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

THE PEAT-FIRE FLAME
to be killed. To his pleadings that his life should be spared,
however, Argyll turned a deaf ear.
" Will you give him to me, if I save him ? " asked
MacLeod.
" Yes, but you, too, go to your death " ! retorted Argyll.
Thereupon MacLeod sprang into the arena, and seized
the enraged bull by the horns. " Hold Fast ! " shouted the
onlookers, as MacLeod buried his dirk in the bull's heart,
and lopped off one of its horns.
I am told that to this day there is in Dunvegan a family
of Campbells claiming descend from the young man whom
MacLeod so valiantly rescued.
The horn is a large ox horn, rimmed with a deep silver
band, on which is engraved a familiar Celtic interlacing
design. In ancient days every young heir, on succeeding to
the chiefship, was required to prove his worth by draining
in one breath the full content of this horn. In times more
temperate, this ordeal was considerably mitigated by the
insertion within the horn of a wooden lining. To-day the
bumpering of Rory Mor's horn is entirely discontinued.
The Exploits of Donald Cam MacAulay.
No book of this kind would be complete without some
reference to the exploits of Donald Cam MacAulay; and
here is the Lewis version of the folk-tale describing how
that famous warrior and a number of his henchmen took
the ancient Pictish broch known as Dun Carloway.
One summer, while Donald Cam and the Big Smith were
absent on a fowling expedition at the Flannan Isles, the
Morrisons of Ness invaded Uig, the western parish of
Lewis and the heritage of the MacAulays, and drove off
some of the MacAulays' cattle. Upon the return of the
fowling party, the women-folk described the way in which
the Morrisons had forayed the pastures of Uig. Instantly
the MacAulays set off in a boat across Loch Roag, in the
hope of overtaking the rieving Morrisons. By the shore of
a lochan near Dun Carloway they found their cattle grazing.
This seemed to indicate that the Morrisons themselves were
within the Dun.
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