Series 1 > Loyall dissuasive

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THE LOYALL DISSUASIVE
while a male heir of Gilliechattan remained. Had Kinrara
and the Mackintosh authorities taken us back to Pictish times
we could have understood, for then it was only through the
mother that king or chief could make good his title. In such
circumstances, the Mackintosh champions would have been
free from pursuit. Few would venture to follow them there.
The intrusion of the name M‘Duff, Thane or Earl of Fife,
into this part of the story is puzzling. In the history of that
family there is no support for it. The dates and assumed
facts are at utter variance. I should be inclined to trace the
tradition to connection much further back with the Scoto-Irish
dan Duff or Duffy. The King Duff who was killed in Moray,
whither he had fled, and whose body lay under the bridge of
Kinloss, causing an eclipse of the sun while it remained there,
may have been a relative of the Toisech.
As to the Keith Marishal family, one may say that the
tradition of its descent from Clan Chattan is not altogether
without support. Keith, Keth, Cat, and Chat are not very
remote. Both families were specially related to the Abbey of
Deer. The date given for the gift of dignity and land to the
Chattan hero is about 1010. Malcolm n. was king and victor
at the battle of Carham in 1018. He then annexed the
Lothians to Scotland, and it is in East Lothian that we
find Keith Marishal the property then bestowed on the
Chattan chief. The links acknowledged in the time of Sir
yEneas must have held to a longer chain, which may have been
upheld by Gilliechattan himself.
The Sutherland family is supposed to be linked also to the
Catti. Their crest is the Cat, sejant, proper. In David i.’s
time, after the slaughter of the Moray men in 1130, Freskin
appears in Moray and acquires great property around Duffus.
His grandson, Hugh, acquired Sutherland in 1197. Before
the time of the latter the family was known as de Moravia.
The wives of Freskin, of his son, and grandson are not given.
Murich appears in the genealogy, but I am not now able to