The Brahan Seer - Scotland's Nostradamus
In September 2013 we went on holiday to the Old Fisherman's Cottage in Avoch on the Black Isle. We returned there again on 20 August 2016 .
The cottage is one mile away from Chanonry Point where the Seer was burned to death for witchcraft in the 17th Century. The Brahan Seer also called Coinneach Odhar or Kenneth Mackenzie, worked as a labourer at Brahan Castle and was able to see into the future by using an Adder Stone which was a stone with a hole in the middle.
A prediction he made was to led to his downfall – that the absent Earl of Seaforth was having sexual adventures with one or more women in Paris – seems likely, but of course was highly outrageous to Lady Seaforth, as it cast her husband in a scandalous light and heaped embarrassment on her. This led to an unfortunately unforeseen sequence of events on the Seer's part, leading to his barbaric murder at Chanonry Point, when he was allegedly burnt in a spiked tar barrel, on the command of the Earl's wife, Lady Seaforth.
The photograph below shows The monument to the Brahan Seer which was erected at the place where he died.
(Updated, as it appears now in August 2016).
Also often visible at Chanonry Point are Dolphins at play.
The Prophesies
The Seer was at one time in the Culloden district on some important business. While passing over what is now so well known as the Battlefield of Culloden, he exclaimed, "Oh! Drummossie, thy bleak moor shall, ere many generations have passed away, be stained with the best blood of the Highlands. Glad am I that I will not see that day, for it will be a fearful period; heads will be lopped off by the score, and no mercy will be shown or quarter given on either side." It is perhaps unnecessary to point out how literally this prophecy has been fulfilled on the occasion of the last battle fought on British soil. There are several other versions of it from different parts of the country, almost all in identical terms.
When it becomes possible to cross the River Ness dry-shod in five places, a frightful disaster will strike the world.’ (Fulfilled. A fifth bridge was built in the last few days of August,1939. Hitler invaded Poland on September 1st.)
The day will come when long strings of carriages without horses shall run between Dingwall and Inverness, and more wonderful still, between Dingwall and the Isle of Skye.’ (Fulfilled by the coming of the railway 1860-1897.)
The day will come when the Mackenzies of Fairburn shall lose their entire possessions, and that branch of the clan shall disappear almost to a man from the face of the earth. Their castle shall become uninhabited, desolate and forsaken, and a cow shall give birth to a calf in the uppermost chamber in Fairburn Tower.’ (The last of the Mackenzie line died unmarried in 1850. The castle fell into ruin, and a cow calved in the tower, 1851.)
He also foresaw another disaster for the native Scots when he said that sheep shall supplant men and Scotsmen would "head south" and emigrate to all corners of the world and leave their home behind. In the 18th century, the Highlands were drastically depopulated when the British ordered that giant sheep farms be established, ending the small "crofts" that had been the standard of rural Scotland for centuries. The "clearances" led to many Scotsmen emigrating to America, Canada and Australia.
He also foresaw days when "horrible black rain" would fall from the sky. This may refer to radioactive fallout of some kind or perhaps a disaster in the North Sea oil fields near Scotland.
