Tom an Dealachaidh – The Hill of Parting

Folk etymologies of place-names are a fairly common genre that collectors often come across. Calum Maclean was no exception as here is an example recorded on the 7th of August 1952 from James Dunbar, styled Seamus Barrach, a fifty-year old farmer, who belonged to Tomatin in Strathdearn. The following story has as its background the Jacobite Rising of 1715 which started with the raising of the royal banner in Braemar and which ended somewhat inconclusively at the Battle of Sheriffmuir which would sound the death-knell for the Jacobite cause at that time:

 

That’s the hill further down there. It’s supposed to be that there where Lochiel and the Earl of Mar parted after the Rebellion of 1715. Now the Earl of Mar was very hungry and we heard that seemingly Lochiel got meal from the mill and he had no place to cook it, but he took his shoe, put water in the shoe and put meal, barley meal, into the shoe and Earl of Mar said that it was the best food that he ever tasted.

Now there’s a Gaelic poem, a verse:

 

“Is math on còcair’ an t-acras:
Có dhèanadh tàir air a’ bhiadh?
Fuarag min eòr’ as sàil a’ bhròg
Am biadh a b’ fhearr a fhuair Morair Màr riamh.”

 

Now there’s another story told about that when some other Cameron parted hundreds of years before that. But it means Tom an Dealachaidh, the Hill of the Parting. And there was another story told about it that it was the parting between the peaceable men of this country, of this parish and then down. But it’s only tradition, of course. Well, there’s a stone on the top and it is called Séithir Morair Màr [The Earl of Mar’s Seat], as they say in this country. It is supposed to be that the Earl of Mar sat on that stone watching a battle of the clans down at Tom an Tuirc [The Hill of The Boar], between Tom an Dealachaidh and Tom an Tuirc. My father was a good story teller. I don’t know the quarter of what he knew.

 

This story of the Earl of Mar here been conflated with the first Battle of Inverlochy that took place in 1431 which saw a victory for Clan Donald, led by Donald Balloch, against the combined forces of the Earls of Mar and Caithness who had tried to check the ascendency of the Lordship of the Isles. The forfeiture of the Lordship eventually came in 1491.

 

This story was once well-known in Lochaber and a version was recorded from Archibald MacInnes, a seventy-year old pensioner from Achluachrach, Brae Lochaber, by Calum Maclean on the 7th of September 1951:

 

A’ chiad bhaiteal a bha aig Ionbhar Lòchaidh eadar Dòmhnall Ballach agus Iarla  Mhàrr, bha Iarla Mhàrr air an ruaigeadh is e a’ dol a-mach ri Gleann Ruaidh. Ràinig e fear ris an abradh iad Ó Biorain a bha a’s a’ Bhriagaich:

“Thig mi oidhche ’na thaigh,” thuir^st e:

“Air mhóran bidhidh is air bheagan aodaich,
Is math an còcaire an t-acras,
Is mairig a dheànadh tailceas air biadh,
Fuarag eòrna sàil mo bhròige
Am biadh is fheàrr a fhuair mi riamh.”

 

Glé choltach gun do mharbh Ó Biorain mar^st. ’N uair a ràinig an duine feadh na h-oidhche, bha e ’ga mar^abhadh. Fhuair e am pailteas de bhiadh. Bha a’ mar^st mór. Agus chuir e a chadal ann an t-seiche a mhar^st e. Agus ’s ann mar sin a labhair e na briathan. Cha robh móran aodaich air. Rinn e an uair san ga dhachaidh. Thug e cuireadh do’n duine uair ’s am bith a bhitheadh nicheann a dhìth air a dhol a choimhead air-san. Duine ’s am bith a chaidh an rathad a bhuineadh dha’n àite, bha e uamharaidh mór man déidhinn an deadhaidh na tìm sin.

 

And the translation goes something like this:

 

The first battle of Inverlochy was fought between Donald Balloch and the Earl of Mar in which the Earl was defeated and he fled to Glenroy. He arrived at a place called Briagach and met a man they called Ó Biorain.

“I’ll stay the night in his house,” he said:

“Plenty of food but scanty of clothing

Hunger is a good cook

Woe to him who disdains food

Barley brose from the heel of my shoe –

The best meal I ever got.”

 

It’s more than likely than Ó Biorain slaughtered the cow. When the man came in during the middle of the night, he was in the process of slaughtering it. He got plenty of food as it was a large cow. He went to sleep in the cow hide. And that is why he spoke these words. He had but little clothing on. He then made for home. He invited the man that if he ever needed anything then he should go and see him. Anyone who belonged to this place, he was very pleased to see them after that.

 

When the pursuing MacDonald host heard that Cameron had sheltered the Earl he and his family had to remove themselves to the Braes o’ Mar. When the wretched Ó Biorain and his family reached the Earl of Mar’s Castle at Kildrummy they received a warm welcome with the following words:

 

               ’S ionmhuinn am fìrean a-muigh,

                Ó Biorain às a’ Bhreugaich,

                Bha mi oidhche ’na theach

                Air mhóran bìdh, ach beag aodaich. 

 

Outside is the loveable little man

O’ Bryne [Cameron] from Briagach

I was a night in his house

With plenty food but scanty of clothing.

 

It is said that the progeny of Ó Biorain Cameron are still left in this area of Highland Aberdeenshire, which lends credence to the folk tradition. According to Somerled MacMillan, Mar granted him the land of Brucks.  Alasdair Cam Forbes of Drimonvir and of Brucks married O’ Bryne’s only child, and their descendants retained the property down to the latter part of the nineteenth century.

 

References:

SSS NB 5, pp. 396–97

SSS NB 16, pp. 1442–43

Somerled MacMillan, Bygone Lochaber: Historical and Traditional.  Glasgow: K. & R. Davidson, 1971), p. 112

Iain Dìleas MacShomhairle, ‘Legend of Stewart; Sgeul air Alasdair Stiùbhart Iarla Màr’, Cuairtear nan Gleann, no. 3 (May, 1840), pp. 65–67; later reprinted and abridged as ‘Iarla Mhàrr agus Fear na Briagach’ in W. J. Watson (ed.), Rosg Gàidhlig: Specimens of Gaelic Prose (Glasgow: An Comunn Gàidhealach, 2nd. ed., 1929), pp. 99–102

 

Image:

Kildrummy Castle, Strathdon, near Braemar

The Rout of Moy (1746)

To commemorate the skirmish known as the Rout of Moy, here is a story recollecting the event recorded by Calum Maclean from James Dunbar, a farmer then aged fifty, on the 7th of August 1952. The contributor belonged to Tomatin and thus was not far away from the events of that happened at Moy on the 16th of February 1746:

You heard most of the story in history, of course. And, of course, the MacIntosh he was a Royalist. Well, he was on the side of the Royalists. He was fighting on the Royalist side. He was with the Royalist side and, of course, Lady MacIntosh, one of the Farquharsons of Invercauld she was on the side of the Prince and the clan was on the Prince's side. And as history tells us Lord Louden with about a thousand men, he was going to take Prince Charlie. That was on the Rout of Moy  [that] took place on the sixteenth of February 1746, two months before the Battle of Culloden. Now my father's story was that a little boy was sent up. A hotel-keeper's wife in Inverness heard the soldiers talking about going up to Moy that night to take Prince Charlie and sent this little boy bare-footed to Moy Hall wi’ a letter to Lady MacIntosh. And when he arrived all the clansmen were away. I don’t know where they were. They would have been out on reconnaissance. And the blacksmith was at home, Donald Fraser. And they went to Donald Fraser and he took five men and they went down to Creag an Eòin, I believe, where the peat mass is today, and waited until Lord Louden's men came up. However there were peat stacks there, peat dashes, I believe, and it was a misty night and when Lord Louden’s army came up the orders went out to all the clans, the MacIntoshs, the Camerons and the Macphersons and the Macdonalds, of course. And they fired their muskets and I was told they played their pipes. However Lord Louden’s army turned back and away down to Inverness and they told awful stories about the awful regiments of Highlanders they saw there. Well, the only one that was hit of the Royalist army was MacCrimmon, Donald Bane MacCrimmon. Before he left Skye he had a feeling that he would never return. He composed the tune “Cha till Mac Cruimein” – “MacCrimmon will never return.” Well he was mortally wounded and died in Inverness and was buried in the Chapel yard. But however when they heard it was Donald Fraser and five men that did it Donald Fraser had to return to Lochaber. He was hiding there for years and even when he went to the Island of Lewis. He was hiding there for years after Culloden. Well I remember – she died in 1902 – his grandson’s widow, Jean Fraser, Dalnahone, and her daughter. She didn’t live long afterwards. And what I remember best the day of the sale: there was a stool bought for me. I was a little piddie. And I used to sit in that stool, a white-pointed stool. But my father remembered the grandson, Donald Fraser, but he had no enthusiasm for what his grandfather did. He didn’t think much of it at all, for he had no side for Prince Charlie. And neither have I, although I do admire what our forebearers did at Culloden, and their bravery and the like of that. Well, Donald Fraser's sword is, I believe, in Moy Hall yet and his anvil, you could see his anvil. It used to be at the door, the front door and his sword. I believe it is there yet. It used to be in Tomatin House and it was in Moy Hall afterwards.

Much against her husband’s wishes, Lady Anne MacIntosh (1723–1787), raised the clan MacIntosh and Clan Chattan to fight for the Jacobite cause under the command of MacGillivray of Dunmaglass. For this she earned the affectionate title “Colonel Anne” and Prince Charles Edward Stuart referred to her as “La Belle Rebelle”, the beautiful rebel.

Soon after the Jacobite victory at Falkirk, the Prince was staying at Moy hall, the seat of the MacIntosh, when Lady Anne received word from her mother-in-law that the Hanoverian forces were about to attack. Lady Anne took it upon herself to send out around five of her staff to run about shooting and shouting in order to trick the enemy into thinking that they faced the whole Jacobite army. The ploy worked and they fled leaving with one fatally injured piper, Donald Bàn MacCrimmon, as mentioned above, who lated died in Inverness of his wounds sustained in the skirmish. Since then the event has become known as The Rout of Moy.

After the defeat of the Jacobites – the Clan MacIntosh were the first to charge the Hanoverian ranks – at battle of Culloden some two months later, Lady Anne was arrested and turned over to the care of her mother-in-law for a time. She later met the Duke of Cumberland at a social event in London with her husband. He asked her to dance to a Hanoverian tune and she returned the favour by asking him to dance to a Jacobite tune. She was a rebel to the end.

References:

Calum I. Maclean, The Highlands (Inbhir Nis: Club Leabhar, 1975)
SSS NB 16, pp. 1443–45­­­

Image:

Lady Anne Farquharson MacIntosh