendarmes and told to-move on
as we tried to approach the palace where
Salan was being held. The crowd tried to
provoke incidents, but a large number
were arrested and hustled into police
caravans. According to newspaper reports,
a few were injured.
Even in the relatively quiet neighbor-
hood irn which I first lived there was ex-
citement. I was awakened one Saturday
morning by a large explosion and later
.read that an OAS bomb had killed or in-
jured several young girls at a nearby
schoolhouse.
Parisian reaction to OAS violence was
varied. In the courtyard of the Sorbonne
after class every day, Communist, social-
ist, moderate and rightist students lined
the exits to distribute notices of meetings
and demonstrations.
Frequently large groups of boys march-
ed down the middle of Saint Michel shout-
I
Martha MacNeal, a member of
The Daily- staff, is a sophomore
majoring in English.g
Aftermath of OSA Violer
THE MICHIGAN DAILY MAGAZINE SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 1962