The Fairy Bride of the' MacLeods

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 103, 28 October 1933, Page 23

The Fairy Bride of the' MacLeods

Skyo, which the Duke and Duchess of York have beea visiting, is the largest island of the Hebrides. Year by year it .attracts increasing numbers of people bent of holidays out of tho beaten track, says a writer in the London "Daily Telegraph." It is the home of the MacLeods and the Maedonalds, and is now probably the most prosperous of all the Western Isles. ' Sir Eeginald MacLeod of MacLeod, who was the host of their Boyal Highnesses at Dunvegan Castle, is the twenty-fourth Chief of his Clan. The ancient castle stands on a beautiful bay which opens to the norths I saw it first on a July evening when the sun was flooding Dunvegan Loch and its islets with a golden glory, which was reflected from the front of/the castle overhanging the sea; and the picture remains strongly in memory. Tho building as it is now seen is really two castles which have been joined. They stood side by side, but separate, until in 1780 a suggestion which was made by Dr. Samuel Johnson to tho Chief seven years before was adopted and the intervening space built up. The oldest part has external features of tho thirteenth century^and internal work of the eleventh. At the baso of the flag tower is an interesting dungeon, with a hole in the roof penetrating to the room above. By this hole prisoners were lowered into the dungeon. In the second castlo a door, in the east wall opens in good medieval stylo by a spring, and exposes a narrow winding stone stair by which the top of the building is reached. One of tho rooms approached by it is the famous "Fairy Room," to which a quaint legend is attached. . Tho legend says that a , Chief had married a fairy wife. Those who know about fairies are aware that they never die and that they do not grow old. But

a fairy wife must return to her people after a definite period —in this case it was twenty years. The summons home camo to tho wife at "The Fairy Bridge," three miles north-west of the castle. As she flew away she dropped her silken robe which the Chief preserved. And that is "The Fairy Flag of Dunvegan." ' ' . . .'. : The flag was to be vised in crises of tho family to summon fairy help, but it was to lose its power after the third call. Two calls have already been made—once in battle with the-Mac-donalds, and once to cure an eldest son of a deadly disease. Every Chief's wife had to t»e approved by the fairy, who remained i a perpetual dowager. So each new wife had to spend her bridal night alone in "The Fairy Room," and if she was found there next morning she was hold approved. There is no record of a bride disappearing, and I am aware that the formality has been dispensed with in tho last two generations. Tho "Fairy Flag" is kept in the dining-room, in which are also a sideboard with the date 1603, Eory Mor's horn, his gourd, and the "Dunvegan Cup." Rory Mor was one of the great Chiefs. The cup is a most interesting object, celebrated by Sir Walter Scott in "The Lord of the Isles" in the lines: "Fill me the mighty cup," he said, "Erst owned by royal Soinerled." But Somerled had nothing to do with it, which Sir Walter did not know* It bears the date 1493, but is really older, and was a gift to the MacLeod by an ancestor of the O'Neils of Ireland. A few years ago a colony of Harris crofters were encouraged to carry on their industry of weaving "Harris tweeds" in Skyc. In another district, at Kilmuir, the "Highland Home Industries, Ltd.," a philanthropic association, revived, tho industry a few years ago. The Duchess of York is patroness of the association. •