Blair Collection > Celtic gleanings, or, Notices of the history and literature of the Scottish Gael

LECTURE I. 7
and the country on both sides of the Spey, from
its source to the borders of Banffshire. Then
there were and are the Menzieses of Perthshire,
a branch of the Norman family of '' Manners,"
represented in England by the Duke of Eut-
land, and having the original form of the word
preserved in the Gaelic " Meinearach." Then
there are the Gordons, the Erasers, the Chis-
holms, and sundry minor clans, all without any
trace of a connection with the Celts, and ori-
gin ally, without doubt, of purely Teutonic blood.
These families possessed large sections of what
is now called the Highlands, and formed con-
tinual intermarriages with the natives. I am
aware that it is maintained, that while many of
these families possessed feudal charters, these
charters were altogether invalid ; that they
were given merely for the purpose of intro-
ducing feudal tenures among the Celtic popula-
tion, and that, side by side with these, the an-
cient possessors retained, without molestation,
the ownership of the soil. This cannot be true
of most of the Norman families mentioned
above. The Gordons and the Cummings are
known to have possess od their territory, and
wielded a vast power in the land.
It is, then, hardly possible to estimate the
extent to which the admixture of both Danes