Blair Collection > Mackintosh's collection of Gaelic proverbs, and familar phrases

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o£ Gaelic Proverbs ; in addition to which tiie present translator
has only to mention, that when he was on an extensive journey
through the West Highlands and the Hebrides, in autumn 1815,
collecting the native melodies and vocal poetry of these districts
of the Gael, for the national work which he is at present con-
ducting, entitled Albyn's Anthology, he visited the grave of
Uory Ball's pupil, the last of our Hebridean harpers, namely,
Murdoch Macdonald. Mrs Mackenzie of Derbheg, in Mull,
(who remembers him playing on his harp, in her father's house,
In the year 173S), told the present writer several anecdotes of
the last of our harpers, which shall be given in a brief biographi-
cal sketch in' the supplementary volume to the work alluded to.
Mrs Mackenzie is still living, and is the Miss Maclean celebrated
in Johnson's and in Bosweli's Tours through the Hebrides, in an-
no 1773.
Note (/i) pag<i 12^
The legend of Henry Wynd, the celebrated Gohh Crom, or
Slouching Smith, as handed down by tradition, may be compres-
sed in the following statement : —
During the happy times of the feuds and conflicts of the
Clans, (resembling the battles of the Crows and Ivites so cele-
brated by fablers,) the warlike Clan Chattan (Macphersons), and
the no less redoubted Clan Cay (Davisons), both inhabiting the
wilds of Badenoch, had an affair of deep resentment to adjust ;
■which being submitted to the Earls of Moray and Crawford, these
two arbitrators, in order to spare as much as possible human
blood, proposed to both parties the propriety of deciding the
dispute, in presence of the king and of his court, upon a certain
day ; which was instantly acceded to by the two Chiefs of the