238 Kintail and Glenelg, ivith Notices of the Brocks. [Sess. 



against a firm belief in the legend ; but we can hardly wonder 

 that a rude illiterate people believed such a tale, when in the 

 present enlightened age there are those who will credit any- 

 thing, however absurd, so long as it is tinged by superstition 

 or surrounded by a halo of the supernatural. 



Adverting to the better known examples in Glenbeg, 

 several miles to the south of Grugaig, and over the border- 

 line of Inverness-shire, let us glance for a moment or two at 

 some of the earlier records of these. The furthest back of 

 any great importance appears to be that of Gordon, who, in his 

 ' Itinerarium Septentrionale,' published in 1727, gives a full 

 description of two, and a casual mention of four. Two of 

 these, even in his time, were almost totally demolished, the 

 third half fallen down, and the fourth was comparatively perfect. 

 Since then the latter have been still further destroyed, and one 

 only lives in tradition, as I failed to find it anywhere, and can 

 discover no description of it in any more modern work than 

 the above. The third and farthest up Glenbeg still exists in a 

 dilapidated condition, but, curiously enough, has been totally 

 ignored by succeeding writers, such as Pennant, Cordiner, 

 Macculloch, and Dr Anderson, although for picturesqueness of 

 site it throws the others completely into the shade. Gordon 

 transmits the local names of these strongholds (or " stupendous 

 fabricks," as he calls them), which are as follows : Caisteal 

 Chalamine or Malcomb's Castle, Caisteal Chonil, Caisteal 

 Tellve, and Caisteal Troddan ; ^ and those designations he 

 learnt from scraps of Gaelic poetry recited to him by an old 

 Highlander, who said they were built by a mother for her four 

 sons. This latter piece of information does not seem to have 

 impressed him either with much faith in its truth or respect for 

 Celtic lore, as he characterises it and the other verses by the 

 epithet of " barbarous Irish rhymes," and in illustration of the 

 latter he appends a Gaelic stanza of which the translation is as 

 follows : — 



" My four sons, a fair clan, 

 1 left on tlie strath of one glen ; 

 My Malconib, my lovely Chonil, 

 My Tellve, my Troddan." 



^ Logan, in his work, ' The Scottish Gael, ' spells the names as follows : 

 'Caiman," "Conal," "Telve," "Troddan." 



