Matheson Collection > Macleods of Dunvegan from the time of Leod to the end of the seventeenth century

14 THE MACLEODS OF DUNVEGAN
It is quite evident that traditions which were written
down in the fifteenth or sixteenth century carry greater
weight than traditions which were not reduced to writing
till the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. One would
therefore think at first sight that, strong as the reasons
are for believing that Leod was a son of Olaf the Black,
that theory must be given up when we consider what
this MS. says.
But this is not necessarily the case. As we have
seen, the bards often put in the name of a father-in-
law instead of that of a father. It is therefore quite
possible that Oib may be the name of the father of
Olaf's first wife, who, as I have shown, was probably
Leod's mother.
In this case the Kilbride MS. does not contradict the
tradition, but supplements it by giving Leod's descent
through his mother.
This is the theory which I am inclined to accept. It
is very likely that the bards, being anxious to magnify
the ancient and honourable descent of their Chief, made
several genealogies tracing his ancestry through different
lines of descent, and that, as it happens, Leod's descent
through his mother is the only one among several which
has come down to us.
The MacFirbis MS. is of much less value than the
Kilbride MS. A capable scholar of Irish history might
be able to identify the persons named, but I have not
been able to identify even the twenty-one descendants
of Leod, of whom we know something, much less his
ancestors, of whom we know nothing. Skene thought
that it was a jeu d' esprit of some bard.
The only point of interest about it is that it traces
Leod's descent back to the same Ivar of the Judgments
as the Kilbride MS. does.
I give this genealogy in full. It probably begins in
the seventeenth century, and works backwards.