Note 189 — REIGN OF JAMES VI.: 1591-1603.

In a memoir of the family of Grant, written by Mr James Chapman, minister of Cromdale, in 1729, and preserved in the Macfarlane Collections in the Advocates’ Library, there is a curious traditionary anecdote, which the writer connects with the murder of the Laird of Brackla, and yet dates in 1540. It is given in the following terms: ‘[James Laird of Grant, called Shemus nan Creagh, or James the Ravager] distinguished himself in assisting the Earl of Huntly, his cousin, against the insults of several enemies, and particularly in revenging the murder of Gordon Baron of Brackla, on Dee water-side, who was murdered by the countrymen there. The revenge went such a length, that above sixscore orphans were left in the desolate country on Deeside, nobody knowing who their parents were. These miserable orphans were, out of pity and commiseration, carried by the Earl of Huntly into his castle, where they were maintained and fed thus. A long trough of wood was made, wherein was put pottage or any other kind of food allowed them; and the young ones, sitting round about the trough, did eat their meat out of it as well as they could. The Laird of Grant visiting the earl, was, for diversion’s sake, brought to see the orphans slabbing at the trough; which comical sight so surprised him, that he proposed to carry one-half of them to Balcastle, alleging that, having a hand in destroying their parents, he was bound in justice to take a concern in their preservation and maintenance. Those of them that were brought to Castle-Grant are to this day called Slioch Namor—that is, the Posterity of the Trough.’ As Shemus nan Creagh died in 1553, and the Grants were not engaged on the Earl of Huntly’s side on this occasion, but participated with their relatives and allies the Mackintoshes in suffering from his vengeance, it may be presumed that this barbarous tale refers to the date assigned for it by Chapman—namely, a period fully fifty years earlier than the murder of the Laird of Brackla. It has nevertheless been introduced by Sir Walter Scott in his Tales of a Grandfather, as applicable to the reign of James VI.; and the reader who turns it up there, may experience some amusement in contrasting its ample and picturesque details with the simple original anecdote as above narrated.