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

FOLK-TALES OF THE '15 AND THE '45
him, since the Islesfolk insisted that her resemblance to the
Prince was due to the impression he had made on her
mother, when the latter realised that one of the strangers,
to whom she had given milk, was the fugitive Prince
Charlie.
To this day the byname of Mairi a' Phriomisa is applied
in a jocular manner to the descendants of these Beatons;
but, as the late Miss Frances Tolmie assured me some years
ago, the singular beauty of Mairi has not been transmitted
to her posterity.
The Appin Dirk.
In Argyll there is a queer story told of the Appin dirk
and its association with Culloden. Somewhere about the
month of June, in the fateful year, 1746, a band of Red
Coats, while on its way to Inveraray through Appin, pillaged
and plundered as it went. In moving through the Strath
of Appin one evening, one of the band noticed a young
woman milking her cows in a field by the roadside. Without
either explanation or provocation, the sergeant in charge
leapt over the dyke, and shot a cow dead. He then directed
his attention to the young woman, who defended herself
with great wit and courage. As she was forced to retreat
toward the Appin shore, she picked up a stone. This she
hurled at the sergeant with such force and accuracy that it
stunned him, thus allowing her to escape to a boat afloat by
the water-line. She rowed out to an island for safety; and
there she remained until she felt herself free to return, and
not likely to incur any further danger at the hands of the
Red Coats. This heroine's name is given in Appin as Julia
MacColl.
The stunned sergeant was soon picked up by his men, and
conveyed to a place of halt for the night. By morning he
had succumbed to the wound inflicted by the stone thrown
by Julia MacColl. His corpse was Interred in the old
churchyard at Airds. But the men of Appin decided that
his body could not be allowed to remain there a moment
longer than could be helped. So, when the Red Coats had
gone their way, they exhumed the body of the sergeant, and
flung it into the sea—but not before Julia MacColl's brother
325