Strange Pages from Family Papers | Page 3

gained the authority of Heaven, for both the Earl and his
brother Sir Richard, were defeated at the battle of Edgcot, were both
taken prisoners and put to death.
Sir Walter Scott has made a similar legend the subject of one of his
ballads in the "Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border," entitled "The Curse
of Moy," a tale founded on an ancient Highland tradition that originated
in a feud between the clans of Chattan and Grant. The Castle of Moy,
the early residence of Mackintosh, the chief of the clan Chattan, is
situated among the mountains of Inverness-shire, and stands on the
edge of a small gloomy lake called Loch Moy, in which is still shown a
rocky island as the spot where the dungeon stood in which prisoners
were confined by the former chiefs of Moy. On a certain evening, in the
annals of Moy, the scene is represented as having been one of extreme
merriment, for
In childbed lay the lady fair,
But now is come the appointed hour.

And vassals shout, "An heir, an heir!"
It is no ordinary occasion, for a wretched curse has long hung over the
Castle of Moy, but at last the spell seems broken, and, as the
well-spiced bowl goes round, shout after shout echoes and re-echoes
through the castle, "An heir, an heir!" Many a year had passed without
the prospect of such an event, and it had looked as if the ill-omened
words uttered in the past were to be realised. It was no wonder then that

"in the gloomy towers of Moy" there were feasting and revelry, for a
child is born who is to perpetuate the clan which hitherto had seemed
threatened with extinction. But, even on this festive night when every
heart is tuned for song and mirth, there suddenly appears a mysterious
figure, a pale and shivering form, by "age and frenzy haggard made,"
who defiantly exclaims "'Tis vain! 'Tis vain!"
At once all eyes are turned on this strange form, as she, in mocking
gesture, casts a look of withering scorn on the scene around her, and
startles the jovial vassals with the reproachful words "No heir! No
heir!" The laughter is hushed, the pipes no longer sound, for the witch
with uplifted hand beckons that she had a message to tell--a message
from Death--she might truly say, "What means these bowls of
wine--these festive songs?"
For the blast of Death is on the heath,
And the grave yawns wide for
the child of Moy.
She then recounts the tale of treachery and cruelty committed by a chief
of the House of Moy in the days of old, for which "his name shall
perish for ever off the earth--a son may be born--but that son shall
verily die." The witch brings tears into many an eye as she tells how
this curse was uttered by one Margaret, a prominent figure in this sad
feud, for it was when deceived in the most base manner, and when
betrayed by a man who had violated his promise he had solemnly
pledged, that she is moved to pronounce the fatal words of doom:
She pray'd that childless and forlorn,
The chief of Moy might pine
away,
That the sleepless night, and the careful morn
Might wither
his limbs in slow decay.
But never the son of a chief of Moy
Might live to protect his father's
age,
Or close in peace his dying eye,
Or gather his gloomy heritage.
Such was the "Curse of Moy," uttered, it must be remembered, too, by
a fair young girl, against the Chief of Moy for a blood-thirsty
crime--the act of a traitor--in that, not content with slaying her father,

and murdering her lover, he satiates his brutal passion by letting her
eyes rest on their corpses.
"And here," they said, "is thy father dead,
And thy lover's corpse is
cold at his side."
Her tale ended, the witch departs, but now ceased the revels of the
shuddering clan, for "despair had seized on every breast," and "in every
vein chill terror ran." On the morrow, all is changed, no joyous sounds
are heard, but silence reigns supreme--the silence of death. The curse
has triumphed, the last hope of the house of Moy is gone, and--
Scarce shone the morn on the mountain's head
When the lady wept
o'er her dying boy.
But tyranny, or oppression, has always been supposed to bring its own
punishment, as in the case of Barcroft Hall, Lancashire, where the
"Idiot's Curse" is commonly said to have caused the downfall of the
family. The tradition current in the neighbourhood states that one of the
heirs to Barcroft was of weak intellect, and that he was fastened by a
younger brother with a chain in one of the cellars, and there in a most
cruel manner gradually starved to death. It