"Mo rùn geal òg" (My fair young love), alternately known as "Cumha do dh'Uilleam Siseal" (Lament for William Chisholm) is a Scottish Gaelic lament written by Christina Fergusson for her husband, William Chisholm of Strathglass, who was killed at the Battle of Culloden in 1746.
Fergusson was possibly born in Contin, Ross-shire,[1] [2] where her father is said, according to Ronald Black, to have been, "a blacksmith - chiefly employed in making dirks and other implements of war."[3] She was married to William Chisholm, who was the Tacksman of Inis nan Ceann in Strathglass. Chisholm was also a smith, armourer, and standard bearer for the Chief of Clan Chisholm, to whom he was a very near male relative.[4]
Beginning on 27 May 1700, underground Catholic Bishop Thomas Nicolson had visited Strathglass. In his later Report, the Bishop had described the region, unlike the Hebrides, as so abundant with trees that the local population lived in wattle and daub houses instead of dry stone and thatch crofts. The Bishop explained, "They are called Criel Houses, because the larger timbers are interlaced with wickerwork in the same way baskets are made. They are covered outside with sods, or divots. All of the houses on the mainland, wherever we went, are built in this fashion, except those of the lairds and principal gentry. Strathglass is partly inhabited by Frasers, whose chief is Lord Lovat, and partly by Chisholms under the Laird of Strathglass. These latter are all Catholics."[5]
According to Odo Blundell, "When writing of Strathglass on a previous occasion, I mentioned that, 'from the Reformation to the beginning of the [19th-]century, the Catholics in the Aird and in Strathglass received no more support from the two chief families of the neighbourhood, namely, the Frasers and the Chisholms, than was to be expected from the heads of clans who looked upon all their clansmen, whatever might be their religion, as members of their own family."[6]
Between 1735 and 1746, the Catholics of Strathglass were looked after by three outlawed Roman Catholic priests of the Society of Jesus; Frs. Charles (Gaelic; Scottish Gaelic: Maighstir Teàrlach, an t-Athair Teàrlach Mac Fhearchair) and John Farquharson (Gaelic; Scottish Gaelic: Maighstir Iain,<ref name=SMB>[https://stmarysbeauly.org/cannich/christianity-in-strathglass/ Christianity in Strathglass], From the Website for St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church, [[Beauly]].</ref> an-tAthair Iain Mac Fhearchair) and future Catholic martyr Fr. Alexander Cameron (Gaelic; Scottish Gaelic: Maighstir Sandaidh, an t-Athair Alasdair Camshròn).[7]
When Clan Chisholm rose during the Jacobite rising of 1745, William Chisholm joined the Jacobite Army. A roadside memorial, near Struy in Strathglass, now marks the site of William and Christina Chisholm's cottage and their last farewell.[8] William Chisholm was allegedly killed in action after the Battle of Culloden in 1746, allegedly while fighting at the door of a barn to defend his fellow survivors from the no quarter that would follow capture.[9] Other sources, according to Ronald Black, name Clan Chisholm's standard bearer at Culloden as John MacDonald, alias (Gaelic; Scottish Gaelic: Iain na Brataich'), who survived the Battle and later emigrated to Canada.[10]
One of the 14 Jacobite battle flags taken at Culloden, which were later burnt at the Mercat Cross in Edinburgh, was the white linen banner of Clan Chisholm, which had been borne by either John MacDonald or William Chisholm.[11]
In her husband's memory, a bereft Ferguson wrote Mo Rùn Geal Òg (My Fair Young Love).[12] [13] [14] [15] In the poem, Christina, while insisting that she is still a loyal Jacobite, rebukes Prince Charles Edward Stuart, saying that the loss of her husband in the fight for a second Stuart Restoration has left her desolate. Literary scholar John MacKenzie later wrote that Christina, "devotes to the Prince one solitary expression of sympathetic condolence... and then, with the wings and wail of a mateless dove, flutters over the mangled carcass of her husband, and depicts his matchless person and soul in language that would melt the sternest heart to sympathy."[16]
The song has also been covered and recorded by important traditional singers, including Flora MacNeil, Mary Ann Kennedy, Anne Lorne Gillies,[17] and Julie Fowlis.[18]
. John Mackenzie (1806–1848). Sar-obair nam bard Gaelach : the beauties of Gaelic poetry and lives of the Highland bards. 1909. John Grant. Edinburgh. 373–4.