Clan Fraser in Canada

34 ORIGIN OF THE CLANS.
clans grew gradually from the native population after the
consolidation of the Scottish Kingdom. We know that tribes,
some bearing names of modern clans, existed in what may
be described as prehistoric times, in the ordinary acceptation
of that term, in that part of Scotland north of the Forth and
Clyde. Amongst these were the Bissets, the Fentons of the
Aird, and others, whose names still survive in the County
of Inverness, and who must have to some extent merged
into the Fraser Clan, by adopting the name of the lord
of the manor. I do not like to quote John Hill Burton
as an authority, prejudiced, as he manifestly is, and
unfair, as a rule, when dealing with the Highlands and
the Celts, but a passage from his unreliable Life of Simon,
Lord Lovat, will show how a surname may impose itself on
a community and how clans have been, to some extent, con-
stituted. He says : " In some instances the foreign family
adopted a purely Celtic patronymic from the name of the sept
of which they were the leaders. In other cases, such as the
Gordons and Frasers, the sept, probably absorbing various
small tribes and admitting to its bosom many stray members
owning strange varieties of Gaelic names, took the name of
the leader ; hence we find the purest Gaelic spoken by people
enjoying the Norman names of a Gordon or a Cumin. But,
whether the imported lord of the soil adopted the name of
the tribe or the tribe that of their lord, the unyielding influence
of old national customs and peculiarities prevailed, and their
families gradually adapted themselves in speech and method
of life to the people over whom they held sway." This prin-
ciple holds good in the case of the composite Fraser Clan,
and a curious example is afforded by an extract from the
Allangrange MS., with respect to the Rev. Win. Fraser, of