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

RIEVERS AND CATERANS TALES
of food, and be maintained in a tolerable state of repair,
such as would enable any traveller to spend a night at them
in reasonable comfort.
And now to the folk-tale still told at winter ceilidhs in
Badenoch, describing how the Loch of the Swift Lad's Son
came by its name.
As the bowman of Rothiemurchus was tending the cattle
by the fringe of this loch one Sabbath day, he caught sight
of a band of men moving among the hills afar off, and in
the airt of the mountain-track long since known as the
Cattle-lifters' Road. He soon recognised them to be
Lochaber cattle-rievers making for the grazings over which
roamed the herds belonging to his master. Grant of
Rothiemurchus. Realising that there was no time to be
lost, he instantly dropped down into the valley, and dashed
off with all speed to the Church of Rothiemurchus, wherein
most of the local folks were worshipping. Immediately
the bowman announced the approach of the Lochaber
caterans, the service was suspended. Every mother's son
of fighting age now began to feel for his sgian-dubh (dirk).
To a man, they dashed up through the pine forests,
following, as best they could, the bowman, who was named
the Son of the Swift Lad, and who was fleeter of foot
than any of them. But the bowman's very fleetness was
his undoing, since he found himself alone and at grips with
the rievers before his clansmen were able to make up on
him. Against great odds he fought valiantly. But the
caterans wore him down, and slew him. His corpse they
buried before his clansmen came on the scene, and even
before they had arrived within sight of the spot where they
interred him.
When, eventually, the men of Rothiemurchus overtook
the rievers, they retrieved their cattle without the loss of
another life. But nowhere to be seen, either dead or alive,
was the nimble-footed Son of the Swift Lad. Time
passed; and the mystery of his fate remained unsolved.
And it was not until some considerable time later that a
Lochaber woman, in passing through Rothiemurchus,
disclosed to the natives the circumstances of the bowman's
death, and the secret place of his burial, thus enabling his
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