J. F. Campbell Collection > Popular rhymes of Scotland

FAMILY CHARACTERISTICS. 101
friend. From horror at the offence of Sir John Monteith,
it was common in Scotland, till the last ag-e, when pre-
senting- bread to a Monteith, to g-ive it with the wrong" side
of the bannock uppermost. The wrong side of the bannock
to a Monteith was a common saying.
THE BOYDS.
The trusty Boyds.
So at least characterised by Henry the Minstrel.
THE ERASERS.
The baidd Frasers.
THE MACNEILS.
The proud Macneils.
THE MACINTOSHES.
Fiery and quick-tempered.
THE MACDONALDS.
The brave Macdonalds.
A hardly-earned and well-deserved epithet, which need
not shrink before a rhyme popular among- the Macgre-
gors —
Grighair is croic,
DomnuLl is freuc.
That is—
Macgregor as the rock,
Macdonald as the heather.
THE MURRAYS.
The muckle-mou'ed Murrays.
The Murrays here meant are a branch of the family long
settled in Peeblesshire, and of which a sub-branch has for
two centuries possessed the baronial title of Elibank. Sir
Gideon Murray, who lived in the time of James VI., and
whose son was the first Lord Elibank, had a daug-hter,
Agnes, to whom tradition ascribes a very large share of the
family feature. She became the wife of Sir William Scott
of Harden, under circumstances of a ludicrous nature,
which James Hogg has wrought up in one of his best