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Title |
The Highland Clans
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Author |
Sir lain Moncreiffe
of that Ilk: Albany Herald |
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Details |
Barrie and Rockliff, London,
1967 |
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ISBN |
0214666492 |
Review
This is a sumptuous book, lavishly illustrated with colour plates, some of which have a hardly discernible connection with the text. It is not a "disciplined work of scholarship," according to the author, but the cream of 30 years of jottings. Much use is made of the background of Norse sagas, and their interpretation is liberally applied to a good many clans other than those of the western isles, whose entitlement to Norse ancestry is reasonably well established. But the end paper giving a conjectural tree of all those entitled to a galley in their arms is a masterpiece of the heraldic talents.
One intriguing titbit is on page 162, a photo of a rock effigy punched out with blunt hammering of the figure of a gallowglass with an obvious galley arms and some less obvious other embellishments worked onto the gallowglass' jerkin. This was found some years ago on a rock about 30 miles from Boston, Massachusetts, near a bend of the Merrimac River, and in every recognisable detail appears to be contemporary with the Texa (Islay) cross stone of Ranald Clanranald dated 1386. Sir Iain Moncreiffe's guess is that the figure is of a Gunn who accompanied Jarl Henry Sinclair on his western voyage of 1398. There have been rumours of a hand carved somewhere amongst the crude devices, as reported by our American observers, but scanning by one Sean Morrison, an Islesman student from Cambridge who visited the rock carving, has not confirmed this. Very sad, because it would have been fun to claim a Clan Donald registration in America some 90 years ahead of Columbus!
With photographs by David Ricks.
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