Lochlainneach

Each Turn of the Wheel

Featured Gaelic and Pronunciations:

- Cladh aig Naomh Mairead (cluhg ayg noohv mah-rehd) - Cemetery of Saint Margaret

- Beannaichte Brìde (bee-yahn-eek-cheh bree-jeh) - Blessed Bride

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Autumn 1747

Castlebay, Isle of Barra, Scotland

After Beitiris's wedding, the birth of my niece and nephew, the departure of the English and the Murrays' return to Lallybroch, things for my family were relatively... calm. Calm and domestic. It seemed almost strange to me that things were so... normal . I hadn't known any sense of normalcy in over a decade, so to suddenly have it thrust upon me was a bit of a shock to me. Cailean, too, felt similarly, but with two newborn bairns, he had a greater distraction from the uneasy feeling we got from the sudden normalcy. I, on the other hand, with a son who was nearly four and a daughter who was nearly one, was having a more difficult time adjusting to it.

The weather began to grow colder on Barra as the summer began to fade into autumn. We had a Mabon feast at the equinox and when Samhain began to roll around, I began lighting candles in the windows. It was surreal for me this time around considering I was living in the same house my family had been murdered in and I felt an even stronger connection to them as Samhain approached. How? I couldn't really say. They wouldn't even be born for another four hundred years, and therefore wouldn't be buried near this property for another four hundred years. That's what my aunt told me - that she had had my family buried in the cemetery that was near this property.

The Cladh aig Naomh Mairead , or St. Margaret's Cemetery, was where all the Lairds of Cìosamul were buried. It wasn't far from my childhood home - the large Celtic cross marking the burial of the First Lady of Cìosamul, Malva Fowlis, was visible from the house itself. She had died in 1466, according to the engraving on the cross, and was buried beside three of her seven children - James, Cateline, and Jan. The Second Laird of Cìosamul, Finley mac Fowlis, had actually been the First's youngest son - his three older sons had all died before their father's death in 1478, leaving Finley as the heir. Eanrig, too, was buried beside his wife, but when she had died, he mourned her deeply and erected the large cross in her honour. There were various other Fowlises buried in that cemetery as well - Aonghais Fowlis himself was buried there, as were his daughter, Iseabail, and his older son, Aonghais, who had died in childhood. His wife, Clara, had died before he had claimed Barra for Clan Fowlis of Barra, likely having been buried somewhere near Aberdeen in the highlands. Finley's wife, Floraidh, too, was buried there along with Finley - they were both interred in a mausoleum instead, at Finley's request. He had died in 1522 and had arranged for his wife, who died in 1533, to be buried in the coffin beside him. The Third Laird, Sheumais, and his wife, Mary, were buried there beside three of their five children, all who had died in childhood. I recall studying the graves of Mary Fowlis, who died in 1537, and the grave of her youngest daughter, also called Mary - she had been born in 1537, indicating the older Mary had died in childbirth. There was also a Cailean Fowlis, born in 1535 and died in 1598, buried there along the wife and children that he had had, and I recalled Calum and Alasdair once mocking our Cailean about being buried there.

The Fourth Laird, also a Sheumais, was buried with his wife, Mairead, who both died in the early seventeenth century, and near them was their son and the Fifth Laird, Calum, interred in the old church. Calum had married a Janet, who was buried in the church beside him, and had had six children, only one of which had died before adulthood (a rather rare occurrence in the seventeenth century). Not all of them were buried in the church along with their parents - the second son, Seàrlas, who had died at sixteen, was, and so was Ewan Fowlis, their third son and a sailor who had died of smallpox, unmarried and with no children. Three of their children - Sorcha, Raoghalt and Calum - were buried in the cemetery, but the Sixth Laird and my great grandsire, Hamish Fowlis, was interred in the church. He had a brilliantly carved marble effigy on the lid of his marble coffin. Having, in this time, only died less than a century before, it was in remarkable condition - in my time, he had lost his nose and his face had weathered. From what I'd heard, his first wife, Oighrig, had once been buried beside him, but upon his remarriage to my great grandmother, Ealasaid, he had had Oighrig moved to her own mausoleum outside of the church to make room for his new wife. Given the size of the church, there was no more room for anyone else, so his children that had died - Calum, Hamish and Laoghaire - were all buried in the cemetery (Sorcha was buried on the Isle of Skye with her family).