The Equinox (Volume I, Number I)

THE EQUINOX prominent place. Not only has a certain mystery been woven into his life, but even in death his carcass has been accredited with various magical properties. The Highland Monthly for November 1892 contained an article dealing with this subject, by Mr. William Mackenzie, Secretary to the Crofters’ Com- mission. That the skin, after being dried, should sometimes have been made into waistcoats, is only natural, but it appears that it was also put to a more esoteric use, for persons suffering from sciatica wore girdles of it, with a view to driving that malady away. The smoker and chewer, Mr. Mackenzie tells us, cut the skin into small squares, and converted them into spleuchain, or tobacco pouches, whilst the husbandman made thongs, which he used for the harness of his primitive plough. Seal oil was also thought to possess medicinal virtues of no mean order, and, until quite recently, a course of oal-roin was a favourite, if not a never-failing, specific for all chest diseases. Furthermore, it is asserted by Martin (circa 1695) that seal liver, pulverised and taken with aqua vita, or red wine, is a good prescription for diarrhcetic disorders. Seal oil was used for lighting purposes in the monasteries, as the skins were for clothing, and from the pages of Adamnan we learn that the monks of Iona, in the time of St. Columba, had their own seal preserve. The animal was also very popular as an article of food. The natives of the Western Islands, says Martin, used to salt the flesh of seals with burnt seaware. This flesh was eaten by the common people in the spring-time “with a pointed long stick instead of a fork, to prevent the strong smell which 344