On the day of the ensuing battle, he climbed a tree and, when Sir Lachlan was within range, he spotted a chink in his heavy armour and put a fatal arrow straight through the slit. Sir Lachlan Mor MacLean (Lachlan the Great), the 14th Chief of Duart, consulted a witch about what he should do and was advised not to land on Islay on a Thursday and not to drink from a well called Strange Neil’s.īut fierce storms forced him ashore on Islay on the forbidden day and, unknowingly, he also drank from the haunted spring – and retribution duly fell on him.īefore fighting his arch enemies, a dwarf from Jura, known as Dubh Sith (the Black Elf) offered Sir Lachlan his help but was contemptuously brushed aside.Įnraged at this slight, the dwarf offered his help to the MacDonalds and was accepted into their ranks. Thereafter, the axe, the laurel and the cypress were incorporated into the MacLean coat-of-arms where they have remained to this day.Īlthough it was the encroaching and expansionist Campbells who the MacLeans were traditionally wary of, they also clashed with the neighbouring MacDonalds and had a long and bitter dispute over lands on Islay. Eventually he became so exhausted that he lay down to die but hung his axe on the branch of a laurel to mark his last resting place under a cypress bush. One story states that Gillian was hunting deer on Mull when he lost his way in a thick mist. ![]() They claimed descent from Gilleathain na Tuaighe (Gillian of the Battleaxe) who fought ferociously at the battle of Largs when the Scots trounced the invading fleet of the Vikings in 1263. ![]() The MacLeans lived in some of the most spectacularly scenic areas of the rugged West Highlands and were spread along the mainland coastline and over the neighbouring islands.Īs a result, they were expert seamen and their war galleys slicing up sea lochs brought terror to their enemies.
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