Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Donald, Adam
DONALD, ADAM (1703–1780), called ‘the prophet of Bethelnie,’ was born at the hamlet of that name, twenty miles north of Aberdeen, in 1703. Notwithstanding his extraordinary stature and build, which caused the country folk to regard him as a changeling ‘supernatural in mind as well as in body,’ he was unable from some infirmity to labour with his hands, while his parents, struggling peasants, could ill afford to maintain him. Donald had therefore to solve the perplexity of how to live. ‘Observing,’ says his biographer, ‘with what a superstitious veneration the ignorant people around him contemplated that uncouth figure he inherited from nature, he shrewdly availed himself of this propensity for obtaining a subsistence through life. He therefore affected an uncommon reservedness of manner, pretended to be extremely studious, spoke little, and what he said was uttered in half sentences, with awkward gesticulations and an uncouth tone of voice, to excite consternation and elude detection.’ Though scarcely able to read, he carefully picked up books in all languages. Gerarde's folio ‘Herbal’ might be said to be his constant companion, and was always displayed along with other books of a like portly appearance whenever he received his visitors. He made, too, a practice of haunting the ruined church of Bethelnie, ‘where it was not doubted but he held frequent converse with departed spirits, who informed him of many things that no mortal knowledge could reach.’ Thus it happened that whenever articles of dress or furniture were missed, he was consulted as a matter of course, and his answers were so general and cautiously worded that they could be shown after the event to have been wonderfully prophetic. Donald also acted as a physician. He was chiefly resorted to in cases of lingering disorders supposed to owe their origin to witchcraft, or some other supernatural agency. In such cases he invariably prescribed the application of certain unguents of his own concoction to various parts of the body, accompanied by particular ceremonies, ‘which he described with all the minuteness he could, employing the most learned terms he could pick up to denote the most common things.’ His fame spread to the distance of thirty miles around him in every direction, so that for a great many years of his life there was never a Sunday that his house was not crowded with visitors of various sorts, who came to consult him either as a necromancer or physician. His fees were very moderate, never exceeding a shilling. By such means he managed to pick up a comfortable living, and when pretty far advanced in life he prevailed on one of the good-looking damsels of the neighbourhood to marry him from a firm belief in his powers of prophecy. After his marriage he found it difficult to maintain an appearance of infallibility. ‘From motives of prudence, indeed, his wife took care to keep the secret; but his daughter contrived often to cheat him, and afterwards among her companions laughed at his credulity.’ Donald died in 1780. A whole-length portrait of him was afterwards engraved. To relieve the tedium of sitting he composed the following lines, which he desired might be put at the bottom of the picture:—
Time doth all things devour,
And time doth all things waste.
And we waste time,
And so are we at last.