WHO WAS THE BRAHAN SEER?

Kenneth Mackenzie, also known as Kenneth the Sallow, or Coinneach Odhar, was born on the island of Lewis in the early 17th Century. He lived at Baile-na-Cille in the Parish of Uig.

It is known that he came to the mainland to work as a labourer at Loch Ussie, near Dingwall, on the Brahan estate. Hence the name, Brahan Seer.

According to legend, Kenneth was gifted with the second sight through his mother, who met the ghost of a Scandinavian princess one night in a cemetery as she returned to her grave. Kenneth’s mother asked the princess to give her young son second sight.

The next day, he found a small blue stone with a hole in the middle, through which he would look and see his visions of the future.

Many of the Brahan Seer’s visions came to pass in the years following his death. These include:

● The Battle of Culloden in 1745. He declared at the site: “Oh! Drumossie, thy bleak moor shall, ere many generations have passed away, be stained with the best blood of the Highlands. Glad am I that I will not see the day, for it will be a fearful period; heads will be lopped off by the score, and no mercy shall be shown or quarter given on either side.”

● The joining of the lochs in the Great Glen when the Caledonian Canal was constructed in the 19th Century.

He described “great black, bridleless horses, belching fire and steam, drawing lines of carriages through the glens”. More than 200 years later, railways came to the Highlands.

He predicted “a black rain will bring riches to Aberdeen”, which many view as the North Sea oil industry.