The Highlanders of Scotland - Clan Strachan Society

CHAP II] OF SCOTLAND 197
some degree the Norwegian habits of piracy, and took frequently
an active share in their predatory expeditions. These
Gael are termed, as we have seen in the Irish Annals, Gallgael,
or the Norwegian Gael, to distinguish them from those Gael
who were independent of the Norwegians, or who took no
part in their expeditions, and we have every reason to think
consisted principally of the Siol Cuinn.
The traditions of the Macdonalds themselves tend to shew
that they could not have been of foreign origin. The whole
of the Highlands, and especially the districts possessed by
the Gallgael, were inhabited by the northern Picts, as we
have seen, at least as late as the eleventh century. In the
middle of the twelfth, the Orkneyinga Saga terms Somerled
and his sons, who were the chiefs of this tribe, the Dalveria
Aett, or Dalverian family, a term derived from Dala, the
Norse name for the district of Argyll, and which implies that
they had been for some time indigenous in the district ; and
this is confirmed in still stronger terms by the Flatey-book,
the Macdonalds were either the descendants of
consequently
these Pictish inhabitants of Argyll, or else they must have
entered the country subsequently to that period.
But the earliest traditions of the family uniformly bear
that they had been indigenous in Scotland from a much earlier
period than that. Thus, James Macdonell, of Dunluce, in a
letter written to King James VI., in 1596, has this —
passage
" Most mightie and potent prince, recommend us unto }'Our
hieness with our service for ever your grace shall understand
that our forebears hathe been from time to time ^
your servants
unto your own kingdome of Scotland." And again, in 161 5,
Sir James Macdonald, of Kintyre, exp^-esses himself, in a letter
to the Bishop of the Isles, in these words— "
Seeing my race
has been
kings
teufie hu7idrcd years kyndlie Scottismen under the
of Scotland— ." Although many other passages of a
similar nature might be produced, these instances may for the
present suffice to shew that there existed a tradition in this
family of their having been natives of Scotland from time
^ The expression of " from time to documents, always signifies from time
time," when it occurs in ancient immemorial.