An e fìor chreutairean a bh’ anns a’ chionaran-crò agus cìrean-cròin? / Are the great Gaelic sea-monsters merely creatures of myth?
Uilebheistean Iongantach a’ Chuain
Tha creutairean car annasach nar dualchas a tha a’ fuireach fon mhuir, leithid mhaighdeannan-mara agus ròin a tha a’ dèanamh cruth-atharrachadh gu bhith nan daoine, ach ’s dòcha nach eil gin dhiubh cho annasach ris a’ chìrean-cròin. Ge bith dè an seòrsa beathaich a bh’ ann – muc-mhara no mòr-ghibearnach no rudeigin gu tur mac-meanmnach – a rèir an rainn seo, bhiodh e gu math acrach aig amannan!
Am mòr-ghibearnach – modail airson a’ chìrean chròin? / The giant squid – a model for the cìrean cròinon. Illustration by N.C.Wyeth.
Seachd sgadain sàth bradain, Seachd bradain sàth ròin,Seachd ròin sàth mial-mhòr-mhara,Seachd mial sàth cìrein-cròin. Tha rann car coltach a-mach air creutair dhen aon seòrsa air an robh an cionaran-crò:Seachd sgadain sàth bradain, Seachd bradain sàth ròin,Seachd ròin sàth muc-mhara bheag,Seachd mucan-mara beaga, sàth muc-mhara mhòr,Seachd mucan-mara mòra, sàth cionarain-crò,Seachd cionarain-crò, sàth mial mhòr a’ chuain.
Chruinnich Alasdair MacIlleMhìcheil (Charmina Gadelica) naidheachd mun chionaran-chrò aig bodach aois 84 bliadhna ann an Nis ann an Leòdhas – Aonghas Gunnach a bh’ air a bhith a’ fuireach roimhe ann an Rònaigh, eilean beag cuantach, tuath air Nis. A rèir Aonghais chòir, bha Naomh Rònan air tighinn a Nis airson na daoine a thoirt gu Crìosd. Ach cha robh gnothaichean a’ dol gu math dha, agus bha na daoine uabhasach fhèin aimhreiteach is buaireanta. Rinn e ùrnaigh airson a bhith air a thoirt air falbh gu àite sìtheil, agus nochd aingeal sa bhad. Chaidh innse do Rònan gun robh cionaran-crò a’ feitheamh ris shìos aig laimrig.
Muc-mhara spùtach agus a h-isean – biadh airson cionaran-crò? / A sperm whale and calf – prey for a cionaran-crò? (C)Gabriel Barathieu
Chaidh an naomh air muin a’ chionarain-chrò a thug e, os cionn na mara, gu ruige eilean beag (air a bheil Rònaigh a-nise), anns an robh creutairean annasach beò – nathraichean nimhe, grìbheanan ìneach agus leòmhannan beucach. Theich na creutairean seo an comhair an cùil ron fhear naomh. Thairis air na creagan don mhuir a chaidh iad (a’ fàgail nach fhaighear leòmhann ann an Rònaigh an-diugh!) agus ’s e sin as coireach gu bheil comharran de sgrìobadh air creagan an eilein. Fhuair Rònan sìth bho mhuinntir Nis, ach chan eil fios dè thachair don chionaran-chrò. Saoil a bheil e a-muigh an sin fhathast ann an dubh-aigeann a’ chuain?!
Eilean Rònaigh – dachaigh do chreutairean neònach, a rèir Aonghais Ghunnaich / The island of Rona – home to strange animals, according to Angus Gunn. (C)Roddy MacDonald
Sea Monsters of Gaelic Myth
Gaelic tradition has stories of mermaids and seals that take on human form, and even of people that live beneath the sea, but perhaps the strangest are the sea-monsters which operate at the top end of the food chain, although their taxonomic affiliation remains unclear. Are they perhaps giant cephalopods? Or massive cetaceans? Or simply creatures of the imagination? Whatever the truth might be, the following traditional rhyming verse gives us a glimpse of their appetites.
Seachd sgadain sàth bradain,
Seachd bradain sàth ròin,
Seachd ròin sàth mial-mhòr-mhara,
Seachd mial sàth cìrein-cròin.
Seven herrings a salmon’s fill, Seven salmon a seal’s fill, Seven seals a great whale’s fill, Seven whales the fill of a cìrean cròin.
That makes the cìrean-cròin one mighty animal, if one presumes that the predatory whale in question can eat seven seals at a sitting! Another similar verse calls the unidentified animal a cionaran-crò, but has an extra line in which seven of them make a meal for an even greater whale (mial mhòr a’ chuain). Both cìrean-cròin and cionaran-crò defy interpretation, and it is presumed that mial refers to a whale (as it does in Irish Gaelic), although the modern Scottish term is muc-mhara, literally ‘sea-pig’. The word mial is archaic in Scottish Gaelic and originally stood for ‘animal’ (marine or terrestrial), so perhaps it is not here a whale, but another great unidentified denizen of the deep.
Muc-mhara mhioncaidh a’ briseadh na fairge. Bhiodh an cìrean cròin mòran na bu mhotha / A minke whale breaching. The cìrean cròin would dwarf it in size. ©Laurie Campbell/SNH
Alexander Carmichael (of Carmina Gadelica fame) collected a story of the cionaran-crò – and other mythical, but terrestrial, creatures – from 84 year-old Angus Gunn in Ness on the Isle of Lewis. Gunn had previously lived on the remote oceanic island of (North) Rona, north of Ness. He told Carmichael that Saint Ronan came to Lewis to convert the people to Christianity, and built himself a prayer-house in Ness. But he was unhappy at the quarrelsome nature of the people, and prayed to be removed. An angel told him to go down to a laimrig, a natural landing-rock, where the cionaran-crò awaited him.
Ronan sat on the back of the great beast which ‘flew over the sea’ to reach the island which, at that time, was full of ‘biting adders, taloned griffins, poisonous snakes, and roaring lions’! Then, ‘all the beasts of the island fled before the holy Ronan and rushed backwards over the rocks into the sea’, leaving the rocks grooved and scratched ‘with the claws and the nails of the unholy creatures’. And that, of course, is the reason there are no lions on Rona today!
Ronan found peace from the people of Ness on his little island, but nobody knows what happened to the cionaran-crò. Perhaps it’s still out there … somewhere.
Eilean Rònaigh à Sùla Sgeir / Rona from the Island of Sulasgeir, (C)geograph.org.uk
Scotland's Nature 
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