MAC MARGAD, Gilleadomnan Adhamnan b. 1070 Finlaggan Castle, Isle of Islay, Argyll, Scotland d. Abt 1150 Hebrides, Scotland

1070 - Abt 1150 (80 years)

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Name	MAC MARGAD, Gilleadomnan Adhamnan
Birth	1070	Finlaggan Castle, Isle of Islay, Argyll, Scotland
Gender	Male
Death	Abt 1150	Hebrides, Scotland
WAC	24 Feb 2009	HOUST
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Person ID	I50305	Joseph Smith Sr and Lucy Mack Smith
Last Modified	19 Aug 2021

Father	GILLEBRIDESON, Lord Somerled , b. 1113, Morven, Argyll, Scotland Morven, Argyll, Scotlandd. 1 Jan 1164, Renfrew, Renfrewshire, Scotland (Age 51 years)
Family ID	F25476	Group Sheet \| Family Chart

Family SCOTLAND, Solaim , b. 1072, Scotland Scotland

Children

+	1. ADOMNAN, Gillibride Mac Gille , b. 1085, Ireland Irelandd. 1123 (Age 38 years)

Family ID F25474 Group Sheet | Family Chart

Last Modified 24 Jan 2022

Photos At least one living or private individual is linked to this item - Details withheld.

Notes

MacDonald Associated Names - Associated names have a hazy history. Sometimes they had more than one origin; also clouding the precise location of a particular surname might be that name's proscription or of course a migrant population. Even the spelling of surnames was subject to great variations, shifting from usually Latin or Gaelic and heeding rarely to consisten spelling. In early records there can be several spellings of the same name Undoubtedly contributing to this inconsistency is the handwriting in official records, which was often open to more than one spelling interpretation. With regard to the 'Mac' prefix, this was, of course, from the Gaelic meaning, "son of", It wasn't long Gilbride or Macbride - Gillebride was the father of Somerled. Gilbert or Gilbreid McGloid, Time tenant, 1541. Cgillebrite, Earl of Angus a witness in Deer, Aberdeenshire, about 1150 Ref: MacDonald Associated Names STORY OF THE CLAN DONALD (Ref: 929.2 M145) A GENEALOGY COLLECTION ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY HISTORY OF THE CLAN DONALD The Families OF MacDonald, McDonald anb McDonnell BY HENRY LEE NEW YORK R. L. POLK AND COMPANY, INC Copyright 1920 by L. Polk & County, Inc., New York TABLE OF CONTENTS: CHAPTER I Origin of the Qan Innse Gall The Clann CboUa Conn of a Hundred Fights Soraerled, King of the Isles The Story of Somerled. CHAPTER II The Lords of the Isles, Ancestors of the Families of MacDonald, McDonald and McDonnell The Red ... Hand "Lord of the Isles, my Trust in Thee is firm Q as Aisia Rock" The Baul Muluy Good John of Isla Donald of Harlaw Donald Dubb. Chapter III Territories of the Isles Ceremonies and Customs Hereditary Officers of the Clan The Bards Duntulm and Other Strongholds The Badge, The Galley and The Eagle. Chapter IV Branches of the Clan The Chiefship Sleat McDonnell of Glengarry Clan Ranald. Chapter V Dunnyveg and The Glens Keppoch Glencoe The Mac Ruaries Alastair Mor and the Clan Allister The Family of Ulster Sorley Buy and the Family of Antrim Clan Donald of Connaught and Leinster. Chapter VI Early American History of the Clan Early Settlers Bryan MacDonald Angus McDonald of Virginia John and William McDonald The Clan in the Revolution Civil War Records. Chapter VII Later Records of the Clan in the United States. Chapter VIII Lines of Descent in Scotland, England and Ireland Heads of Branches of the Clan Notable Members of the Clan in the British Empire. Chapter IX Armorial Bearings. PREFACE - All races of men seem to have an intuitive feeling that it is a subject of legitimate pride to be one of a clan or family whose name is written large in past history and present affairs. Everybody likes to know something about his forefathers, and to be able to tell to his children the tales or stories about their ancestors, which he himself has heard from his parents. The commandment "Honor thy father and thy mother" is good and sufficient authority for that feeling of reverence which is so generally shown towards a line of honorable ancestry. The history of the family was a matter of much importance to the Greeks; it was the custom of the early Roman to place in the aula of his house the images of the illustrious men of his family ; the Chinese go so far as to magnify such reverence into ancestor worship, and even the red Indian of our own Northwest recorded the traditions of his ancestors on the totem of his tribe. Well, then, may the story of the chivalry, courage and even lawlessness (so often the mate of courage) of their forefathers find a responsive echo in the hearts of the Clan Donald of the present generation, "who come of ane house and are of ane surname, notwithstanding this lang time bygone." It is not intended in this "History of the Clan Donald Clan Donald" to attempt any genealogical investigation or show any family tree, but rather to tell of those bygone men of the Clan, in whose achievements and history it is the common heritage of all who bear the name to take pride and interest. Old stories of clansmen of reckless bravery, who were good and true friends but were fierce and bitter enemies. Stories of men of the clan who fought hard, lived hard and died as they fought and lived. Those olden days may seem a time of scant respect for law, of misdirected chivalry and of brave deeds often wrongly done, but there is surely no true Mac-Donald, McDonald or McDonnell who, in his inmost heart, is not proud to claim descent from a clan whose ancient records are replete with such traditions; whose later records tell of those early adventurers who left their native hills and glens for the new land of promise, and whose descendants have, in more prosaic times, earned honors in literature, arms and art. "It is wise for us to recur to the history of our ancestors. Those who do not look upon themselves as links connecting the past with the future do not fulfill their duty in the world." History of the Clan Donald The Families of MacDonald, McDonald and Mcdonnell CHAPTER I The Clan Donald is one of the most numerous and widespread of the clans, and includes several families, who, while using different surnames or different methods of writing the same surname, have an identical genealogical derivation. Of these, the families of MacDonald or McDonald, and MacDonnell or McDonnell, are the most important. The mode of writing is immaterial, the name is the same; they are of one stock; and the story of the Clan Donald is the story of their ancestors. As told later, the Clan derived its generic name from Donald, the grandson of Somerled; and hence the name Mac-Donald, or son of Donald, Mac, or the Gaelic Mhic, signifying son. By abbreviating the prefix to Mc and M' many families write the name McDonald and M'Donald. The surname MacDonnell, McDonnell, McDonell, and other forms and methods of writing this name, came first into use, when, as men- tioned in Chapter IV, Aeneas MacDonald of the Glengarry branch was, in 1660, raised to the Peerage of Scotland by the title of Lord MacDonell. In the earlier chapters the family name has been written in its unabbreviated form, MacDonald, although, even in those bygone days the shorter forms of Mac were frequently used; and any record of names in Scotland of today will indicate that the prefix is quite as frequently Mc as Mac. In the case of the modern families descended from the Clan, that mode of orthography has been followed, which, from long usage, the families have rightly been in the habit of using. The important position occupied by the Clan Donald and its branches invests the narrative of its rise and history with unusual interest to all, but more especially to those of the Clan, who may well refer with pride to iheir noble descent from the independent rulers of the island principality, the Kings of the Isles. The early history and descent of the Clan are involved in the cloudy shades of antiquity; and its origin is connected with many of the most interesting questions of Scottish ethnology. After the evacuation of Britain by the Romans, the country north of the Firth of Forth was occupied by a Pictish people designated the Alban Gael, whom historians agree were of the same race as the Cruithne of Ireland, and whose language was a type of the modern Scottish Gaelic. This people probably came first to Scotland between 500 B. C. and 300 B. C. To the south, the Scots of Dalriada occupied part of Argyll, and the country of Mull, Islay and the Southern Isles. The Alban Gaels or Picts, north of the Forth, were divided into the Northern Picts, who held the country north of the Grampians, and the Southern Picts. When, in 844, the Dalriads, Scots and Southern Picts were united in one kingdom by Kenneth MacAlpin, the Northern Picts History of the Clan Donald ll remained unaffected by the union. Included in the territory occupied by these Picts, or Alban Gael, were the Western Islands, known to the Gael as Innse-Gall, or the Islands of the Strangers, which later formed part of the dominion of the Kings of the Isles, progenitors of the Clan Donald. In these early days the Islands were constantly ravaged by the Norsemen and the Danes, who kept the whole western seaboard in a state of perpetual turmoil. "When watchfires burst across the main From Rona, and Uist and Skye, To tell that the ships of the Dane And the red-haired slayer were nigh; Our Islesmen rose from their slumbers, And buckled on their arms. But few, alas! were their numbers To Lochlin's mailed swarms; And the blade of the bloody Norse Has filled the shores of the Gael With many a floating corse and many a widow's wail." When Harold, the Fair Haired, in the year 875, constituted himself King of the whole of Norway, many of the small independent jarls, or princes, of that country refused to acknowledge his authority, and came to the Innse-Gall, or Western Isles. Harold pursued them, and conquered Man, the Hebrides, Shetlands and Orkneys. The year following this conquest, the Isles rose in rebellion against Harold, who sent his cousin Ketil to restore order; but Ketil exceeded his instructions, and declared himself King of the Isles, being followed by a succession of Kings, until the Isles were finally added to Scotland. Allied with these Norse sea rovers was a Pictish people, called the Gall Gael, and Dr. Skene, the historian, claims that from the Gall Gael sprung the ancestors of the Clan Donald. The name Gall has always been applied by the Gael to strangers, and Skene maintains that the Western Gaels came, by association, to resemble their Norwegian allies in characteristics and mode of life, and thus acquired the descriptive name of Gall. The historical founder of the Family of the Isles was Somerled, Rex Insularum, for whom some writers have claimed a Norwegian origin, but although the name is Norse all other circumstances point to a different conclusion. The traditions of the Clan Donald invariably represent that he descended from the ancient Pictish division of the Gael, and the early history of the Clan Cholla, the designation of the Clan prior to the time of Donald, penetrates into far antiquity. Tradition takes us back to the celebrated Irish King, Conn-Ceud Chathach, or Conn of a Hundred Fights, the hundredth "Ard Righ," or supreme King of Ireland. Conn's court was at Tara and he died in 157 A. D. The Scottish poet Ewen MacLachlan refers to this early royal ancestor of the race of Somerled. HISTORY OF THE CLAN DONALD - "Before the pomp advanced in kingly grace I see the stem of Conn's victorious race, Whose sires of old the Western sceptre swayed. Which all the Isles and Albion's half obeyed." Fourth in descent from Conn came Eochaid Duibhlein, who married a Scottish Princess, Aileach, a daughter of the King of Alba. An old Irish poem describes the Princess as "a mild, true woman, modest, blooming till the love of the Gael disturbed her, and she passed with him from the midst of Kintyre to the land of Uladh." Their three sons all bore the name of Colla Colla Uais, Colla Meann and Colla da Crich. The designation Colla was "imposed on them for rebelling," and means a strong man, their original names being Cairsall, Aodh and Muredach. The three Collas went to Scotland to obtain the assistance of their kindred to place Colla Uais on the Irish throne, and with their help placed him there, but he was compelled to give way to a relative, Muredach Tirech, who had a better title to the sovereignty. The three brothers then returned to Scotland, where they obtained extensive settlements and founded the Clan Cholla. Colla Uais died in 337 A. D. Three generations after Colla Uais came Ere, who died in 502 A. D., leaving three sons, Fergus, Lorn and Angus. Fergus came from Ireland to Scotland and founded in Argyllshire the Kingdom of Dalriada in Albany, which later extended and became the Kingdom of Scotland. At this point the Clan Donald line touches that of the Scottish Kings, History of the Clan Donald showing their common origin and ancestry. Fergus had two sons, Domangart, the elder, who succeeded his father and was the progenitor of Kenneth Macalpin, and the line of Scottish Kings ; and Godfruich, or Godfrey, the younger son, who was known as Toshach or Ruler of the Isles, and was the progenitor of the line from which the Clan Donald sprang. The Seannachies carry the line through several generations, through Hugh the Fair Haired, who was inaugurated Ruler of the Isles by St. Columba in lona, in 574, through Ethach of the Yel- low Locks, and Aidn of the Golden Hilted Sword, who died in 621, down to Etach III, who died in 733, having first united the Isles after they had been alternately ruled by Chiefs of the Houses of Fergus and Lorn. Kenneth MacAlpin, the first King of the united Dalriads, Scots and Picts, married the daughter of Godfrey, a later Lord of the Isles. We now arrive at the immediate ancestors of Somerled. Hailes in his Annals relates that, in 973, Marcus, King of the Isles ; Kenneth, King of the Scots, and Malcolm, King of the Cambri, entered into a bond for mutual defense. Then followed Gilledomnan, the grandfather of Somerled. Gilledomnan was driven from the Isles by the Scandinavians, and died in Ireland, where he had taken refuge. His son, Gillebride, who had gone to Ireland with his father, obtained the help of the Irish of the Clan Cholla, and, landing in Argyll, made a gallant attempt to expel the invaders. The Norsemen proved too strong, and Gillebride was compelled to hide in the woods and caves of Morven. At this time, when the fortunes of the Clan were at the lowest ebb, there arose a savior in the person of one of the most celebrated of Celtic heroes, Somerled, the son of Gillebride. He was living with his father in the caves of Morven and is described in an ancient chronicle as "A well tempered man, in body shapely, of a fair and piercing eye, of middle stature and quick discernment." His early years were passed in hunting and fishing; "his looking glass was the stream; his drinking cup the heel of his shoe ; he would rather spear a salmon than spear a foe ; he cared more to caress the skins of seals and otters than the shining hair of women. At present he was as peaceful as a torch or beacon unlit. The hour was coming when he would be changed, when he would blaze like a burnished torch, or a beacon on a hilltop against which the wind is blowing." But when the Isles' men, over whom his ancestors had ruled, were in dire need of a leader, Somerled came forward in his true character. A local tradition in Skye tells that the Islesmen held a council at which they decided to offer Somerled the chiefship, to be his and his descendants forever. They found Somerled fishing, and to him made their offer. Somerled replied, "Islesmen, there is a newly run salmon in the black pool yonder. If I catch him, I will go with you as your Chief; if I catch him not, I shall remain where I am." The Islesmen, a race who believed implicitly in omens, were content, and Somerled cast line over the black pool. Soon after a shining salmon leapt in the sun, and the skillful angler had the silvery fish on the river bank. The Islesmen acclaimed him their leader, and as such he sailed back with them "over the sea to Skye," where the people joyously proclaimed that the Lord of the Isles had come. Such is the tradition in Skye. Other accounts say that the scene of Somerled's first achievements was in Morven, and his conquest of the Isles later. Somerled, Rex Insularum, took his place as a leader of men, from whom descended a race of Kings, a dynasty distinguished in the stormy his- tory of the Middle Ages, who ranked themselves before the Scottish Kings. "The mate of monarchs, and allied On equal terms with England's pride." The young hunter uprose a mighty warrior, who with dauntless courage and invincible sword struck terror into the hearts of his foes. Nor did he depend alone on his matchless courage. In one of his first encounters with the Norse invaders he made full use of that "quick discernment" ascribed to him by the early chronicler. It happened that while on a small island with a following of only one hundred Islesmen, he was surrounded by the whole Nor- wegian fleet, and, realizing that his small force was utterly inadequate to resist their attack, conceived a clever stratagem to deter the Norsemen from landing on the Island. Each of his men was ordered to kill a cow, and this having been done, and the cows skinned, Somerled ordered his little force to march round the hill on which they lay encamped; which having been done, in full view of the enemy, he then made them all put on the cowhides to disguise themselves, and repeat the march round the hill. He now ordered his men to reverse the cowhides, and for a third time march round the hill, thus exhibiting to the Norsemen the appearance of a force composed of three divisions. The ruse succeeded, for the enemy fleet withdrew. This story is related in another form by the bards or seannachies of Sleat, as follows: There was a little hill betwixt them and the enemy, and Somerled ordered his men to put off their coats, and put their shorts and full armor above their coats. So, making them go three times in a disguised manner about the hill, that they might seem more in number than they really were, at last he ordered them to engage the Danes, saying that some of them were on shore and the rest in their ships; that those on shore would fight but faintly so near their ships; withal he exhorted his soldiers to be of good courage, and to do as they would see him do, so they led on the charge. The first whom Somerled slew he ript up and took out his heart, desiring the rest to do the same, because that the Danes were no Christians. So the Danes were put to flight; many of them were lost in the sea endeavouring to gain their ships, the lands of Mull and Morverin being freed at that time from their yoke and slavery. Somerled prosecuted the war into the heart of the enemy's country; and having gained possession of the mainland domain of his forefathers, he took the title of Thane or Regulus of Argyll, determining to obtain possession of the Kingdom of Man and the Isles and thus form a Celtic Kingdom. Olave the Red, then King of Man and the Isles, becoming alarmed at the increasing power of Somerled, arrived vdth a fleet in Stoma Bay. The "quick discernment" of Somerled again proved equal to the occasion. He was desirous of obtaining the hand of Olave's daughter, Ragnhildis, in marriage, and went to meet the King of Man. Somerled wishing to remain unknown to Olave, said, "I come from Somerled, Thane of Argyll, who promises to assist you in your expedition, provided you bestow upon him the hand of your daughter, Ragnhildis." Olave, however, recognized Somerled, and declined his re- quest. Tradition says that Somerled was much in love with the fair Ragnhildis, and considering all is fair in love and war, agreed to the following plan to obtain her father's consent: Maurice MacNeill, a foster brother of Olave, but also a close friend of Somerled, bored several holes in the bottom of the King's galley, making pins to plug them when the necessity arose, but meanwhile filled the holes with tallow and butter. When, next day, Olave put to sea, the action of the water displaced the tallow and butter, and the galley began to sink. Olave and his men in the sinking galley called upon Somerled for aid, who promised help only if Olave would consent to his marriage with Ragnhildis. The promise was given, Olave found safety in Somerled's galley, Maurice MacNeill fixed the pins he had prepared into the holes, and, to the King's amazement, his galley proceeded in safety. The marriage of Somerled and Ragnhildis took place in the year 1140. In 1154, Olave was murdered by his nephews, who claimed half the Kingdom of the Isles. Godred, son of Olave, who was in Norway at the time, returned to the Isles, but his tyranny and oppression caused the Islesmen to revolt, and Somerled, joining forces with them, seized half the Kingdom of the Isles, and became Righ Innsegall, or King of the Isles, as well as Thane of Argyll, Later Somerled invaded the Isle of Man, defeated Godfrey, and became possessed of the whole Kingdom of Man and the Isles. The power of Somerled, King of the Isles, now caused great anxiety on the neighboring mainland, and King Malcolm IV of Scotland dispatched a large army to Argyll. Somerled took up the challenge, and a hard fought battle left both sides too exhausted to continue hostilities. Peace was established between the King of Scotland and Somerled, but after suffering great provocation from Malcolm and his ministers, the King of the Isles again took up arms in 1164, and gathering a great host, 15,000 strong, with a fleet of 164 galleys, sailed up the Clyde to Greenock. He disembarked in the Bay of St. Lawrence, and marched to Renfrew, where the King of Scotland's army lay. The traditional version of what then occurred is, that feeling reluctant to join issue with the Highland host, and being numerically inferior, Malcolm's advisers determined to accomplish the death of Somerled by treachery. They bribed a young nephew of Somerled, named Maurice MacNeill, to visit his uncle and murder him. MacNeill was admitted to Somerled's tent, and find- ing him off his guard, stabbed him to the heart. When Somerled's army learnt of the fate of their great leader, they fled to their galleys and dispersed. Tradition tells of a dramatic episode that is said to have occurred when King Malcolm and his nobles came to view the corpse of their late powerful foe. One of the nobles -kicked the dead hero with his foot. When Maurice MacNeill, the murderer, saw this cowardly action, the shame of his own foul deed came upon him. He denounced his past treachery, and confessed that he had sinned "most villainously and against his own conscience," being "unworthy and base to do so." He stabbed to the heart the man who had insulted the mighty Somerled, and fled. Through one Maurice MacNeill had Somerled won a bride, and at the hands of another Maurice MacNeill met his death. With regal pomp and ceremony the body of the King of the Isles was buried in lona's piles, Where rest from mortal coil the mighty of the Isles." Family tradition, however, says that the Monastery of Saddel was the final resting place of mighty founder and progenitor of the line of Princes that sat upon the Island throne, from whom descended the great Clan Donald. CHAPTER II Omerled was succeeded by his three sons, among whom his kingdom was divided. Reginald obtained Kintyre and Isla, and a part of Arran; Dugall acquired Lorn, Mull and Jura; and Angus succeeded to Bute, part of Arran and the territory laying between Ardnamurchan and Glenelg. The three sons held their possessions as a free and independent principality, owing allegiance neither to Scotland nor Norway. From Reginald, styled on his seal Reginald, Rex Insularum, Dominus de Ergile, sprang the family of Isla. He died in 1207, leaving three sons, Donald, Roderick and Dugall. From Donald descended the powerful Clan which still bears his name. Donald succeeded his father in the Lordship of Kintyre, Isla, and other Island possessions, being known as King of Innsegall, and as such entered into an alliance with Norway against Alexander III of Scotland. A romantic story of these times has been handed down by the seannachies. On one occasion when the galleys were approaching land held by the enemy, their leader, to urge on his followers, swore an oath that the clansman whose hand first touched the shore should be the ovraer of the land forever. The Clan Donald hero of the story sprang to the prow of his galley, and with a stroke of his dirk cut off his hand, and cast it upon the shore, thus obtaining the lands for himself and his descendants. To this day the crest of the MacDonalds is the bleeding hand, and the point where the hand was thrown is still shown in Skye, and known as Ru Barnaskitaig. Donald married a daughter of Walter, the High Steward of Scotland, progenitor of the Royal House of Stewart, and died about the year 1249, leaving two sons, Angus and Alexander, known as Alastair Mor. Angus, Lord of Isla, styled by the seannachies Angus Mor, had his lands ravaged by Alexander in of Scotland in 1255, so that, in 1263, when King Haco of Norway arrived in the Isles, Angus joined the Norwegians. Shortly afterwards, however, he was on friendly terms again with the Scottish King, for, in 1284, he was one of the three nobles from Argyll present at the convention by which the Maid of Norway was declared heiress to the Throne of Scotland. Angus Mor died about 1292. He had two sons, Alexander, his successor, and Angus. The elder son, Alexander of Isla, married a daughter of Ewen of Lorn, thereby acquiring a large addition to his possessions, but having joined the Lord of Lorn in his opposition to Robert the Bruce, he became involved in the ruin of that Lord. Alexander was imprisoned in Dundonald Castle, where he died. His whole possessions were forfeited, and given to his brother Angus Og MacDonald, who had supported the claims of the Bruce. Angus Og was a protector of Robert the Bruce during the time of his greatest distress, and after the defeat of Methven gave Bruce a hospitable welcome to his Castle of Dunaverty, in August, 1306. Barbour, the metrical historian of the Bruce, mentions this. "And Angus of He that tyme was Syr And Lord and ledar of Kyntyr, The King rycht weill resawyt he And undertook his man to be. And for mair sekyrness gaiff him syne His Castle of Dcnaverdyne." At the Battle of Bannockburn, Angus Og and his men of the Isles, estimated by some historians at 10,000 men, were a potent factor in determining the issue of the conflict, and securing Bruce's famous victory. When the engagement between the main bodies had lasted some time, Bruce made a decisive movement, by bringing up the Scottish reserve. Tradition says that, at this crisis in the battle the Bruce addressed the Lord of the Isles in a phrase used as a motto by some of his descendants, "My trust is constant in thee," and the words of Scott nobly express the spirit of the scene : "One effort more, and Scotland's free ! Lord of the Isles, my trust in thee Is firm as Ailsa Rock." As a reward for the services rendered by Clan Donald at Bannockburn, the Clan was granted, at the wish of the Bruce, the proud privilege in every battle of occupying the place of honor in the right wing of the Scottish army. Bruce also bestowed upon Angus Og the Lordship of Lochaber, with the lands of Duror and Glencoe, and the Islands of Mull, Jura, Coll and Tiree. Angus married a daughter of Cunbui O'Cathan, a baron of Ulster, and with her came an unusual portion from Ireland in the form of men from twenty-four clans, from whom twenty-four families in Scotland descended. The descendants of these men are known to this day in the Highlands as "Tochradh nighean a' Chathanaich," or the dowry of O'Cathan's daughter. Angus Og died at his Castle of Finlaggan in Islay, in 1330, and was buried in the ancestral tomb in lona. His son John succeeded him, and he had another son John, said by the sennachies to have been illegitimate, and known as Iain Fraoch, progenitor of the family of Glencoe and the MacDonalds of Fraoch. Tradition gives much of the credit for the military successes of Angus Og and the Clan to a magical green stone called the Baul Muluy, or Stone Globe of Molingus or Maoliosa, the name by which was known St. Laserian, a saint who flourished during the early Columban period. This magic stone is said to have healed the sick, and brought victory to the Clan. A seventeenth century writer on the Western Isles thus describes the Baul Muluy: "I had like to have forgot a valuable curiosity which they call the Baul Muluy, i. e., Molingus his Stone Globe; This Saint was chaplain to Mack Donald of the Isles ; his name is celebrated here on account of this globe, so much esteem'd by the Inhabitants. This stone for its intrinsick value has been carefully transmitted to Posterity for several ages. It is a green stone, much like a Globe in Figure, about the bigness of a Goose Egg. The vertues of it is to remove stitches from the sides of sick Persons, by laying it close to the place affected, and if the Patient does not outlive the Distemper, they say the Stone removes out of the Bed of its own accord. They ascribe another extraordinary Vertue to it, and 'tis this : the credulous Vulgar firmly believe that if this Stone is cast among the Front of an Enemy, they will run away, and that as often as the Enemy rallies, if this stone is cast amongst them, they still lose courage and retire. They say that Mack Donald of the Isles carried this about with him, and that victory was always on his side when he threw it among the enemy." The stone continued to be used for the "cure of both man and beast" until about 1840, when it was lost "by being committed to the custody of a gentleman who partook too much of the scepticism of the age to have any faith in its virtue." John, the son of Angus Og, succeeded to the Lordship of the Isles, and was known as Good John of Isla, because of his gifts to the Church. He died at his own Castle of Artornish. An ancient manuscript translated from the Gaelic tells how "many priests and monks took the sacrament at his funeral, and they embalmed the body of this dear man, and brought it to Icolumkill; the abbot, monks, and vicar came as they ought to meet the King of Fiongal (i. e., Western Isles), and out of great respect to his memory mourned eight days and nights over it, and laid it in the same grave with his father, in the church of Oran, 1380." He was twice married. He first married Amie MacRuari, sister of Ranald, to whose estates she succeeded. By her, he had three sons : John, who died in the lifetime of his father ; Ranald, the ancestor of Clan Ranald and Glengarry ; and Godfrey. Without any cause he divorced his first wife, with whom he had obtained such great possessions, and married the Princess Margaret, daughter of King Robert II, the first Stewart King of Scotland. By his second wife, he had several sons, Donald, the eldest, who became his successor; John the Tainister, or Thane, ancestor of the family of Dunnyveg ; Angus, who left no issue ; Alexander, known as Alastair Carrach, ancestor of the family of Keppoch; and Hugh, whose descendants became Macintoshes. Ranald, the son of John by his first marriage, was chief ruler of the Isles in his father's lifetime and "was old in the government at his father's death. He assembled the gentry of the Isles, brought the sceptre from Kildonan in Eig, and delivered it to his brother Donald, who was thereupon called Donald, Lord of the Isles, contrary to the opinion of the men of the Isles." Donald, afterwards known as Donald of Harlaw, therefore succeeded his father. Under the feudal law, the sons of the first wife would have succeeded by seniority, but such succession did not necessarily take place under the Celtic law of tanistry, or elective chiefship. Further, by Royal Charter of Robert II, the destination of the Lordship of the Isles was so altered as to cause it to descend to the grandchildren of the King. Therefore, as before mentioned, Ran- ald handed over to Donald the sceptre of Innesgall. Donald married the Lady Mary Leslie, afterwards Countess of Ross in her own right, which Earldom Donald claimed through his wife, thereby becoming involved in a contest with the Regent Duke of Albany. Donald prepared to defend his rights, the Fiery Cross blazed through the Isles, and the whole clan rallied to the fight. With "Fifty thousand Hie- lanmen, a marching to Harlaw," Donald was met by the Earl of Mar at the head of the Lowlanders, and the celebrated Battle of Harlaw was fought on the 24th June, 1411. As told in the old ballad, neither side could claim superiority. "At Monanday at mornin' The battle it began. On Saturday at gloamin' Ye'd scarce tell wha had wan. And sic a weary buryin' The like ye never saw As there was the Sunday after that On the muirs down by Harlaw." Donald of Harlaw died in Isla, in 1420, leaving two sons, Alexander, who succeeded him as Lord of the Isles and Earl of Ross; and Angus, Bishop of the Isles. Alexander, Lord of the Isles, had three sons, John, who succeeded him ; Hugh, Lord of Sleat ; and Celestine, who became Lord of Lochlash. John, Lord of the Isles, and Earl of Ross, on 13th February, 1462, entered into a treaty with Edward IV of England, and the banished Earl of Douglas for the conquest of Scotland, and the division of the Kingdom, north of the Forth, between the Earl of Ross, the Earl of Douglass, and Donald Balloch, Lord of Dunnyveg and Captain of the Clan Donald. On entering into the treaty John used the style of an independent Prince, granting a commission to his "trusty and well beloved cousins, Ranald of the Isles, and Duncan, Archdeacon of the Isles," to confer with the representatives of Edward IV. The Lord of the Isles raised a large force under his natural son, Angus, and Donald Balloch, and seized the burghs and sheriffdom of Inverness, Nairn, Ross and Caith- ness. The Government suppressed the rebellion and John was summoned before Parliament for treason. He, however, made his peace with King James III, and in July, 1476, was restored to the Earldom of Ross and Lordship of the Isles. He voluntarily resigned the Earldom of Ross and the lands of Kintyre and Knapdale, and instead was created a Peer of Parliament by the title of Lord of the Isles. He had no son by his wife, Elizabeth, daughter of Lord Livingston, but the succession to the new peerage, and the estates, was secured in favor of his natural son, Angus. The resignation of the Earldom of Ross and the lands of Kintyre and Knapdale angered the leading men of the Isles, who, in opposition to the Lord of the Isles, joined his son Angus in an attempt to recover the Earldom. At the head of a large force of Islesmen, Angus took the field. The Earl of Athole was sent against him, but was defeated, and the Earls of Crawford and Huntly met with no better success. A third force sent against him under the Earls of Argyll and Athole, was accompanied by Angus' father, and a hard-fought battle, known as the Battle of Bloody Bay, resulted in the complete victory of Angus and his followers. Angus obtained possession of the territories of the Clan, and was recognized as its head. He was later reconciled to his father, but remained in open resistance to the Government during the remainder of his life. Angus had married a daughter of the Earl of Argyll, and some ancient accounts say that she was the mother of the infant Donald Dubh, who was carried off by the Duke of Athole, and placed in the hands of Argyll, who imprisoned the child in the Castle of Inchconnel. But as to who really was the mother of Angus' son, Donald Dubh, the seannachies do not know. Angus avenged himself terribly on Athole, whose territory he raided, burning and slaughtering. Another feud in which Angus was involved resulted in his death, in 1490. This feud with Mackenzie of Kintail was caused by the latter's treatment of his wife, the half sister of Angus. Mackenzie had married the Lady Margaret of the Isles, daughter of John of the Isles. The lady is said to have been blind in one eye. Their married life was neither long nor happy, and the story goes that Mackenzie sent the one-eyed lady home to Angus, riding on a one-eyed horse, attended by a one-eyed servant, followed by a one-eyed dog. To avenge the affront of the one-eyed entourage, Angus marched to Inverness to attack Mackenzie, where he was murdered by his own harper, MacCairbre, who cut his throat with a long knife. Alexander of Locklash, nephew of John and son of his brother Celestine, succeeded to the Lordship of the Isles, and led the Clan to Inverness in an endeavor to recover possession of the Earldom of Ross. Having taken the Royal Castle of Inverness he proceeded to ravage the Strathconnan lands of the Mackenzies who, however, surprised and defeated the invaders, Alexander being wounded. In consequence of this insurrection, the Estates in Edinburgh, May, 1493, declared the title and possessions of the Lord of the Isles to be forfeited to the Crown. John, the former Lord, retired to the Monastery of Paisley, where he died about 1498, and, at his request, was buried in the tomb of his royal ancestor, Robert II of Scotland. In 1497, Alexander, again invaded Ross, but was surprised at the Island of Oransay, and put to death. In 1501, Donald Dubh, who, as before mentioned, had been kidnapped in infancy by the Duke of Ath- ole, and confined by Argyll in the Castle of Inchconnel, was released by the MacDonalds of Glencoe, by the strong hand. The Islesmen now regarded him as their chieftain, and maintained that he was the lawful son of Angus and his wife, the Lady Margaret Campbell. On his escape from Inchconnel, Donald Dubh went to the Isles, and convened the Clan. In 1503, the Islesmen and the western clans, under Donald, invaded Badenoch, necessitating the calling out of the whole force of the Kingdom of Scotland, north of the Forth, to suppress the rebellion, two years elapsing before Donald and his followers were finally overcome. In 1505, the King in person led a force to the Isles to disperse the Islesmen, and Donald Dubh was captured and committed to Edinburgh Castle, where he was kept prisoner for nearly forty years. In 1539, Donald MacDonald of Sleat, Donald Gorme, as lawful heir of John, claimed the Lordship of the Isles, but received a wound in the foot from an arrow, which proved fatal. After nearly forty years imprisonment Donald Dubh, in 1543, escaped, was enthusiastically received by the Island Chiefs, and at the head of a large force invaded Argyll's territory, slew many of his feudatories, and plundered his possessions. In 1545, at the instigation of the Earl of Lennox, the Islesmen agreed to transfer their allegiance to England, and Donald and the Earl agreed to raise an army. To carry on the war a ship was sent by England to Mull with a supply of money, which was given to MacLean of Duart to be distributed among the commanders of the army, which they not receiving in proportion as it should have been distributed among them, caused the army to disperse. The Earl of Lennox then disbanded his own men, and made his peace with the King. Donald Dubh went to Ireland to raise men, but died on his way to Dublin, at Drogheda, of a fever, without issue of either sons or daughters. With him terminates the direct line of the Lords of the Isles, and the title, annexed inalienably to the Crown, forms one of the titles of the Prince of Wales. CHAPTER III THE power and importance of the ancestors of the Clan Donald, from whom the families of MacDonald, McDonald, McDonnell and other branches of the Clan take descent, is shown by the extensive territories, regal state and ceremonies, belonging to, and observed by those ancestors, the ancient Kings of Innsegall, the Lords of the Isles. The number of the Western Isles of Scotland exceeds two hundred. The principal possessions of the Lords of the Isles included the following territories in these Isles, and on the mainland. The Island of Ysla, or Isla, was in ancient times the principal abode of the Lord of the Isles, and is one of the largest and most important of the Islands. Loch Finlagan lies in the centre of the Isle. The lake takes its name from Isle Finlagan, which is located in the loch, and is "famous for being once the court in which the great MacDonald, King of the Isles, had his residence. His guards de corps, called Lucht-tach, kept guard on the lakeside nearest to the Isle." Here were observed the installation and other ceremonies referred to later. Among other Island territories were the Isles of Gigha, Jura, Tiree, Eigg, Ronin or Rum, Lewethy 34 History of the Clan Donald 85 or Lewis, Harris, North Uist, South Uist, Ben- becula, Barra, Canna, "And arba's Isle, whose tortured shore Still rings to Corrievreken's roar, And lonely Colonsay." On the mainland were the Lordship of Lochaber, including Kilmallie and Kilmoivoig, The Lordship of Garmoran, including Moydart, Arisaig, Morar and Knoydart. Also Morven, Knapdale, Duror, Kintyre and Glencoe. Each Island is replete with historical interest. The little Isle of Canna adjoins Ronin, or Rum. In a pretty bay on Canna there is a lofty and slender rock, detached from the shore, upon the summit of which are the ruins of a very small tower. "Canna's tower, that, steep and gray, Like falcon nest o'erhangs the bay." The tower is scarcely accessible by a steep and precipitous path, and here it is one of the Kings, or Lords of the Isles, confined a beautiful lady of whom he was jealous, and whose restless spirit is said to still haunt the ruin. Ronin, or Rum, is a very rough and mountainous Island, "sixteen myle long and six in bredthe in the narrowest, an forest of heigh mountains and abundance of little deir in it." On the shore of the Isle of Eigg is a cavern, invisible from the sea, which was the scene of a fierce feudal vengeance. This cave has a very narrow entrance, through which it is just possible to enter on all fours, but rises steep and lofty within, and runs far into the rock. Here two hundred of the MacDonalds were slain by the MacLeods. Tradition says that the MacDonalds of Eigg had done some injury to the Chieftain of MacLeod. The story on the Isle tells that it was by a personal attack on the Chieftain, whose back was broken. Other accounts say that some MacLeods, who had landed on Eigg, using some freedom with the young women of the Mac-Donalds, were bound hand and foot and turned adrift in their boat. To avenge the offense, Mac-Leod sailed to Eigg with such a force of men as to render resistance hopeless. The MacDonalds, fearing his vengeance, concealed themselves in the cave, and after a long search the MacLeods returned to their galleys, thinking the MacDonalds had fled from the Isle. But next morning the MacLeods espied from their galleys a man on the shore, and, at once landing, traced his footsteps in the snow to the mouth of the cavern. They surrounded the entrance and summoned the refugees in the cave to deliver up the offending individuals. This was refused, and MacLeod then kindled, at the entrance of the cavern, a huge fire of turf and fern, and maintained it until all within were destroyed by suffocation. The bones of men, women and children long remained on the stony floor of the cavern, a mournful testimony to the fierce vengeance of MacLeod. In the Island of Skye the Lords of the Isles also held extensive possessions, and at Duntulm is their ancient Castle, with the Hill of Pleas nearby, where in former days the MacDonalds sat dispensing justice. Sheriff Nicholson's poetic description of Skye may equally well apply to the natural beauties of others of the Islands, each one an Isle of Mist. "Lovest thou mountains great, Peaks to the clouds that soar, Corrie and fell where eagles dwell. And cataracts dash evermore? Lovest thou green grassy glades. By the sunshine sweetly kist. Murmuring waves and echoing caves? Then go to the Isle of Mist." Among the above mainland possessions of the Lords of the Isles is included Kintyre, although in ancient times, Magnus, the barefooted King of Norway, obtained it as an Island, when Donald Bane of Scotland ceded to him "the Western Isles, or all those places that can be surrounded in a boat." The Mull, or promontory, of Kintyre is joined to the mainland of South Knapdale by a very narrow neck of land, the arms of the sea on either side being divided by less than a mile. Magnus obtained Kintyre as an "Island" by a ruse. He placed himself in the stern of a boat, held the rudder, and had the boat drawn over the narrow neck of land. The ceremony observed at the Proclamation of a new Lord of the Isles was in every way regal in pomp and display. At the time appointed for the solemn inauguration, there were gathered together the Bishop of the Isles, the Bishop of Argyll and seven priests, together with all the heads of the tribes of the Clan in the Isles and mainland. They took up their allotted stations round a big stone of seven foot square in which there was a deep impression made to receive the feet of MacDonald ; for he was crowned King of the Isles standing in this stone, "denoting that he would walk in the footsteps and uprightness of his predecessors." He was invested with a white mantle to show his purity of spirit and integrity of heart, and that he would be a guiding light unto his people, and maintain the true religion. The mantle was a perquisite of the hereditary seannachy, or bard, of the Clan. The Bishop then gave to the Chief "a white rod in his hand, intimating that he had power to rule, not with tyranny and partiality, but with discretion and sincerity. He was then invested with the sword of his forefathers, as a symbol that it was his duty to protect his people. The new Lord was lastly blessed and solemnly anointed by the Bishop and the seven priests, and the seannachies recited the long list and glories of the Chief's forefathers. The ceremonies were concluded by a week's feasting of all present by the Lord of the Isles. The Lord's Council of the Isles, sixteen in number, met at Isle Finlagan, round a table of stone, at the head of which, on a stone seat, sat MacDonald. The Council of the Isles was composed of four Thanes; four Armins, or Sub-Thanes ; four squires, and four freeholders. There was the right of appeal to the Council from all the courts in the Isles, which latter were held on hills in the different Islands. Three hills in Skye are still known as The Hill of Judgment, The Hill of Counsel, and The Hill of Hanging. In all matters of life and death the word of the Lord of the Isles was final, and grim justice was often dispensed. The ancient records tell of a guilty couple who were buried alive, and of criminals who were put to death by being placed in barrels lined with spikes, and rolled down a hill, called to this day Cnoc Roill, or Barrel Hill. In addition to the Council, the Lords of the Isles had various Officers of State, with certain duties hereditary in their families : The MacBeths were their physicians, men of great learning, with extensive knowledge of the properties of herbs. The Mackinnons or Clan Finan, Hereditary Mar- shals; with the Mackinnes as hereditary bowmen to the Mackinnons. The MacDuffies of Colonsay were their Recorders. The MacLavertys, their speakers or Orators, whose duties included the preservation of the genealogy of the family, and the preparation of the nuptial song on the occasion of marriages, and other eulogies, which the seannachy recited. Their peculiar method of study has been described: "They shut their doors and windows for a day's time, and lie on their backs, with a stone upon their belly and plads about their heads, and their eyes covered, they pump their brains for rhetorical encomium or panegyrick." The MacSporrans, their Purse Bearers. The MacVurichs, their Bards, are more fully referred to below. The MacArthurs were their Pipers. They are a branch of the Clan Campbell and from time immemorial a long line of hereditary pipers to the Lords of the Isles were MacArthurs, who held the lands of Hunglater in Trotternish. The last of the line of hereditary pipers of the MacArthur family died in 1800. The MacRurys were their hereditary Armorers in Trotternish. Under the Lordship of the Isles there was a College or heirarchy of bards. In Angus Og's Charter to the Abbey of lona one of the witnesses is Lachlan MacVurich, described as Archipoeta, or Chief Poet. Then and afterwards the MacVurichs were learned in Irish, English and Latin, and the fact that they studied in the Colleges of Ireland seems borne out by the Hibernian smack in many of their compositions. After the fall of the Lordship of the Isles, they adhered to the fortunes of the Clan Ranald branch, from whom they received as the emoluments of their office, the farm of Stelligarry, and four pennies of the farm of Dremisdale. After 1745, the office of family bard was abandoned by the Clan Ranald. Among the hereditary bards were those of the MacDonalds of Sleat, and a family of the name of MacRuari held lands in Trotternish in virtue of their office as bards to this family. The influence of the bards as a moral force in the social system of the Isles was considerable. It was their function to sing the prowess and fame of those who had won distinction in the field, and to incite the men of their own day to imitate the heroes of the past. A number of ancient customs and superstitions prevailed among the Islesmen, many, no doubt, originating from the nature of their Island home. The forces of nature seen at their grandest in the towering mountains, foaming torrents, precipitous crags and mountain lochs, were in the minds of the superstitious Islesmen subject to the influence of various friendly and malign spirits, abiding in the black unfathomed depths, giddy recesses and gullies filled with hardened snow. An overflowing lake or a disaster on a mountain precipice were directly to be ascribed to the evil influence of some power inhabiting the region. The kelpie, or water horse, in every loch, was believed to warn by preternatural noises those about to be drowned, and each rushing mountain stream had its own particular water fairy. They had several methods of consulting the fates. One of the most remarkable was when a number of men retired to a lonely and secluded place, where one of the number was, with the exception of his head, enveloped in a cow's hide, and left alone for the night. Certain invisible beings then came, and answering the questions which he put to them, relieved him. Another method of seeking information was known as the Taghairm nan caht, and consisted in putting a live cat on a spit, and roasting it until other cats made their appearance, and, answering the question, obtained the release of the unfortunate animal. A story is told concerning one of the clergy of the Isles who was a magician, so learned in the black art that he was able to command the services of a certain Satanic gentleman, whom "The old painters limned with a hoof and a horn A beak and a scorpion tail." The reverend magician, wishing to ascertain the date upon which Shrovetide should be observed, went to one of the Island's lofty precipices, and standing on the edge called up his servant from the infernal regions, and at a word transformed him into a horse. Leaping on his back, they set off for Rome, the horse trying to get rid of his rider by propounding questions which involved his master mentioning the name of the Deity in his answer. All in vain. Next morning Rome was reached ; and the high dignitary whom the magician consulted hurried in with a lady's slipper on one foot. He charged the Island parson with his diabolical craft; the cleric wagged an accusing finger at the telltale slipper, obtained the required information, and each resolved to keep the other's secret safely. Another reputed magician connected with the History of the Clan Donald family was one of the MacDonalds of Keppoch. He and Michael Scott, the Wizard of the North, are said to have together studied the black art in Italy at the end of the fifteenth century, and MacDonald, it is said, was the more proficient. He was accustomed to converse with a female brownie, named Glaslig, for whom he was more than a match. On one occasion he asked her the most remote circumstance she remembered, when she replied that she recollected the time when the great Spey, the nurse of salmon, was a green meadow for sheep and lambs to feed on. In lona are certain stones which the Islesmen firmly believed were to hasten the end of the world. The small upper ones seem part of the handle of a cross. When the lower hollowed stone should be worn out by turning them round, then the end of the world would ensue. Nearby, a kind of a font sunk in the ground was the subject of a tradition, that whenever it was emptied of the rain water which it generally contained, a northerly breeze would immediately spring up. An impressive and reverent ritual was followed on the occasion of a galley putting to sea. The steersman said, "Let us bless our ship"; the crew responding, "God the Father bless her." Each person of the Trinity was successively invoked, and the steersman then asked what they feared if God the Father be with them, repeating the same question for each of the Trinity, and to each of the three questions the crew responded "We do not fear anything." Skye's poet, Alexander Nicolson, refers to this Liturgy in "The Bark of Clan Ranald." "May the Holy Trinity's blessing Rule the hurricane breath of the air, And swept be the rough wild waters. To draw us to haven fair." In addition to the customs and beliefs indigenous to their Island home, the Clan Donald had many usages common to all Highland clans. When in any sudden emergency it was necessary to gather the Clan, the cross, or tarich, known as the Fiery Cross, was immediately dispatched through the territories to call the clansmen to the appointed place of rendezvous. This signal consisted of two pieces of wood, which the Chieftain fixed in the shape of a cross. One of the ends of the crosspiece was seared in the fire, and extinguished in the blood of a goat which had been killed by the Chief, while from the other end was suspended a piece of linen or white cloth dipped in the blood of the goat. The Fiery Cross was delivered to a swift messenger, who ran at full speed shouting the battle cry of the clan. The cross was delivered from hand to hand, and as each fresh runner sped on his way the clan assembled with great celerity. At sight of the Fiery Cross every man of the clan, from sixteen to sixty, was obliged to instantly repair, prepared for battle, to the place of rendezvous; as told in "The Pibroch of Donald Dhu": "Come every hill-plaid, and True heart that wears one, Come every steel blade, and Strong hand that bears one. Leave untended the herd, The flock without shelter ; Leave the corpse uninterr'd The bride at the altar ; Leave the deer, leave the steer. Leave net and barges : Come with your fighting gear. Broadswords and targes !" Every clansman, from childhood, was trained to battle for the clan and its Chief, and to excel in hardihood and endurance. The reproach of effeminancy was the most bitter which could be thrown upon him. It is related of an old chieftain, of over seventy years of age, that when he and his followers were surprised by night, he Wrapped his plaid around him and lay contentedly in the snow. His grandson had rolled a large snowball and placed it under his head. "Out upon thee," said the old Chief, kicking the frozen bolster away; "art thou so effeminate as to need a pillow?" Angus Og led 10,000 of such bold and hardy men of the Clan Donald to the field of Bannockburn, and Donald commanded no less a force at Harlow ; while the number of galleys that accompanied the Lord of the Isles to sea varied from sixty to one hundred and sixty. The following account of the early drinking customs sounds strange in these times: - "The manner of drinking used by the chief man of the Isles is called in their language Streak, i.e., a Round; for the company sat in a circle, the cup-bearer fill'd the drink round to them, and all was drunk out, whatever the liquor was, whether strong or weak; they continued drinking sometimes twenty-four, sometimes forty-eight hours. It was reckoned a piece of manhood to drink until they became drunk, and there were two men with a barrow attending punctually on such occasions. They stood at the door until some became drunk, and they carry'd them upon the barrow to bed, and returned again to their post as long as any continued fresh, and so carried off the whole company, one by one, as they became drunk." The castles of the Chiefs of Clan Donald were both numerous and picturesque. Usually situated on the seashore to obtain the communication afforded by the ocean, they were veritable fortresses, approachable only by narrow and precipitous stairs or drawbridges, easily defended against any force advancing with hostile purpose. Duntulm, for centuries the chief seat of the MacDonalds of the Isles, stood on the very brink of a cliff down which its windows looked sheer into the sea. In earlier times it was known as Dun Dhaibidh or David, the name of a Viking who had seized it from the Celts. When Donald threw the bloody hand upon the rocky shore, the MacDonalds obtained possession and erected Duntulm Castle. Inaccessible from the sea and almost unapproachable from the landside owing to a deep chasm between the castle and the mainland, up which the sea came foaming at high tide, it was reached only by a drawbridge, controlled by the inmates of the Castle. The garden of the Castle on the summit of the rock is said to have been formed by soil brought by the MacDonalds from seven kingdoms - England, Ireland, Norway, France, Spain, Germany and Denmark, and on the rock were the Hills of Judgment, and of Counsel and the Hill of Hanging. Far below, on the rocks by the shore there is still to be seen a deep groove, which tradition says was caused by the keels of the galleys as they were drawn ashore. Duntulm is now but a ruin, through which, according to popular imagination, stalked the ghost of Donald Gorme, cruelly put to death in the old Castle, to whose weird visitations is ascribed the desertion of Duntulm by the MacDonalds. Another story runs that, about 1750 a nursemaid playing with one of the children of the family, let fall the child out of a window overlooking the rocks far below. "Drown me that woman !" said MacDonald, and the unhappy woman was set adrift in a boat full of holes and left to drown in the sea. As the party who had placed her in the boat returned they saw a white object on the face of the Castle cliff, which proved to be the child caught on a rock by its clothes, and uninjured. Too late, however, to save the wretched nursemaid ; and the catastrophe is said to have caused the MacDonald family to forever leave the castle that was "once the dwelling of a King." One of the most important Castles of the Clan was Artornish, situated in Morven, on the mainland side of the Sound of Mull. At this Castle met the parliaments or assemblies of the vassals and dependents of the Lords of the Isles ; and from here John MacDonald, Earl of Ross and Lord of the Isles, acting as an independent sovereign, dispatched his ambassadors to sign a treaty with Edward IV of England. Opposite Artornish, on a high promontory in the Bay of Aros, on the Island of Mull, was another Castle of the Clan, Aros Castle, where the chieftains of the Isles were first called together, and then made prisoners by order of James VI, in 1608. The Castle of Mingarry is situated on the coast near Ardnamurchan Point. This ancient seat of the Clan was built in the thirteenth century, and was used by Allaster MacDonald, known as Colquitto, as the prison of the covenanters captured by him. Invergarry Castle, the stronghold of the McDonnells of Glengarry, located on a steep and woody brae near the Caledonian Canal, was sacked and burned by the Duke of Cumberland after the rising of 1745. Castletirrim, or Islandtirrim, the seat of Clan Ranald, was situated on a rocky promontory of Moydart. Only a ruin now remains. Allan of Moydart, before joining the Earl of Mar in the rising of 1715, set it on fire, with this spirited address to the Clan, "If we win the day, my King will give me a better house ; if we lose, I shall not require it." The war cry of the Clan Donald, to which every clansman must answer, was Fraoch Eilan, or Heathy Isle ; the McDonnell branch of the Clan claiming as their peculiar slogan, Craig an Fhithich, or The Raven's Rock; while the Clan Ranald branch used the cry, A dh aindeoin cotheireadh e!, or In Spite of All Opposition. The Badge of the Clan is the Fraoch Gorm, or common heath. The Tartan of Clan Ranald, Glengarry and Glencoe is a dark plaid of green, blue and black, with red stripes intersecting ; a white stripe being introduced for distinction in the tartans of Glengarry and Clan Ranald. The striking rose red tartan of the ancient Lords of the Isles is now the tartan of Sleat and Keppoch; the Sleat tartan being, however, without the black line found in that of the Lords of the Isles. Although many variations are found in the arms of the different branches of the Clan, two features of the MacDonald arms are almost invariably present, the Galley and the Eagle. The Galley is found as far back as the time of Reginald, the son of Somerled, and is supposed to represent the ship in which the three Princes Colla sailed over from Ireland to Scotland. The outline of the Galley is seen carved in the mortar of a window arch of old Duntulm Castle. In the seal of John, last Lord of the Isles, who was forfeited in the Earldom of Ross, in 1476, we find the Eagle against the mast of the Galley; the two emblems being symbolical, the Galley of the sovereignty of the Lords over the Western Isles, and the Eagle of the Royal superiority of the Chiefs of Clan Donald. CHAPTER IV - Which of the three branches of the family, Clan Ranald, Glengarry and Sleat, was by right of blood entitled to the Chiefship of the whole Clan Donald, and the male representation of Somerled, has long been a contested point. These are the three Chiefs to whom Sir Walter Scott refers in the Song of Flora Maclvor : "0 ! sprung from the Kings who in Islay kept state, Proud Chiefs of Clan Ranald, Glengarry and Sleat, Combine like three streams from one mountain of snow. And resistless in union rush down on the foe !" The controversy which long existed between the Chiefs, arose from the fact that Donald, the son of Good John of Isla by his second marriage with the Princess Margaret, succeeded his father in preference to Ranald, the son of John of Isla's first marriage with Amie MacRuari. As told in Chapter II, such succession was apparently by Ranald's consent, yet there seems every reason to believe that Ranald was legitimate, and therefore Lord of the Isles de jure, though de facto his younger half-brother superseded him in the succession. As mentioned later in this chapter, the branch of Sleat takes descent from Donald, while from Ranald, the excluded heir, descended the Chiefs of Clan Ranald, and the Chiefs of the McDonnells of Glengarry. Also it is a matter of dispute between the two latter branches whether Allan of Moydart, ancestor of Clan Ranald, or Donald, ancestor of Glengarry, was the elder of the sons of Ranald the superseded son of John of Isla. In 1911 the Chief and Captain of Clan Ranald, M'Donell of Glengarry, and MacDonald of Sleat, entered into an agreement regarding the healing of the ancient dispute. The agreement was come to between the three heads of the branches, viz. : Angus Roderick MacDonald, otherwise Mac Mhic Ailein, Chief and Captain of Clan Ranald; Aeneas Ranald M'Donell, otherwise Mac Mhic Alasdair, of Glengarry; and Sir Alexander Wentworth MacDonald Bosville MacDonald, otherwise Mac Dhonuill Nan Eilean, of Sleat. The agreement recited, that following upon the forfeiture and death of John, Lord of the Isles and Earl of Ross, and the death without issue, in 1545, of his grandson Donald Dubh, the various branches of Clan Donald, of which the Lord of the Isles was supreme and undisputed Chief, separated from and became independent of one another. Also, that while claims to the Supreme Chiefship of the whole Clan Donald had been maintained by their predecessors, the whole Clan had never admitted or decided in favor of any of their claims; and, although no one of the three heads of the branches abandoned his claim, they agreed to cease from active assertion of such claim ; and that in the event of more than one of them being present on any occasion, and the question of preeminence or precedency within the Clan having to be considered, such question should be decided for the occasion by lot. The immediate ancestor of the family of Sleat, was Hugh MacDonald, Lord of Sleat, a younger son of Alexander, Lord of the Isles, and therefore grandson of Donald, the son of Good John of Isla. A son John, whom Hugh of Sleat had by his first wife, Fynvola, daughter of Alexander Maclan of Ardnamurchan, died without issue, but by a second wife, of the Clan Gunn, he had another son, Donald, called Gallach, so called because he was born and bred in his mother's country of Caithness. Hugh had also several other sons, and his descendants were so numerous in the sixteenth century that they were known as the Clan Uisdein, or children of Hugh. They were also called the Clan Donald North, to distinguish them from the MacDonalds of Isla and Kintyre, who were known as the Clan Iain Vohr and Clan Donald South. Since the extinction of the direct line of the family of the Isles, in the middle of the sixteenth century, MacDonald of Sleat has always been styled in Gaelic, Mac Dhonuill nan Eilean, or MacDonald of the Isles. Hugh died in 1498, and his son, Donald G