154 DAYS OF DEER-STALKING. 



Ben Dairg, or Derig, as it is usually pronounced, the 

 mountain next in consequence to Ben-y-gloe, is 3,550 feet 

 in height. It lies about ten miles north from Blair; its 

 summit is covered with immense blocks of gneiss and 

 granite of a reddish colour, from whence it derives its 

 name of the Red Mountain. This chaos of huge fragments 

 is the favourite haunt of the ptarmigan and white hare, 

 though the perilous den of the fox and wild cat is there 

 also, and the eagle preys around it. 



The south side of this mountain forms a vast crescent, 

 the horns lying west and east. 



I must not omit to mention more particularly another 

 mountain which lies between Glen Mark and Glen Croinie : 

 it is called Cuirn-Marnich ; cuirn is the plural of cairn, and 

 marnich of maronach " the cairns of the Braemar people." 

 These cairns are sixteen in number, and were raised by the 

 Atholl men to commemorate a victory they obtained over 

 the Braemar people, whom they here overtook and slew to 

 the number of sixteen, as they were returning home with 

 plunder from their country. Tradition says little about 

 this foray, which, indeed, was but upon a small scale. It is a 

 boast of the men of Atholl, that they never were beaten by 

 their neighbours in open fight, such having always proved 

 fatal to their adversaries ; so that the only loss they ever 

 suffered was by stealth and stratagem. 



This they are still proud of. Alexander Gon, from Blair, 

 was once in Braemar, when the company he was with began 

 to banter the Atholl men for lack of courage. Up he started 

 on his legs, and striking the table with his clenched knuckles, 

 exclaimed, in the stern spirit of a clansman, " Remember, 

 lads, who have the Cuirn-Marnich." This effectually silenced 

 the banterers. 



Turning from such lawless proceedings, I will now give 

 an account of the last public judicial execution that took 

 place at Blair. 



About the beginning of the sixteenth century, the Earl of 

 Atholl had two foresters named Stewart and Macintosh ; 

 the former resided at Auchgoul, and the latter at Dalnachie, 

 both in Glen Tilt. Macintosh had also a bothy at Coirre- 

 renich on Ben-y-gloe, where he occasionally slept. 



