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eighteenth-century Scottish Gaelic poet, Sileas na Ceapaich in one of ..... 34Kathryn Sutherland, "Writings on Education and Conduct: Arguments for.
Women's Conduct and the Poetry of Sileas na Ceapaich Natasha Sumner Mo nianagan bdidheach, /Nam b'eolach sibh mar mise... "My

lovely young girls, if you knew as I do...," announces the eighteenth-century Scottish Gaelic poet, Sileas na Ceapaich in one of her advisory poems to young women.' Presenting herself as the older and more experienced voice of wisdom, Sileas's announcement prefaces a piece of advice intended to bolster the moral fortitude expected of their sex, while concurrently aiding the young women to avoid committing a life-altering mistake through youthful ignorance. This short excerpt is taken from one of two advisory poems that Sileas wrote for young women. In the past, the content of these poems has been taken to be partially autobiographical, and it has been suggested that Sileas's knowledge of the grave mistakes she warns against stems from her having made them in her own youth. This article presents an argument to the contrary. I contend that Sileas's knowledge of such matters need not stem from personal experience, but rather that she drew her inspiration from a number of diverse sources, including English-language conduct and mother's advice literature and the Gaelic waulking song tradition. Most of Sileas's extant poems fall into three categories: political commentary, religious verse, and elegy for family members. One formal lament for an allied MacDonald chief is also well known. 2 Two additional poems are of a different nature from the rest, however; as noted above, these focus on the topic of counsel to Ceapaich, "An Aghaidh na h-ObaNodha" mAn Lasair: Anthology of 18th Century Scottish Gaelic Verse, ed. Ronald Black (Edinburgh: Birlinn, 2001) 22-29,11.49-50. All citations refer to the text in Black's volume, but see also "An Aghaidh na h-Obair Nodha" in Bardachd Shilis na Ceapaich, ed. Colm 6 Baoill (Edinburgh: Scottish Gaelic Texts Society, 1972), 76-83. 2This is the lament for Alasdair Dubh of Glengarry: "Alastair a Gleanna Garadh" in An Lasair..., 100-105; see also "Alasdair a Gleanna Garadh" in Bardachd Shilis..., 70-75. 1 Sileas na

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young women. Specifically, they advise young women about sexual morality, focusing largely on the virtue of chastity and the practical consequences of sexual indiscretion. Presuming that Sileas's knowledge of her topic stems from personal experience, some early commentators have read these poems as supporting evidence for a defamatory story about Sileas. According to this story, Sileas led a sexually dissolute early life, perhaps even bearing an illegitimate child, prior to falling seriously ill and undergoing a religious reawakening.3 While modern scholars are less likely to view this story as factual, in the absence of a concentrated investigation some degree of its veracity has been entertained, albeit with a healthy dose of skepticism. Sileas's modern editor, Colm 6 Baoill, for instance, is willing to concede that in these poems "we learn something about her own life."4 Regarding the defamatory story, however, he suggests that this version of Sileas's life may be based on "the internal evidence" of the advisory poems, and notes further that "the fact that she was probably married in her early twenties makes it certain that any dissolute life would, of necessity, have been short."5 Like 6 Baoill, I am skeptical of the story's veracity. I am inclined to believe that it was probably concocted some time after Sileas's own historical moment in order to reconcile her religious poems with the seemingly incompatible subject matter of the poems advising young women. I shall now examine the poems in question to determine whether Sileas does, in fact, reveal anything about her own life in them, and what "internal evidence" might support the story. I will 3See the discussion in: Colm 6 Baoill, Introduction and Notes to Bardachd Shilis..., lxii-lxiii. See also John Mackenzie, Sar-Obair nam Bard Gaelach, 5th edn. (Edinburgh: MacLachlan and Stewart, 1882), 58; and Kenneth MacDonald, "Unpublished Verse by Silis Ni Mhic Raghnaill Na Ceapaich" in Celtic Studies: Essays in Memory ofAngus Matheson, 1912-1962, ed. James Carney and David Greene (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1968), 78. 4Colm 6 Baoill, "Sileas na Ceapaich" in The Edinburgh History ofScottish Literature, vol. 1, ed. Thomas Owen Clancy et al. (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007), 311. 6 Baoill, Bardachd Shilis..., lxii-lxiii. 303 5

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then proceed to examine the social and literary trends of the period in order to demonstrate that, while some early commentators may have considered sexual morality to be a highly indelicate topic for a female author to tackle and one indicative of a period of immorality, these poems exemplify a common preoccupation of both Gaelic and English traditions at this time. The first advice poem in the published collection of Sileas's poems (though not necessarily the first one composed), is titled "Comhairle air na Nigheanan Oga" (Advice to Young Girls). The speaker in this poem adopts a position of age and wisdom in order to offer pointed advice, while recalling scenes from her youth in such a way as to simultaneously identify with the young women to whom the poem is addressed. The first quatrain both signals the topic of the poem and illustrates the speaker's dual perspective. She begins: "When I was very young, and hoping for a marriage-bargain, I trusted that I would not be deceived; since my childhood I was never introduced to improper and faithless conversation."6 While maintaining distance from the time she herself was "very young," 7 the speaker places herself in the shoes of a much younger woman to identify with the naivete of one who does not yet know the ways of the world, who has not yet been tested by "improper and faithless conversation" in courtship.8 The second quatrain alerts such a young listener to what, precisely, to watch out for: the "youth with the winsome, attractive eyes and the affected speech" that the speaker imagines is talking to her.9 The speaker describes his foppish attire, and quotes his deceitful words, then shifts away from a perspective of identification with the young woman to whom this imagined man is speaking in order to reveal his true character. "He is," she says, 6An toiseach

m 'aimsir is mo dhdigh ri bargan / Gun robh mi g earbsa nach cealgte orm; / Cha chdmhradh cearbach air ro-bheag leanmhuinn / Bho aois mo leanbaidh chaidh fheuchainn dhomhs'; Bardachd Shilis na Ceapaich, 6-11, 11.44-47. 7This is 6 Baoill's translation of An toiseach m 'aimsir. 8This is 6 Baoill's translation of comhradh cearbach air ro-bheag leanmhuinn. 9... dig-fhearnam meall-shiul boidhleameach, /Le theangaidh ledmaich... "Comhairle," 11.52-53. 304

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"just like the March wind which comes from the skies and favours no sail: when he fulfils his desire [with a girl] he will swear, with a twist in his nose, that he never saw her."10 If the poem were taken to be autobiographical, then passages like this would seem to imply that in her youth Sileas herself gave in to similar advances. The following claim made by the speaker in stanza five presents ready fodder for such a reading: "It is clear to me now the wrong I have done by the amount of those foolish lies of theirs I listened to."" Even 6 Baoill, cautious as his writings on Sileas's work are, refers to these statements as "unspecific admissions" employed by Sileas "to illustrate her message by revealing a little about herself."'2 Taking the autobiographical reading further, such "admissions" could be seen to support the story that Sileas bore an illegitimate child in her youth. Since we know that Sileas is a talented poet capable of constructing complex and innovative compositions,13 however, the assumption that the poem is a simple first-person autobiographical narrative, and thus the ready identification of the voice of the speaking persona in these passages with that of Sileas herself, seems problematic to me. I posit that the poem is not intended to be viewed as an autobiographical piece at all; rather, the dual perspective adopted by the speaker in this poem functions something like a 'before and after' case study, employed in order to effectually communicate Sileas's primary message that a "prudent

1 "Mar shamhladh dha sudgaoth a 'Mhdirt ud, / Thig bho na h-airdibh's nach taobh i sedl: / 'Nuair gheobh e mhiann di gun toir e bhriathra /Nach fhac e riamh i, 's carfiar 'n a shrdin. "Comhairle," 11. 64-67. 1XA nis is leir dhomh na rinn mi dh' eucoir / 'Sa' mheud 's a dh 'eisdmi d' am breugan bath. "Comhairle," 11. 82-83. 6 Baoill, "Sileas...," 313,312. l3Barbara Hillers illustrates Sileas's skill and innovation well in her article, '"Cleas a' Choin Sholair': Aesop's Dog Fable in the Poetry of Sileas na Ceapaich" in Bile ds Chrannaibh: A Festschriftfor William Gillies, ed. Wilson McLeod et al. (Ceann Drochaid, Perthshire, Scotland: Clann Tuirc, 2010), 195210. 305 I2

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maid" must know better than to believe such harmful lies because she will get nothing from them but "disgrace."14 The second advice poem, "An Aghaidh na h-Oba Nodha" (Against the Oobie Noogie) presents similar subject matter. It counsels young women to watch out for the lying speech of young men, and "to marry then go to bed" rather than the other way around.15 While the topic treated is the same, the position of the speaker (whether we take her to be the historical Sileas or a persona) is less uncertain. Like in the first poem, the speaker initially imagines herself in her listener's position in order to demonstrate the right thing to do in the situation presented. In this poem, however, there is no suggestion (however slight) that the speaker was ever deceived by the men she warns of; this poem is not a 'before and after' scenario, but adamant cautionary advice. The speaker announces defiantly: "Were I even a young girl as giddy as I used to be, I'd never ever be heard pursuing the oobie noogie."16 The poem presents two new dangerous scenarios for young women-accepting gifts of gloves, ribbons, or rings purchased for her at the fair (the implied message being that even though such gifts may be given, marriage is not necessarily the goal); and conversing with drunk men at weddings, the implication being that whatever their character when sober, their impaired judgement makes them unpredictable. The speaker also details the consequences if her advice is not taken, which were left vague in the first poem; she warns of "condemnations," "tears and lamenting," shamed kinsfolk, anguished parents, public denunciation >4gruagach

cheillidh, "Comhairle," 1. 92; masladh, 1. 70. 15... gun dean sibh cdrdadh /Pdsadh is dola laighe. "An Aghaidh," 11. 23-24. ]6Gedbhithinn-sa 'namghruagaich /Cho uallach 's a bha mi roimhe, /Cha chluinnte rim'bhed mi/Cur tdirair an obanodha. "An Aghaidh," 11. 9-12. The precise etymology of the phrase oba nodha 'oobie noogie' is debated, but it is being used as a slang term for sexual intercourse. See the discussions in both Colm O Baoill's and Ronald Black's editions of this poem: Black, Notes on the Poems, in An Lasair..., 374; O Baoill, Bardachd Shilis..., 166. See also: Domhnall Uilleam Stiubhart, "Highland Rogues and the Roots of Highland Romanticism" in Crossing the Highland Line: Cross-Currents in EighteenthCentury Scottish Writing, ed. Christopher MacLachlan (Glasgow: Association for Scottish Literary Studies, 2009), 183. 306

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in church, censure from elders at Presbyterian session meetings, and having to bring up children unwanted by their fathers.17 The speaker who issues these warnings and gives such prudent advice certainly need not have fallen prey to the ploys she speaks of in order to know of them. In my opinion, Sileas is not claiming any such thing about herself in this poem or the former one, but is instead drawing on a range of readily available sources to construct her arguments. Thus far, I have based my analysis of these poems, and my judgment of the veracity of the defamatory story associated with them, on close readings alone. I would now like to expand upon my claims by placing Sileas's advice poems within the context of the social norms, for Scottish women in particular and British women in general, in Sileas's historical moment. It will first be relevant to consider her position within Scottish society. She was probably born around 1660, although none of her extant poems can be dated with any certainty prior to the early years of the eighteenth century.18 As the daughter of the chief of the MacDonalds of Keppoch, she was a woman of some status.19 It was enough to secure for her a beneficial marriage to Alexander Gordon, a factor to the family of the Duke of Gordon, and a member of a cadet branch of that family. He was, it seems, the man responsible for collecting rent from Sileas's father.20 17Michiataidh, "An Aghaidh," 1. 34; gul agus caoidh, 1. 35; moran naire d'ur cdirdean, 11. 47-48; crddh aig mdthair is athair, 1. 38;... ministearan's cleir... I Gur n-eigheadh a-staigh gu h-eaglais, 11.41 -42; ...na h-eildearan /... [aig] seisean, 11. 43-44; 'g arach phdistean do ghrdisg nach fhuiling am faicinn, 11. 31-32. 6 Baoill, Bardachd Shilis..., xxxvii, lxv; 6 Baoill, "Sileas...," 305. 19Her status as a chiefs daughter was, admittedly, less impressive than it once might have been. All of the MacDonald clans were under growing pressure in the late seventeenth century, but the Keppoch MacDonalds were in the additional tenuous situation of occupying some of their Lochaber lands by force rather than legal right, having lost the territory to the Mackintoshes over a century prior. This situation produced tension and violence during Sileas's lifetime, only coming to a formal resolution in 1699 when a new lease was agreed upon: Raymond Campbell Patterson, The Lords of the Isles: A History of Clan Donald (Edinburgh: Birlinn, 2001), 50,154,172. 6 Baoill, Bardachd Shilisxlvi-xlvii; "Sileas...," 305. 307 18

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This marriage ensured that Sileas would live a comfortable life. Indeed, from the early 1700s she and her husband were the proprietors of Beldorney Castle, located at the border of Banffshire and Aberdeenshire. 2 ' During the period of composition of her poems, then, Sileas was fairly well off, belonging both to a traditional Gaelic ruling family and a powerful North-Eastern Scottish family. The crucial question that must be asked is whether a woman of Sileas's social standing might have been able to secure such an advantageous marriage and maintain the position in society that she did, had she exhibited sexually dissolute behavior, given birth to an illegitimate child, and suffered the public censure detailed in her poems. Reflecting on what little verifiable information is available about Sileas's life, Colm 6 Baoill concedes the possibility "that these accounts... do reflect something historically genuine about her," adding that "there does seem to be some negative evidence that her... son [Gilleasbuig] was 'illegitimate.'" 22 The negative evidence is rather insubstantial; it is based on a reading of Sileas's poem, "Do Ghilleasbuig a Mac" (To Her Son Gilleasbuig), which suggests that Gilleasbuig would be a more appropriate successor to her husband than their eldest living son.23 Sileas refers to Gilleasbuig as "this first offspring I reared without defect or deformity,"24 which could either mean that Gilleasbuig was her first child, but not that of her husband, or that Gilleasbuig was not the oldest, but she viewed his older brother(s) as being defective in some aspect crucial to familial succession.25 No historical record has been uncovered that would 6 Baoill, Bardachd Shilis..., xlviii-1; "Sileas...," 305. 6 Baoill, "Sileas...," 313. See also: Bardachd Shilis..., lxii. 23 'Sfedrr coir air a' chinneach thu 'you have a better claim to the family': "Do Ghilleasbuig a Mac," in BardachdShilis..., 50-53,1. 613. Their eldest son was named George, but O Baoill suggests that he died before his father, since James (presumably their second son) was named the successor in the end; Bardachd Shilis..., li. 24A' cheudghineal so dh 'araich mi / Gun fhaillinn gun uireasbhuidh. "Do Ghilleasbuig," 11.634-35. 6 Baoill, Bardachd Shilis..., I i i—li li. Little is known about George, but there is some tentative evidence that James may not have sufficiently upheld Jacobite 308 21

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verify Gilleasbuig's date of birth or paternity, so to judge the likelihood that Sileas could have borne an illegitimate child and still married well, I will need to examine the social pressures unwed Scottish mothers faced at the time. Rosalind Mitchison and Leah Leneman's study, Sexuality and Social Control: Scotland 1660-1780, is a good starting point. Examining the kirk session records in Scottish rural parishes, Mitchison and Leneman reveal that the Church of Scotland exercised a high degree of social control during Sileas's lifetime. Notably, their data corresponds well with the scenario Sileas describes in her poems. Sileas alludes to the fact that an unmarried woman rumored or visibly appearing to be pregnant would be called before the Presbyterian elders at a kirk session meeting to answer for the sin of fornication. If convicted, she would have to pay a fine of ten pound Scots and face the shame of public condemnation by appearing in church in sackcloth. For a first offense, three appearances were sufficient, six for a second offense, twenty-six for a third offense (or for adultery), and thirty-nine for a fourth offense (or a second instance of adultery).26 The session required sufficient proof to make the charge of fornication, for which reason unless a couple was caught in the act, pregnancy was "the sine qua non in accusations of this nature." Without pregnancy, an accusation of fornication would generally only result in the lesser charge of 'scandalous carriage.'27 In questioning, a pregnant woman was heavily pressured to name the man responsible; and, in theory, male offenders were subject to the same punishments as women. In reality, however, the actual penalties paid and shame endured by women were greater, and they were also referred to in far more denunciatory language in the session records.28 Moreover, as Sileas warns, men could much more easily deny responsibility, since "[i]f there was no proof and the man principles to Sileas's liking, and that her acceptance of him as successor was granted "grudgingly." Ibid., lii. 26Rosalind Mitchison and Leah Leneman, Sexuality and Social ControlScotland 1660-1780 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989), 37, 136. 27Ibid., 136, 170. 28Ibid., 208,223-224. 309

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did not yield to pressure there was little the kirk could do." 29 Mitchison and Leneman further note an entry in one of the session records indicating that the responsibility for avoiding compromising situations such as interactions with '"lascivious young men'" at fairs and markets was placed solely on the young woman-just as Sileas's advice against accepting gifts from men at fairs suggests.30 Mitchison and Leneman's findings suggest that Sileas was well aware of the situation in the predominantly Protestant location where she was composing, most likely indicating that she counted local, Gaelic-speaking Protestant girls among her audience. Sileas was from a Catholic family, however, as was her husband, and as Barbara Hillers suggests: "her religious poetry appears to be actively conversant and engaged with contemporary Catholic doctrine."31 While Mitchison and Leneman do provide data for the Highlands and assert that "the Church [of Scotland] frequently inquired into [Catholic areas]," and while we can certainly presume the Catholic Church also disapproved of premarital pregnancy, we cannot be certain from their study that Catholic unwed mothers would have been stigmatized to the same degree.32 Another difficulty is the fact that the process of church discipline described in the study was applied most regularly to the lower classes, i.e. "those without property." The authors note that "out of thousands of cases, only a handful of women appear to have been of any higher status."33 It is clear that not all of the relevant information to adjudicate Sileas's 29Ibid., 206. What

is interesting is that a high proportion of men did not deny responsibility. In fact, Mitchison and Leneman found that over two-thirds of men questioned eventually admitted their guilt; 230. Notable exceptions were members of the gentry, who were more likely to successfully avoid paying any penalty for their actions; 227. 30Ibid., 187; the entry is from the session of Kells in May 1699. 6 Baoill, Bardachd Shilis..., lxiv-lxv; Hillers, 205. 32Mitchison and Leneman, 38. Only the Western Isles and the Borders were omitted from their study of rural parishes due to insufficient data; 39. 33Mitchison and Leneman, 155. The authors do not appear to have counted in this number those young women who were in service in another household but who were from relatively well-to-do families. 310

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personal situation can be garnered from a study of the kirk session records, however well they agree with the information in her advice poems. Since church records reflect ecclesiastical doctrine but not necessarily public opinion, it is likely that there are other factors to consider with regard to propertied women, whatever their religion. Sileas would, of course, be included in this group; she was both from and married into a propertied family. Therefore, it is necessary to turn to secular sources to better understand the contemporary ideology of women's sexuality relevant to Sileas's social class. In socio-economic terms, it would be appropriate to say that Sileas and her husband were solidly upper middle class. That they belonged to the middle class is relevant because they occupied this position precisely during the era of emergence of just such a class in a British public consciousness-and with it, its own voice and moral value system. One of the central principles of this incipient middle class value system was the notion that for the social order to be upheld, a woman needed to perform her expected gender role with little deviation. The system of middle class gender roles at this time was inherently economic. In it, as Kathryn Sutherland explains, the "necessary economic relations of the modern commercial polity [were] encoded and reproduced."34 The ideal spousal partnership was viewed as a system of checks and balances in which the mobile, politically and economically involved male party saw to the physical needs of the family, while the female party was expected to exemplify the virtues of Christian piety and obedience and nurture them in her husband and children. Her domestic role, then, was as caretaker and moral ballast of the household, both of which roles could be seriously upset by sexual deviance. For this reason, as Nancy Armstrong's pioneering work since the 1980s has shown, the management of female desire in the eighteenth century was central to the construction of a middle class identity in which adherence to

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34Kathryn

Sutherland, "Writings on Education and Conduct: Arguments for Female Improvement" in Women and Literature in Britain 1700-1800, ed. Vivien Jones (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 26. 311

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clearly defined gender roles was viewed as essential to the maintenance of social order.35 It remains to be seen just how pervasive this emergent identity was, and whether the accompanying strict control over middle class women's sexuality had yet taken hold in Gaelic Scotland. At this period of frequent interaction between the Highlands and Lowlands, during which Gaelic literature displays a significant familiarity with and interest in wider British matters, I think it likely that a similar ideological outlook on sexual morality was also developing.36 Such ideas had certainly gained currency in the Lowlands by the early decades of the eighteenth century, as is apparent from the fatherly advice communicated in a series of letters dated 1739 from an Edinburgh father to his daughter. The father, Alexander Monro, was the first professor of anatomy at the Edinburgh medical school. His comments on female behavior and marriage well illustrate how, in such an ideological climate, a young woman held prime marriageable value only if she conformed to her role. Monro explains to his daughter the importance of "Discretion and the decent Modesty which is necessary in her Sex," and stresses that "a more strict moral Behaviour is expected" of women. 37 Even the mere perception of sexual fault was to be avoided, for Monro cautions that: "In all publick Places one half of the Company especially of the Females keeps a critical Eye on the other and therefor shou'd be on Nancy Armstrong and Leonard Tennenhouse go so far as to claim that "the regulation of desire through representations of gender became the most efficacious form of social control, more so than the police, the military, the law courts, or even the schoolroom." "The Literature of Conduct, the Conduct of Literature, and the Politics of Desire: an Introduction," in The Ideology of Conduct: Essays on Literature and the History ofSexuality, ed. Nancy Armstrong and Leonard Tennenhouse (New York and London: Methuen, 1987), 16. 36It is interesting to note that Lowland literary influence is suspected in poems composed both by Sileas's father Gilleasbaig na Ceapaich, and her brother, Aonghas Odhar; Stiubhart 175. 37Alexander Monro, The Professor's Daughter: An Essay on Female Conduct Contained in Letters from a Father to his Daughter, ed. P. A. G. Monro, Library Ed. (Cambridge, UK: P. A. G. Monro, 1995), 29, 73. 312

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their Guard to give no Handle for censuring their Behaviour." 38 Some pages later he expands on his warning, stating: Young as you are you know that Women who are thought to be engaged in intrigues of Gallantry are abandoned by all the virtuous part of their own Sex and are condemned by the World as vicious Creatures. In a Matter of so great Consequence too great precaution can not be taken, and therefor all great Intimacies and freedom are to be shunned.. ,39 Monro's interest in his daughter's behavior is surely rooted in parental affection, but there is likely also a degree of self-interest. A young, middle class woman's reputation had serious implications for her entire family. If she was perceived to be virtuous, she might be able to marry well, thereby improving familial connections and the family's social standing. If, on the other hand, a young woman's marriageable commodity value was ruined by sexual indiscretion, her family would lose out in the social market and share in her shame. The role Sileas outlines for young women in her advice poems is in keeping with this normative, British, middle-class ideology of gender, and while I have not presented conclusive evidence that this ideology had wholly pervaded the Highlands in her time, I am doubtful that she could have married into a prominent Lowland family where such norms were becoming entrenched if she was known to have committed any sexual indiscretions in the past. Turning to the literary record, I would now like to show that Sileas's advice poems need not have been crafted from personal experience alone, but can be located within a wider literary tradition. We can be fairly certain that Sileas was literate in both Scottish Gaelic and English since, as Barbara Hillers notes, "her poetry shows abundant exposure to and influence of English."40 It is therefore relevant to look to the English literature women of her social standing would have been reading. One popular genre that Monro, 64. 'Monro, 77. 'Hillers, 205.

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immediately stands out with regard to these poems is that of mother's advice books. Written by, or in the voice of, mothers, these manuals attracted a wide readership comprised of men and women.41 They took the proper spiritual and moral instruction of children as their subject matter, but the insight contained within them surpassed their purported topic of childrearing to reflect upon the desired traits of the men and women those children would grow to become. Dorothy Leigh's The Mother's Blessing is a good example of one such book. First published in 1616, Leigh's advice manual gained such wide popularity that as many as twenty-three editions may have been published by the early eighteenth century.42 Leigh depicts the feminine ideal that daughters should strive to emulate in this way: [A woman] whoso is truly chaste, is free from idleness and from all vaine delights, full of humility, and all good Chrisitian vertues; [a woman] whoso is chaste, is not given to pride in apparell, nor any vanity, but is alwayes either reading, meditating, or practising some good thing which she hath learned in the Scripture. But she which is unchaste, is given to be idle; or if she do any thing, it is for a vaine glory, and for the praise of men, more than for any humble, loving and obedient heart that shee beareth unto God and his Word.43 According to Leigh, true chastity far surpasses its basic, sexual definition, for a truly chaste woman must exhibit both bodily and mental restraint. Leigh goes on to argue that "An unchaste woman destroyeth both the body and the soule of him, shee seemeth most to Wray, Women Writers of the Seventeenth Century (Devon, UK: Northcote House Publishers, 2004), 39. 42Valerie Wayne, "Advice for Women from Mothers and Patriarchs" in Women and Literature in Britain 1500-1700, ed. Helen Wilcox (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 59. 43Dorothy Leigh, The Mothers Blessing, second edition. (London: John Budge, 1616), Early English Books Online: STC 15402, Accessed Dec. 5, 2012, 30-31. 314 4l Ramona

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love," illustrating well the ideologically dictated role of women as the moral compass of the household.44 Although Sileas's advice poems are morally instructive and illustrative of a similar train of thought, they are constructed as oral warning narratives rather than printed instructional tracts and do not openly exhibit the heavy-handed censure found in Leigh's book. "Comhairle air na Nigheanan Oga" does, however, reference the notion that bodily chastity is not all that is expected of young girls, but also the manners indicative of the pure soul that Leigh writes about. At the end of Sileas's poem, the speaker shifts perspectives one final time in order to identify with a masculine point of view, asserting that "he who sets out to seek the woman he most desires, [wants] a polite girl who will bear no immodesty, nor go into solitude with anyone." Such a desirable girl ought not to enter "into anything bolder than murmured words," and she should be "careful with stock and property," rather than being a spendthrift. From this, a good man would know "her oath and her conversation" to be "of the noblest intent." 45 In other words, to be marriageable, a young woman needs to exhibit the Christian virtue of one who is chaste not only in body but also in mind. Given this correspondence with mother's advice literature, it is significant that in some versions of this poem, Sileas's daughter Mairi is named as the addressee, making it literally a mother's words of advice to her child.46 We cannot know whether Sileas intended Mairi to be the addressee or not, but as another of her poems, "Do Mhairi a Nighean" (To Her Daughter Mairi) illustrates, Sileas was concerned about securing a good match entailing upward mobility for her daughter. This lighthearted ditty clearly constructs her 44Leigh, 33-34. 4:'Am fear

a thriallas a dhol a dh 'iarraidh /Na mnd as miannaiche bhios d' a reir, / Gur cailinn shuairc i nach fhuilig mi-stuamachd, / Na dhol an uaigneas le nachtfo 'n ghrein; / Mar shamhladh bhd sud, a bhrigh a ndire, / Dhol nas ddine na manran beil; /[...] /[Cailinn a tha]gleidhteach air 'nis airfeudail, / [...]/A moid no manran an airde miann; "Comhairle," 11. 108-123. 46 0ne extant version is titled "Comhairle do Mhairi a h-Ighean," and two versions address the listener as 'Mairi' in line 100; O Baoill, Bardachd, 126. 315

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daughter as an object of desire for deserving young men-and delineates a number of men who she would not consider to be deserving. It is interesting to note that she judges one of the suitors based on his mother's conduct, calling him a "whelp of a rotten sow,"47 which further indicates the great importance she places on female behavior and character. Although the virtues that make Mairi so desirable are not detailed, since Sileas envisions an advantageous marriage for her own daughter, I think we can infer that she pictures Mairi as an exemplary woman living up to the model of femininity that she advocates in "Comhairle air na Nigheanan Oga," especially given the fact that this poem, too, may be addressed to Mairi. Whether the address in "Comhairle air na Nigheanan Oga" was authored by Sileas or not, it shows that a contemporary audience may have viewed the poem as aligning with the popular English genre. That the genre reached Scotland for Sileas to emulate and her audience to read cannot only be assumed by the books' and pamphlets' popularity in England, but also by the fact that other women in Scotland were likewise composing in this vein. For instance, the same Lady Anne Halkett who helped to free the young James VII/II from Parliamentarian captivity (prior to his reign) composed two poems in the vein of mother's advice literature in 1656 and 1670.48 In evoking the genre, I am not claiming that Sileas's poems fit precisely within it, but simply that she would have been aware of it and may have been influenced by it. One major trait that Sileas's works do not share with those of the English 'mother's advice' genre is the fact that the English compositions are nearly all predicated on the idea that the author might die in childbirth, in which case her advice to her child would live on only in print. That said, the virtuous traits noted by Dorothy Leigh and Sileas are recommended not just in mother's advice manuals, but also within the wider English genre of women's conduct literature. 41cuilean

de 'n mhuic bhreun; "Do Mhairi a Nighean" in Bardachd Shilis. ..,25,1. 23. 48Wray, 42.1 have not had the opportunity to consult these manuscripts (MSS 6489 and 6492) which are located at the National Library of Scotland. 316

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Sileas may well have been exposed to women's conduct literature, given that from the last few decades of the seventeenth century and throughout the eighteenth century there was a flurry of publication of conduct books aimed specifically at young women like herself and her daughters.49 Indeed, Alexander Monro references the ready availability of conduct literature by the 1730s in his letters to his daughter, acknowledging on the first page that he "might have put books into your hands which treat of female Conduct more fully and accurately than I shall do," but desiring instead to write based on his own experience and reading.50 There is evidence that Monro intended to add his composition to the wide array of conduct literature already available and had prepared the manuscript for publication, but it remained unpublished until the close of the last century.5' Like Leigh, Monro concentrates on the whole of a woman's character, recommending the avoidance of all vices and the cultivation of honesty, modesty, and a good-natured personality; and, like Sileas's poems, his advice is practical, personably communicated, and firm but not heavy-handed. Sileas's concentration on sexual morality is more sustained than that of the authors cited here, but it was not uncommon for women's conduct literature to treat sexual matters, whether in a limited fashion (as in Monro's letters), or as a prominent topic. Even though it was published a few years after Sileas wrote her advice poems, we might consider Daniel Defoe's Conjugal Lewdness in this regard; Defoe surpasses other authors in devoting a full four hundred pages to the "Use" and, more importantly, the "Abuse" of the "Marriage Bed."52 Armstrong and Tennenhouse, 10. 50Monro, The Professor's Daughter, 1. 51 P. A. G. Monro, "Appendix B: Notes on the Sources of the Manuscripts" in The Professor's Daughter: An Essay on Female Conduct Contained in Letters from a Father to his Daughter, by Alexander Monro, Library Ed. (Cambridge, UK: P. A. G. Monro, 1995), xxxvii-xxxviii. 52Daniel Defoe, Conjugal Lewdness, Or Matrimonial Whoredom: A Treatise Concerning the Use and Abuse of the Marriage Bed (London: T. Warner, 1727), Eighteenth Century Collections Online: ESTC T070647, Accessed Dec. 5,2012, ii. 317

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Armstrong and Tennenhouse describe the ideal middle class woman that eighteenth-century conduct literature aimed at producing as one "whose value resides chiefly in her femaleness rather than in traditional signs of status," where 'femaleness' could be equated with the notion of 'feminine virtue.' 53 The ideological construction of the virtuous, middle-class woman finds its counterpart in the figure of the libertine-the sexually dissolute, upper-class, male spendthrift celebrated particularly in the Restoration literature of Charles IPs court. Best exemplified in the infamous verses-and lifestyle-of John Wilmot, Second Earl of Rochester, the libertine or rake became a common figure in British literature of the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The early history of the novel in English is littered with such characters, alongside the virtuous women who opposed them. This popular duo also made regular appearances in English poetry, drama, and moral periodicals. Alexander Monro's letters reference such literature as commonplace in Edinburgh at his time, recommending to his daughter works by Alexander Pope and Samuel Richardson, as well as the popular periodicals, The Spectator and The Guardian.5"' Furthermore, similar predatory figures existed concurrently in the literatures of Britain's Gaelic-speaking regions. While generally not exhibiting the same elevated social status as the English libertine, sexually aggressive male figures were celebrated in the first half of the eighteenth century in the poetry of Fermanagh native, Cathal Bui Mac Giolla Ghunna, and again later in the century in the work of the great Munster poet, Eoghan Rua 6 Suilleabhain. Such rake-like figures also turn up in the eighteenth-century Scottish Gaelic compositions of An Leobhar Liath (The Light-Blue Book). One of these, a poem composed early in the century by Seoras MacCoinnich of Wester Ross, is particularly relevant in that one of Sileas's advice poems is, in fact, a response to it. Seoras's poem, titled "An Oba Nodha" (The Oobie Noogie), is a celebration of premarital sex expressed in a series of young, female voices. 55 Sileas's response, 'Armstrong and Tennenhouse, 10. 'Monro, 9-10. 'Seoras MacCoinnich, "An Oba Nodha," in An Lasair. ..,18-21. 318

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"An Aghaidh na h-Oba Nodha" (Against the Oobie Noogie), recognizes the perspective in Seoras's poem as that of the male sexual predator by constructing a series of like-minded masculine characters-the indifferent debauchers of young women she warns against. In keeping with English literature of the time, she sets this figure against his conventional opposite—the virtuous feminine ideal—and her advice strongly advocates the values represented by that ideal. While numerous parallels in English literature exist and there is strong evidence for influence across linguistic boundaries in Sileas's advice poems, the English corpus is not her only likely source of inspiration. Rather, Sileas mingles both English and Gaelic literary conventions in her presentation of the topic matter in both poems in order to instruct young women about how best to position themselves in a society in which their early actions determine their future wellbeing. We have seen that her poem, "An Aghaidh na hOba Nodha" responds to a Gaelic depiction of the sexual predator figure. The topic of female sexual virtue is also treated in Gaelic sources, specifically in a subsection of the Gaelic waulking songs spoken by the character of the jilted woman. The speaker expresses her sadness at seeing a former lover who has abandoned her, reminisces about the moments they shared, and laments her reduced circumstances now that he has moved on-especially if the affair has become public knowledge by resulting in a pregnancy. In some of these songs there is reference to the unfortunate pregnant woman having to appear at a kirk session meeting to answer to the charge of fornication. For instance, one version of the popular song, "Chunnaic Mise mo Leannan" (I Saw my Lover) recalls a kirk session appearance in this way: "I spent Sunday standing at the Kirk Session on account of you. The tears from my cheeks [were] making a stream on my shift."56 When Sileas warns Thug mi Domhnach 'nam sheasamh /Anns an t-Seisein mu d' dheidhinn. / Gu robh snighe mo ghruaidhean /Deanamh fuarain 'nam leinidh. Roderick MacKinnon, singer, "Chunnaic Mise mo Leannan" in Hebridean Folksongs, vol. 3, ed. J. L. Campbell (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981), 156-59,11.1209-12. Recordings of this version are available online in the Tobar an Dualchais 319

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young women about being called before the kirk session, she may well be consciously referencing such songs.57 The jilted woman songs can also contain counsel similar to that in Sileas's poems, such as the roughly contemporary song, "Chunnaic Mi'n t-6g Uasal" (I Saw the Well-Born Youth), which states: "And my advice to a girl who'd follow my footsteps is not to give love in secret to any man under the sun. They come loaded with words, but keep their hearts to themselves." 58 In the waulking song tradition, then, we find further evidence to support the claim that even though Sileas's advice poems portray the character of the fallen woman, the presumption that they are autobiographical in this regard is poorly founded. Rather, her treatment of sexual topics was in keeping with the ideological and literary trends of the time, both in the English and in the Gaelic language traditions. While it cannot be proved that Sileas did not commit any sexual indiscretions in her youth, and no historical documentation exists to rule out the idea that she might have borne an illegitimate child prior to her marriage, the above consideration of her advice poems, the database, track IDs: 39678,39682. There is also a version of this song that does not reference a kirk session meeting, but does evidence reduced circumstances due to an unwed pregnancy: 'S tha do leanabh 'nam achlais, / 'S mi gun tacsa fo 'n ghrein dha. / 'S murafalbh mi as m oige / A dh 'iarraidh Ion air gach te dha "Your child is in my arms, and I am without a support in the world for him, unless I go in my youth to seek provision from every woman for him." Catriona Campbell, singer, "Chunnaic Mise mo Leannan" in Hebridean Folksongs, vol. 3,162-65,11. 1267-70. "Sileas's advice poems are not only likely to be engaging with the selfconsciously female discourse of the waulking songs, they can also be seen as functioning similarly in their social context. For a recent consideration of gender and social issues addressed in the waulking songs, see: Margaret Harrison, "Gender in the Waulking Songs of Mairi Nighean Alasdair" in Child's Children: Ballad Study and its Legacies, ed. Joseph Harris and Barbara Hillers (Trier: Wissenshaftlicher Verlag Trier, 2012), 205-17. 58 'S comhairl' bheirinn air nighinn /Bhiodh a-rithist 'nam dheidh / Gun i thoirt a gaolfalaich /Do dhuine thafanghrein. / Bidh iad briathrach a 'tighinn / 'S rim an cridh' aca fhein. Anonymous, "Chunnaic Mi'n t-6g Uasal" in An Lasair..., 10-13,11.31-36. 320

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social atmosphere in which they were written, and the literary sphere within which they can be located show the unlikelihood that this would have been the case. But if there is no solid basis for the defamatory story identifying Sileas with the character of the fallen woman, one must wonder why it arose in the first place. I think Colm 6 Baoill's suggestion that the story likely arose after Sileas's time is correct, and I hope to have provided sufficient background information to both counter any doubt and illustrate how well attuned to the bilingual culture around her Sileas was. As 6 Baoill notes, "it cannot be without significance that very similar stories are told, in the oral tradition to begin with, about nearly every Gaelic female poet of the period 1600-1750... Gaelic society, either during their own lives or in retrospect, seemfed] to view women poets with suspicion.59 There are tales about how both the roughly contemporary Mairearad nighean Lachlainn and the slightly earlier Mairi nighean Alasdair Ruaidh were buried face down. Ronald Black posits that these tales of unceremonious burial came about due to a perception that it was "unnatural and improper for a woman" to make songs, which complements 6 Baoill's assertion that it was "to keep 'beul nam breug' (the lying mouth) down."60 A distrust of female authors is not unusual for the times, and is, in fact, also in keeping with the middle class gender ideology discussed above. In other parts of Britain, too, female authors could face harsh censure if their works were not perceived as "conforming] to feminine codes of modesty."61 A study of female conduct literature writers' works shows that even they, domestic as their literary sphere was, suffered from "an anxiety about authorial unsuitability and a potentially negative reception."62 The story about Sileas's sexually dissolute early life probably has its basis, then, in the reluctance to accept a female poet into the canon. It follows that the nature of the defamation was readily suggested by the subject matter of the poems. 6 Baoill, "Sileas..." 313. 60Black, An Lasair..., 389; 6 Baoill, "Sileas...," 313. 61 Vivien Jones, Introduction to Women and Literature in Britain I700-1800,10. 62Wray, 43. 321 59

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It is clear that Sileas was influenced by the literary trends and ideological norms of her time, just as every poet must inescapably be. Yet she is particularly interesting because, being geographically located in the interstices of Scotland's two linguistic and religious cultures, she was uniquely placed to offer bilateral commentary about young Scottish women's position in society. What makes her advice poems particularly powerful is not any autobiographical basis they may or may not have, but rather her ability to manipulate and combine disparate generic models to achieve something fresh and new. In her treatment of sexual morality, Sileas adopted and adapted both the conventional jilted woman of Gaelic song tradition and more typically English presentations of virtuous women and the advice they were expected to follow. In doing so, she created advisory literature for the moral education of young, Gaelic-speaking women that would remain relevant throughout the course of the eighteenth century, orally circulating for decades before the poems were first written down.63 This is indeed a significant poetic achievement, and a far more substantial thing by which we might remember her than one improbable, scandalous tale.

63The earliest

extant written source for "Comhairle air na Nigheanan Oga" is dated to 1775; for "An Aghaidh na h-Oba Nodha," between 1800 and 1804. 6 Baoill, Bardachd, xxxiii, lviii. 322

Abstracts of Other Papers Read at the Thirty-Second Harvard Celtic Colloquium The Devil Went Down to Glendalough: A Look at the Corruption of St. Kevin in Conchubrani Vita Sanctae Monennae Diane Peters Auslander Conchubranus, author of the eleventh-century Life of St. Monenna, makes chaos of his well-organized source, the anonymous tenth-century Life of St. Darerca, by conflating the legend of his heroine with the legends of several other saints, adding new, and often mystifying, miracles and episodes, as well as taking the saint out of Ireland to found churches and monasteries in England and Scotland. The name 'Monenna' is commonly acknowledged to be a hypercoristic for Darerca and this nickname may be the main reason Conchubranus conflated her with a saint with a similar name, Modwenna, an Anglo-Saxon or possibly Welsh saint who is believed to have been the foundress of Burton Abbey in the English Midlands where two subsequent rewrites of the Life of St. Monenna were composed; one in Latin in the twelfth century and one in the French of England in the early thirteenth century. One of the most puzzling episodes Conchubranus adds to this vita concerns the conversion of a band of brigands and the subsequent tempting of St. Kevin by the devil, who incites Kevin to set off to attack Monenna and her community. This paper will look at several issues embedded in this incident including gender, the influence of the eastern ascetic tradition, the role of brigands and the devil etc. Time permitting, I will consider how this story is manipulated in the two lives written in England where the Irish practice of Christianity was the subject of hostile and disparaging Anglo-Norman rhetoric.

PROCEEDINGS OF THE HARVARD CELTIC COLLOQUIUM

Volume XXXII, 2012 Edited by

Deborah Furchtgott Georgia Henley Matthew Holmberg

Published by The Department of Celtic Languages and Literature Faculty of Arts and Science, Harvard University