Hew Morrison Collection > Battle of Harlaw

' Is math an oocair an t-acras,
'S mairg a ni tarcuis air biadh —
Fuarag corn' a sail rao bhroige,
Biadh a b 'fhearr a fhuair mi riamh.'
(Hunger is a cook right good,
Woe to him who sneers at food —
Barley crowdie in my slice.
The sweetest food I ever knew).
" His army consisted of mail-clad gentlemen
of Aberdeenshire and neighbouring counties,
and — what is frequently lost sight of — to a
greater extent of the Gaelic speaking High-
landers of his own province of Mar, and of the
Earldom of Buclian. We must not forget that,
although English or Scots was the language of
commerce in Aberdeen and other burghs, Gaelic
was in 1411, and for long thereafter, spoken
all over Aberdeenshire, which has the honour
of having given to us the oldest specimens of
written Scottish Gaelic known to exist, and
that on both sides the battle shouts and cries
which pierced the air on 24th July, 1411, were
mainly in Gaelic and not in the Saxon tongue.
Donald was opposed by a chief who wa-* at
least as Celtic as himself, and who was followed
by the Celts of Buchan and Mar, and — what
is also nsually forgotten — suj)ported by certain
clans north of the Spey. For example, my own
clan, the Mackays, fought the Lord of the
Isles at Dingwall on his way to Harlaw, and
my mother's clan, the Frasers, endeavoured to
stop hJB progress at Beauly. It is clear that
the question of the predominance of the Celt