DASG Blog

A’ Chàisg

As it's Easter Week I thought it would be worthwhile to reflect on the place of Easter or a' Chàisg  in Gaelic culture.
 
Among the collections of DASG and other organisations like the Carmichael Watson Project we can find various items which provide an insight into the way that a' Chàisg has shaped the worldview of Gaelic communities. In common with other cultures, a' Chàisg corresponds to the start of spring and therefore yearly renewal and the beginning of new life. In Christian culture these precepts are then entwined with Christian mores, specifically the death and resurrection of Christ. This is seen in the etymology of the Gaelic words for Easter. A' Chàisg is connected to the Latin pascha which in turn comes from the Hebrew Pesah or Passover. Another Gaelic name for Easter is Seachdainn na Ceusda or the Week of the Crucifixion.
 
This religious foundation is evident from an entry in the second volume of Carmina Gadelica, a passage which describes the belief which was held that the sun would dance on Easter Sunday in celebration of the Resurrection:
 
The people say that the sun dances on this day in joy for a risen Saviour. Old Barbara Macphie at Dreimsdale saw this once, but only once, during her long life. And the good woman, of high natural intelligence, described in poetic language and with religious fervour what she saw or believed she saw from the summit of Benmore:- The glorious gold-bright sun was after rising on the crests of the great hills, and it was changing colour - green, purple, red, blood-red, white, intense-white, and gold-white, like the glory of the God of the elements to the children of men. It was dancing up and down in exultation at the joyous resurrection of the beloved Saviour of Victory.
 
A' Chàisg and the beliefs with which it was associated also had a secular appeal and poets often applied the precepts and imagery of the season within their work. An example of this comes from the song 'Wednesday's Bereavement' by Roderick Morison, The Blind Harper. This text is an elegy for John 'Breac' MacLeod, the chief of the MacLeods of Dunvegan. He was Morison's patron and he died, as the bard tells us, "at the end of Lent...in Easter week". Morison draws upon the traditional imagery of a' Chàisg - the yearly renewal mentioned above - and subverts it to depict the loss which he and the rest of MacLeod's territory have suffered.
 
Rather than being revived by the season Morison says "I got a dinner on Easter day, and my humour was not the better of it" and "this spring has struck me with a shoe". His dejection climaxes in the verse where he states that "My joyous days are gone since you departed from Skye: my support is in Harris, hidden (in the grave) all alone."
 
Roderick Morison feels as though he has lost a parent and conveys this through the Christian image of the lamb: "To-day I may well say that I am a motherless lamb in the flock. To be sad is my lot, without means of relief in your absence".
 
But, by the end of the elegy, Morison comes full cycle when describing Roderick MacLeod, heir to John. The bard's thoughts now return to life and the next generation's growth and assumption of the space left by those who went before them. In the final verse he uses the image of a tree to elucidate the expectations which Roderick MacLeod will have to meet if he is to replicate his father and the beneficial impact he had on his people, with trees being common to both the popular stock imagery of Easter and springtime as well as the panegyric code of Gaelic poets:
 
A shoot that grew to be a fruitful branch, decked with foliage both honourable and beautiful, in the garden where were the trees that won renown - the admiration of hundreds everywhere was bestowed on him: follow the tradition that was a birthright, son of the father who left me grief-stricken. Do not be a withered stock without foliage in the place where you have gone to dwell.
 
Therefore, where Roderick Morison started by subverting the imagery of Easter or a' Chàisg to express his dismay at his patron's death, he then concludes by returning to the traditional motifs of the season in order to communicate to John MacLeod's son - the new life that has emerged in the region - what hopes are held of him. (These are hopes which another of Roderick Morison's songs, 'A Song to MacLeod of Dunvegan', reveal that the younger MacLeod did not meet.)
 
As these examples demonstrate, the wider changes which occurred at a' Chàisg provoked Gaelic communities to more general contemplations of life and death, both religious and secular. The imagery which stemmed from this was applied to local political questions just as much as it was to the tale of the Resurrection.

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