[130] Vide the Deed printed in the Appendix to Tytler’s History, vol. ii.
[131] Fordun a Goodal, vol. ii. p. 380.
[132] This is the date assigned by Sir Robert Gordon, but Shaw makes it more than a century later, viz., in 1454.
[133] Sir R. Gordon, p. 47.—Shaw, p. 264.
[134] According to that eminent antiquary, the Rev. Donald Macintosh, non-juring episcopal clergyman, in his historical illustrations of his Collections of Gaelic Proverbs, published in 1785, the ancestor of Macintosh became head of the clan Chattan in this way. During these contests for the Scottish crown, which succeeded the death of King Alexander III., and favoured the pretensions of the King of the Isles, the latter styling himself “King,” had, in 1291, sent his nephew Angus Macintosh of Macintosh to Dougall Dall (Blind) MacGillichattan, chief of the clan Chattan, or Macphersons, to acquaint him that “the king” was to pay him a visit. Macpherson, or MacGillichattan, as he was named, in honour of the founder of the family Gillichattan[135] Mor, having an only child, a daughter, who, he dreaded, might attract an inconvenient degree of royal notice, offered her in marriage to Macintosh along with his lands, and the station of the chief of the clan Chattan. Macintosh accepted the offer, and was received as chief of the lady’s clan.
[135] “A votary or servant of St. Kattan,” a most popular Scottish saint, we have thus Gillichallum, meaning a “votary of Columba,” and of which another form is Malcolm or Molcalm, the prefix Mol being corrupted into Mal, signifying the same as Gilly. Thus Gilly-Dhia is the etymon of Culdee, signifying “servant of God,”—Gilli-christ means “servant of Christ.”
[136] Shaw’s History of Moray, pp. 260, 261.
[137] Vol. iii. pp 76, 77.
[138] Vol. iii. p. 72.
[139] Tales of a Grandfather, vol. ii.