The Effect
It is the mid-17th century in Ross-shire, in the Scottish Highlands. A man named Kenneth Mackenzie, better known in Gaelic as Coinneach Odhar or “Dark Kenneth,” is working as a humble labourer on the Brahan Estate, the seat of the powerful Seaforth clan. But Kenneth is no ordinary worker. He possesses the “Da Shealladh”—the Second Sight.
According to the legend, Kenneth gained this power in a graveyard. After falling asleep on a fairy hill, or in some tellings, interrupting a ghost, he found a small stone with a natural hole through the centre. These types of stones are called adder stones. When he looked through the stone with his one good eye, the mists of time cleared, and the future was revealed.
His prophecies were not just vague horoscopes; they were terrifyingly specific and spanned centuries.
He looked at the empty moor of Drumossie and cried out, “Oh! Drumossie, thy bleak moor shall… be stained with the best blood of the Highlands.” Years later, in 1746, that moor became the site of the Battle of Culloden, the bloody end of the Jacobite rising.
He looked at the Great Glen, a solid mass of land, and predicted that “ships would sail round the back of Tomnahurich Hill.” In the 19th century, the engineering marvel of the Caledonian Canal made this a reality.
He saw the Industrial Revolution before the steam engine was even invented, describing “long strings of black, bridleless horses” breathing fire and smoke, tearing through the glens—a perfect description of the railways.
But perhaps most chilling to modern ears, he predicted a “black rain” that would fall on Aberdeen, bringing with it immense riches. Today, many interpret this as the discovery of North Sea Oil, the “black gold” that transformed the city in the 1970s.
However, the Seer’s greatest trick would be his last. When Isabella, the Countess of Seaforth, demanded to know why her husband was late returning from Paris, Coinneach looked through his stone. He foolishly told the truth: the Earl was fine, he was just too busy having an affair with another woman to come home. Enraged and humiliated, the Countess ordered Coinneach’s execution. He was dragged to Chanonry Point and thrown headfirst into a barrel of burning tar spiked with long nails.
Before he died, he shouted one ultimate curse: that the line of Seaforth would end in tragedy, with a chief who was deaf and dumb. Decades later, Francis Mackenzie, the last Earl of Seaforth, who had lost his hearing and speech after a fever, saw his four sons die before him, extinguishing the male line exactly as the Seer had predicted.
The Method
While the legend of the Brahan Seer is captivating, the historical reality reveals a “method” that relies less on second sight and more on creative writing and historical conflation.
The first problem is the existence of the man himself. There are no contemporary 17th-century records of a “Coinneach Odhar” living on the Seaforth estate or serving the Earls of Seaforth. However, there is a parliamentary record from 1577—a full century earlier—ordering the arrest of a “Coinneach Odhar” for witchcraft. This individual was a gypsy enchanter accused of supplying poison. Historians believe the oral tradition took the name of this real 16th-century figure and grafted it onto a 17th-century folklore hero to fit the timeline of the Seaforth family.
But the real “method” behind the prophecies is a technique known as post-event fabrication, or more simply, “retrofitting.”
The vast majority of the Seer’s famous predictions—the Battle of Culloden, the Highland Clearances, the Caledonian Canal—were not written in the 1600s. In fact, they didn’t appear in print until after the events had already taken place. The primary source for the Brahan Seer’s legend is a book titled The Prophecies of the Brahan Seer, published by Alexander Mackenzie in 1877.
By 1877, the Battle of Culloden was ancient history, having happened 131 years prior. The Caledonian Canal opened in 1822 so was already built. The Highland Clearances were a fresh and painful memory. Alexander Mackenzie, a historian and folklorist, claimed he was “compiling” oral traditions passed down through generations. In reality, he was likely gathering vague local superstitions and polishing them into specific “predictions” that matched the history he already knew.
The “Doom of the Seaforth” is the perfect example. It is stated in the curse that the last Earl was deaf and dumb. The last Earl, Francis Mackenzie, did indeed have these disabilities and died in 1815. But the prophecy wasn’t published until the 1840s and 1870s—long after the Earl was dead and the family line had ended. It wasn’t a warning; it was a post-hoc explanation for why a great dynasty had collapsed.
As for the modern prophecies, like the “Black Rain” of Aberdeen? These are classic examples of reinterpreting vague metaphors. The original Gaelic phrases were often cryptic. “Black rain” could have meant a literal storm, a plague, or industrial soot. In the 1970s, when oil was discovered, people looked back at the old text and said, “Aha! That fits!” It is the Texas Sharpshooter fallacy: firing a gun at a barn wall and then painting a target around the bullet hole to claim you’re a marksman.
It is also a classic case of survivorship bias. In Alexander Mackenzie’s 1877 book, there is an entire chapter dedicated to ‘Unfulfilled Prophecies.’ We talk about the trains and the oil because they vaguely came true. But we conveniently forget the predictions that came to nothing. If you throw out one hundred vague predictions, and only five come true, you aren’t a prophet; you’re just leveraging statistical probability.
Barry’s Predictions Revisited
After enjoying a haggis in episode 13, Barry made some predictions for 2025. Did any of them come true?
Prediction: An Italian man who is against God, will become triumphant on the grass in South West London. And an American Lion will be in the Vatican.
Reality: In July 2025, Jannik Sinner (sinner being against God) won Wimbledon (SW19). The American Lion is Pope Leo XIV—the first-ever American Pope.
Prediction: I taste victory for English women. Women with balls of different shapes will have celebrations in England.
Reality: The Lionesses won the Euros and the Red Roses won the Rugby World Cup (balls of different shapes).
Prediction: An eastern sea eagle eats, no… it LICKS from a super-large bowl. And in the summer, another bird, romance as a swift, is carrying a wedding ring.
Reality: The Philadelphia Eagles won Super Bowl LIX. (“licks” was a phonetic clue for the Roman numerals LIX/59). Taylor Swift announced her engagement to Travis Kelce in August 2025.
Prediction: Jeffrey Epstein’s secrets will become public and Adrian Brodie and Mikey Madison will win in Hollywood.
Reality: The Epstein files were relased last year. Both actors won at the 97th Academy Awards in March 2025.
© 2026, Lora Jones. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited without written permission.
