The Highlanders of Scotland - Clan Strachan Society

CHAP 1] OF SCOTLAND 187
This remark, however, is true also of the traditionary origins
of individual clans, as well as of the Highlanders in general ;
for although tradition assigns to them an origin which is untrue,
still we can invariably trace in some part of that tradition the
real story, although it assumes a false aspect and colouring from
its being connected with a false tradition.
The most remarkable instance of this occurs in those clans
who assert a Scandinavian or Norman origin ;
for we invariably
find, in such cases, that their tradition asserted a marriage of
the foreign founder of their race with the heiress of that family
of which they were in reality a branch. Thus, the Macintoshes
assert that they are descended from the Earl of Fife, and
obtained their present lands by marriage with the heiress of
clan Chattan, and yet they can be proved to have been from
the beginning a branch of that clan. The Campbells say that
they are a Norman family, who married the heiress of Paul
O'Duibhne, lord of Lochow, and yet they can be proved to be
descended from the O'Duibhnes. The Grants, who are a sept
of the clan Alpin, no sooner claimed a foreign descent from
the Danish Acquin de Grandt, than they asserted that their
ancestor had married the heiress of Macgregor, lord of Freuchie;
the Camerons and Mackenzies, when they assumed the Danish
Cambro and the Norman Fitzgerald for their founders, asserted
a marriage with the heiresses of Macmartin and Matheson, of
which families they can be proved to have been severally
descended in the male line. The first thing which strikes us
as remarkable in this fact is, that the true tradition invariably
assumes the same aspect, although that a false one, with regard
to all the clans ; and there is also another fact with regard to
these clans which will probably throw some light upon the
cause of the adoption of a false tradition, and the singular
and unvarying aspect which the true one assumes— viz., that"
most of the families who assert a foreign origin, and account
for their position at the head of a Highland clan by a marriage
with the heiress of its chief, are just those very families, and
no other, whom we find using the title of captain ; and that
the family who' oppose their title to the chiefship invariably
assert a male descent from the chief whose daughter they are
said to have married. The word captain implies a person in