Blair Collection > Celtic monthly > Volume 8, No.5 (February, 1900)

tHfi CELTIC MOiJTHL^.
'j5
ANTIQUARIAN NOTES ON THE
MACKAY COUNTRY.
By Rev. Angus Mackav, M.A., Westerdalk.
II. — Stkatii-Halladale.
{Continued from pitge Jf'J.)
ir|5,TPNTIL within the last three or four years
1P?1 r Strath-Halladale, including its sea-board
'iSQfJj townships of Melvich and Portskerray,
was in the anomalous position of being in some
respects a part of Caithness, and in other res-
pects a part of Sutherland. Ecclesiastically it
formed part of the I'arochia of Eeay, and jier-
tained to the Presbytery of Caithness. Its
teinds and taxes went to Eeay, its modicum of
local self-government it enjoyed in common with
the other Caithness inhabitants of Reay; but as
to civil government Strath-Halladale, since the
year 1631, was under the jurisdiction of the
Sheriff of Sutherland, and constituted a part of
that county. In the Royal Charter of 16.31,
defining the bounds of the County of Sutherland,
the following is the description given : —
" Beginning upon the north at the Strype called
Faehallodail, which divides Strathnaver from Caith-
ness, and fra that south-east by the top of the hills
to the Ord upon the sea coste, including the hail
bounds of the Ord, and thair fra south-west till the
mouth of the water of Tayne, alias Portnacutar ;
and fra that west to the water of (jikill, compre-
hending therein the hail lands and country of Fair-
incostar, alias Sleiacheillis ; and fra that west till
Lochbrome and Coygathe ,(Coigach), so far as the
diocese of Caithness extends, comprehending thairin
the said lands and country of Assynt into the west
sea, and fra thence north up the sea coste till the
northmost point of the land called Arduriness ; and
fra thence east to the river and water of Hallodaill ;
and fra that east to the said strype called Fae-
hallodaill."
Before 1631 the present geographical unit,
" County of Sutherland," did not exist — it was
described as Sudrland and Strath-Naver. Then
Strath-Halladale, and the rest of what is now
called the Mackay Country, had as much in
common with Caithness as they had with Sudr-
land. Nay, but their connection with Caithness
was closer, for the Earldom of Caithness
included old Strathnaver, as we know from the
fact that Johanna, the daughter of Earl John of
Caithness, who died in 1231, of the Norse line
of Paul, got as her dowry Strathnaver. The
clause in the charter of 1631, "Faehallodail
which divides Strathnaver from Caithness," as
well as abundant other evidence to the same
effect, makes it clear that Strath-Halladale, and
the intervening districts, formed of old a part of
the territory of Strathnaver. In a local sense
Strathnaver meant the Strath along the river
Naver, but in a general sense it meant the
whole country from Durness to Druim-Holstein.
Origin of the Name Strath-Halladale.
Strath-Halladale is generally supposed to be
named after a Norseman who was slain and
buried there. The Rev. Alexander Pope of
Reay says in a note to his translation of Tor-
fa^us in 1776 : —
" Halladus is said by some to have been slain in
battle, in that part of the pariah of Reay which lies
in Sutherland, and which is called Strath-Halla-
dale. It is a valley ten miles in length, divided
into two sides by a river called the river Halladale,
running from the south to the North Sea at Tor.
About the middle of this strath, and near a place
called Dai-Hall adha, the country people show a
spot where, they say, a bloody battle was fought
between the Scots and Norwegians. It was on the
side of a hill on the east side of the river, now
covered with small cairns or heaps of stones, where
the slain are supposed to have been buried, and
there, they say, Halladha, the King of Lochlin's
son, was slain. Not only so, but they show the
place where he was buried, on the opposite side of
the river. It is a circular deep trench twelve feet
in diameter, and there is a large stone erected in
the midst of it. They assert that Halladha and his
sword were laid there."
I have been told by most intelligent people on
the strath that Mr. Pope, and Mackay of Big-
house, afterwards opened this ancient tomb, and
found a Norwegian straight-bladed sword which
was brought to, and preserved as a relic in. Big-
house House. Possibly that sword may still be
in the possession of some member of the Big-
house family. The typical Norwegian sword
has a peculiar hilt and pommel, as described so
clearly by Dr. Anderson in his "Rhind Lectures,"
and can easily be identified. It may be men-
tioned that the Norse Sagas make no reference
to the slaying of " Halladha, the King of Loch-
lin's son in this district, but the tradition may
record an actual fact for all that.
The Imprint of the Norseman.
It is a notorious fact that though the Norse-
men held the north, or claim to have held it,
according to their sagas, for 300 years, they left
very few traces of their occupation in the in-
terior of the country save graves, battlefields,
place-names, and a few loan-words. Their an-
gular, irregularly-built strongholds or castles are
found right round the rugged coasts of Caithness
and Sutherland, but scarcely any are to be found
inland. The interior is dotted with round Pict-
ish, or Celtic, towers ; the sea-board is held, at
commanding positions, by the angular strong-
holds of the Norsemen. Throughout all Caith-
ness, which they greatly hankered after because
of its rich, fertile soil, 1 know of only one forti-