The Brahan Seer
According to one source he is said to have been born about 1650 in Uig on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer
Hebrides. He is supposed to have lived for a time at Loch Ussie, near Dingwall and worked on the nearby Brahan Estate, seat of the Seaforth Mackenzies. The first literary reference to him is in Thomas Pennant's '
A Tour in Scotland', first published in 1771.
The Brahan Seer or 'Coinneach Odhar' (Gaelic) had the gift of second sight and he remains popular today probably because many of his prophesies have come
true. A lot of what we know about him comes from the Gaelic oral tradition.
His list of fulfilled prophesies is impressive and includes the coming of oil, the growth of Strathpeffer
as a spa town, the coming of the railway, the Battle of Culloden, the building of the Caledonian Canal, the Highland Clearances and many, many more. However, his precious gift may also have turned out to
be his undoing. Tradition has it that when Isabella, wife of the 3rd Earl of Seaforth, asked him for news of her husband who was away in France, the Seer eventually had to reveal that her
husband was being unfaithful to her – with a French woman! As a 'reward' for being truthful, the Seer was supposedly taken down to Chanonry Point and
pitched alive into a barrel of boiling tar – hence this memorial stone. However, he did manage one last prophesy which came true, which was the dying out of the Seaforth line!