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The Scotish Gaël
by James Logan
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Excerpt:
Before manners have been changed by civilization, or mankind has emerged from a state of nature, the savage beings subsist on the coarse and undressed articles of food which they may be able to procure. The roots of the field, and the produce of the forest trees, supply a ready, though precarious, means of sustenance, and, consistent with the plan hitherto pursued, it will be inquired how far the ancient Celts depended on the wild productions of nature, or had supplied themselves with vegetables and fruit, improved by horticultural industry.
The Germans, according to Tacitus and Appian, lived chiefly on raw herbs and wild fruit, and some of the Britons* also, were accustomed to satisfy the cravings of hunger with the same unsavoury aliment; but this must have been in cases of necessity, and among the most barbarous of the tribes, for they certainly had, in general, ample supplies of other food. It is, besides, found that nations will continue the use of the hard fare which satisfied their fathers, when it is in their power to procure better provisions, as the Arca"Marcellinus. b Pliny.
dians, who continued to eat acorns to the time that the Lacedemonians warred with them ;c and the Celtiberi, who used, throughout all the country, to serve up roasted mast as a second course/ notwithstanding they had all sorts of flesh in plenty, and were not obliged to use this plain diet.' The Celts, although, as shall be shewn, they by no means disregarded good living, seem to have considered temperance a virtue, being moderate, as Diodorus and Tacitus express themselves, in eating, banishing hunger by plain fare without curious dressing. This race have ever been noted for their contempt of delicacies, or aversion to epicurianism, and their ability to bear the privations of hunger and fatigue. It has been found that the Highlanders are, when surrounded with plenty, more sparing in their diet than others; and it is a fact, that they will continue a whole day at laborious field work, contenting themselves with only two meals of water brose, or a simple mixture of oatmeal and water. They will eat, says Mrs. Grant, with a keen appetite and sufficient discrimination; but were they to stop in any pursuit because it was meal time, growl over a bad dinner, or exult over a good one, the manly dignity of their character would be considered as fallen for ever. I have seen a piper from " the head of the Highlands," at a sumptuous dinner on St. Andrew's day, select, from the various choice dishes around him, plain boiled sheep's trotters in preference to any thing else!
The ancient Celts held corpulence in so much abhorrence, that the young men had a girdle to determine their size, and if they were found to exceed its dimensions, they were subjected to a fine. A fat paunch has always been reckoned a great misfortune in the Highlands.
Health may be preserved with a much less quantity of food than is generally supposed; for repletion is more
c Pausanias, vii. i. d Pliny, xvi. 'Diodorus.
inimical to the system than a scanty meal. Martin justly observed, that if among the Highlanders there were no corpulent persons, none bore the appearance of starvation. The remark is still applicable; and although, from their hard living and frequent exposure to the severity of the weather, the appearance of old age is seen at a more early period of life than is the case with labourers in more favoured climes, yet they live equally long, if not longer, enjoy as good health, and perform as much work, and often of a great deal harder nature/
The Caledonians, we learn from Dio, were obliged, when in the woods, to live on the fruits of the trees, and even on the leaves and roots of wild herbs; but game, the chief subsistence of an uncivilized people, formed their principal food, to which the vegetable kingdom afforded an estimable accession. In the woods and valleys were found the natural productions, which diversified the simple meals of the Celtic nations, and the herbs and esculents which nature had spread before them, they were long satisfied to gather from the open fields, before they thought of cultivating them around their dwellings. The Britons, in distant ages, paid some attention to this useful pursuit, yet many, in Strabo's time,' were totally ignorant of horticulture. The vegetable garden of the ancient Celt, we may believe, was but scantily stored; the natural meadows in the vicinity of his humble dwelling, and the mountain wilds, afforded him a sufficient and not uninviting supply. In summer, the Gael could vary his repasts by many sweet and wholesome productions of his native land; he could gather subhans" in the glen and avrons1 on the height; in the woods he could find various fruits and nutricious herbs —on the muirs he could pick the delicious blackberry, the aromatic aitnach, the luscious blaeberry, and many others.
