The peat-fire flame : folk-tales and traditions of the Highlands & Islands

THE PEAT-FIRE FLAME
of the coming of peace, " certaine little bitts of Peitts wold
be sein " in the well. But. then, we must take into account
that at this time Rory MacNeil was " ane verie ancient man
of sexscoir yeares old or therby," and that the most insistent
informant was " fyve or sexscoir zeares."
The most famous well in Barra, of course, is that
associated with the cockles of the Great Cockle Shore, in the
north of the island. This is the well referred to by Martin
as the Well of Kilbar, which, he writes, " throws up
embryoes of cockles, but I could not discern any in the
rivulet, the air being at the time foggy."
Well of the Head.
In that part of the Isle of Skye known as Strath there
is a well known as Tobar a' Chinn, Well of the Head. It
was here that a certain Lauchlan MacKinnon avenged
himself on Donnachadh Mor by beheading him and washing
his head in this well. Donnachadh Mor was ground-officer
to MacKinnon of Strath. In the course of his rounds he
exacted from a poor widow the oppressive death-duty called
the each-ursainn. In tribal days it was the custom in the
Highlands for the laird's factor to remove from the relatives
of a deceased tenant their best horse or cow. On this
occasion the widow resisted Donnachadh's claim ; but he
ill-used her, and took the horse from her by force. Now,
Lauchlan MacKinnon had learnt as a youngster from his
own mother that, when she became a widow, she had
suffered similar treatment at the hands of the same factor.
For years, therefore, he waited for an opportunity of paying
off this old score against Donnachadh ; and here, he decided,
was the opportunity. He engaged the factor, killed him,
decapitated him, and washed his head in the Well of the
Head. And it is said in Skye that thereafter no factor
dared exact the ancient death-duty known as the eachursainn.
This recalls the story connected with the famous well by
the roadside at Loch Oich, and known as the Well of the
Seven Heads. But this story is more a matter of history
than of folk-tale. Over this
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well there stands a tall